Latest / The SEANC View / SEANC Convention Live: Excellence in Action!

Transcript

SEANC Convention Live: Excellence in Action! · The SEANC View

• 0:00
  Hello, and welcome to another edition of the Scenic View podcast,
• 0:03
  live from Greensboro, North Carolina, home of the 42nd Annual Scenic Convention.
• 0:09
  Well, we are in Greensboro yet again for another convention.
• 0:16
  People are starting to file in and already tired. Are y'all hanging in there
• 0:21
  or what? Already tired. We are tired.
• 0:24
  I'm sorry. Actually, I take that back. I'm making that up. I'm saying that just to be cool.
• 0:28
  You're already tired? Yeah, I'm just going with the crowd.
• 0:33
  Well, the crowd's already tired.
• 0:37
  We're fired up. I'm sorry I didn't introduce y'all. I'm Jonathan Owens,
• 0:41
  along with Artis Watkins, Suzanne Beasley, and Samantha Klein.
• 0:45
  Yeah, so it's convention week here for Scenic. Do y'all know what number this is for you?
• 0:51
  I think this is number 15 for me, which is, they just kind of pile up.
• 0:56
  Is it your 25th? 25th for me. And then it's my 24th. Oh, wow.
• 1:00
  It's my fifth. Nice. Wow.
• 1:02
  Yeah. Wow. Sammy, I can't believe you've been to that. I know.
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  And even though we are tired already at convention, we still rock.
• 1:09
  Yeah. Oh, yeah. We're going to rock this. It's going to be great.
• 1:12
  Yeah. I was talking to some of the AV guys and I was like, it seems like easier
• 1:16
  this year. And they're like, that's because you've been doing it for 15 years.
• 1:20
  Yeah. You finally know what you're doing. But you do have to be coming in with
• 1:24
  your stamina because it's work hard, play hard every day. Yeah.
• 1:28
  Yeah. And the festivities kick off in earnest tomorrow, 12 o'clock high noon.
• 1:32
  We will have our introduction. We're having a greeting from the Greensboro police
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  chief. So that'll be nice.
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  We'll have a little pomp and circumstance And then Artis will deliver her riveting
• 1:44
  speech And the president will have his report And we've got lots of nominations
• 1:50
  and things to get through tomorrow Friday will be the busy,
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  business session With all the bylaws, amendments, policy platform We've got
• 1:59
  a lot of guests coming Yeah, we have fun,
• 2:02
  segment, I guess after lunch, we have all, I think most of the council of state members.
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  Yeah, council, state, and the cabinet, a lot of them. However,
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  that day happened to fall this year, that day of the convention on September 11th.
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  So, understandably, some folks couldn't work out, you know, to get to Greensboro
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  and to fulfill commitments they have for that day.
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  And some of them are actually coming to- And then scurry. Yeah.
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  And then they've got the Hobart back to some other. Yeah.
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  So we're grateful for that. Yeah. Everybody will be happy to hear from them.
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  We will be honoring the day.
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  Yeah. On the floor. It's a, you know, it's a very patriotic crowd here at the
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  Scenic Convention. And this is the 25th anniversary. Yeah, it is. Yeah. 9-11. Yeah.
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  So, fingers crossed, knock on wood, maybe, I may be able to stream part of that
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  segment on our Facebook page, if I can figure it out.
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  So I'm still working on it. So hopefully we'll make it happen and you guys will
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  get to watch it. Keep checking in.
• 3:07
  So we usually start with some news. This week we've been in Greensboro,
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  so we're kind of in our own little bubble here. But artists did go to the Wake
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  County Commission meeting on Monday night to talk about,
• 3:21
  Did you get to speak? They met, no, they met last night.
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  Sorry, we are recording this on Wednesday. The night. The night. September 9th, yeah.
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  So lots of speakers at the Wake County Board of Commissioners last night to
• 3:36
  hear more comment on the proposed takeover of WakeMed by Atrium Health.
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  If you are just catching this topic on our podcast and you're a state employee or retiree,
• 3:49
  what it would mean for you according to the state health plan if the two merged
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  is that you would spend up to $130 more out of pocket no matter where you live
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  in this state simply because they got together.
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  And the reason for that is Atrium charges a lot more than Wake Med does.
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  So, if the experience of Atrium taking over Wake Forest Baptist and Winston-Salem
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  is any indication, and it seems like a fairly run-of-the-mill indication for consolidation,
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  costs would go up a lot, like probably 30-40 percent. So.
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  That being right out of the gate, right out of the gate before.
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  Yeah. And then, of course, that just snowballs.
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  Now, Wake County Board of Commissioners originally had this on a consent agenda,
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  meaning you don't even talk about it. You just kind of vote and move on. And that was in May.
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  There was a public outcry because
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  they threw it on the consent agenda on a Friday to vote on it on a Monday.
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  Total like outcry from the public.
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  So last month they had comment from about 100 people. I'm not sure how many
• 4:52
  last night, but my goodness, it seemed like it was at least that.
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  And then same thing we noticed last night that happened the previous time Wake
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  County Board of Commissioners took comment, which is the people speaking for,
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  Atrium taking over WakeMed, take a wild guess what they had in common. They work for WakeMed.
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  Money. Right. Yeah. I don't know that, I mean, I was paying really close attention
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  and somebody else was actually documenting this and I'll get confirmation,
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  but it sure looked like not one of them was somebody who's not employed by some entity.
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  And so many of them were from outside of Wake County, which was weird to me
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  because I thought, let the residents speak first, at least.
• 5:39
  Yeah, I saw your tweet about that. Yeah, I was very upset about it,
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  just as far as process goes, because, you know, hey, if you're from Cabarrus
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  or, you know, Mecklenburg or something, you know, welcome to Wake County for
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  the evening. We hope you spend a lot of money.
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  We don't hope you speak ahead of the taxpayers of Wake County.
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  So that was weird, Wake County Board of Commissioners. So do better on that,
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  please. That is weird. But there is a wrinkle to all of this.
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  Governor Stein asked WakeMed to answer questions about the contract because
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  no one's seen this contract, the one that would cost state employees so much more if it happened.
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  Nobody can see the contract. The county commissioners in groups of three so
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  that it wouldn't be subject to the open meetings law have seen it.
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  And the governor said, hey, WakeMed answers some questions for me Well,
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  one of them was about the $2 billion Atrium was supposedly going to pay for taking over WakeMed,
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  So infuse $2 billion into WakeMed so they could grow and do great things.
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  Well, it turns out in the answers, that's not the way it would work.
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  WakeMed would pay first with any money they had or lending in their name.
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  So it could be that Atrium ends up spending not a penny and gets this county-built,
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  hospital on county land.
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  Wow. You know, anyway, but the best take I've seen on that was Matt Mercer from Twitter.
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  He said, talk about breaking records. Atrium didn't even wait for the merger
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  to get done before not following through on their end of the deal.
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  I thought that was a pretty funny take on it. But that's, everyone was kind
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  of shocked because the entire argument in the beginning was we need it for the $2 billion.
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  Yeah. And now the $2 billion isn't even a thing.
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  And over the weekend, the News and Observer had a story on Senator Jim Bergen's,
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  takes on the—he had questions like, why do it?
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  Like, how does this benefit Wake Med? And it seems like more and more people
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  are kind of jumping on the train here.
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  What do you think is going to happen? Do you think they can vote with all of
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  this outcry right now? I mean, here's the deal. Wake County commissioners don't
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  have—there's not a situation electorally.
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  Only one person is opposed this year.
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  So this is kind of a what we do now might be a future problem issue.
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  Usually political pressure is one of the key components of how you make a decision, right?
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  If you think there's going to be that much blowback from your voters,
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  it might make you think again.
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  They don't really have that issue to think about. However, it would be very
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  hard to sit there and listen to all the residents and the people who aren't
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  paid by somebody tell you how they don't want this.
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  And how every argument so far has turned out to be malarkey,
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  you know, about why we should do it and still do it.
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  So I think they kind of need to kick the can until maybe, if I were them,
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  I'd hope people lose interest and then maybe do it then.
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  But we're not going to lose interest. The other groups don't seem anywhere near
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  losing interest. The Patients Union seems to be picking up steam.
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  I know the North Carolina Justice Center is in it to win it.
• 8:57
  I saw Greg Meyer on the Justice Center director. Yeah. That's right.
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  He was on the PBS show this week.
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  Former legislator who's now director of the North Carolina Justice Center,
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  and he was on State Lines. And, you know, it was funny when he had his say about
• 9:14
  how this would be awful for the public.
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  I didn't hear one person on that four-person panel argue the opposite.
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  It was bizarre. It was one of the only times I've seen on that show where everybody
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  was like, oh, that wouldn't be good. it's,
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  So that's where we are. And Bergen was the chair of the health committee.
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  Yeah. I mean, if it's a health issue. Yeah, that's his jam. He's also my senator.
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  So in Sanford, North Carolina.
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  But yeah, so obviously still no decision on that. And one more interesting little
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  tidbit about this. You said only one of the commissioners has opposition as far as the elections go.
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  So we have state employee members of Scenic who, you know, in the past,
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  yeah, and have, you know, been interested in running for public office.
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  And you guys, this is where to start. This is where to start and make some difference,
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  and, you know, get your foot in the water and, you know, maybe end up in the
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  state legislature at some point.
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  And I think that's oftentimes people don't understand that getting involved
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  in your local government is.
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  Your own backyard. Yeah, it's a logical way to end up hopefully running for
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  the legislature one day.
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  But it also, local stuff affects state employees more than we oftentimes realize.
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  So if you're a state employee or about to be a retired state employee and you
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  care about the issues and,
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  you feel like you have a lot to offer, but you don't know if you're ready to
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  deal with the legislature's setup and how they schedule them meeting,
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  although Wake County Board of Commissioners meets a lot.
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  It's a big, huge commitment. I mean, it's a serious job, and I'm thankful for
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  everyone that does their job as an elected official at any level of government.
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  But if you would like to start at the local level, start looking at those seats for the future.
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  Those aren't full-time jobs either, right? So those are— Yeah.
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  Do you think a legislator makes more than a county commissioner?
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  That's a good question. I actually don't know what the Wake County Board of
• 11:16
  Commissioners— I know what any elected official makes is nowhere near what they should.
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  And I say that, and that's going to make some people listening to this mad.
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  They don't need to get rich, you know.
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  Look, they need to be paid enough that we don't have only rich people wanting to do it. Yeah.
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  And I think that's a big misconception. People don't understand that,
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  first of all, North Carolina has a part-time citizen legislature.
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  That's how it's set up. Well, first of all, they're never part-time anymore.
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  Second of all, they get paid $13,000 and some change for serving in the legislature.
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  And, you know, it's not what you think it is, but it also means that people
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  who have money are the only people who can really take the time to serve the
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  way it goes now. There's no part time to it anymore. So, anyway.
• 12:07
  Was there anything else we should touch on? Did you want to talk about?
• 12:11
  I mean, just stay tuned on the atrium wake bed issue. I know it'll be coming back.
• 12:19
  But in the meantime, if you are a state employee, because this does affect you,
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  look at our website and our Facebook at Scenic.
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  And we have easy ways for you to reach out to the commissioners,
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  not just your committee. If you don't live in Wake County, you can still contact them.
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  Yeah, because, again, this affects all of you across the state,
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  not just Wake County state employees and retirees or state employees. So, okay. Yeah.
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  But another thing that happened this week on Monday, which was Labor Day,
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  a reporter from CBS 17 contacted me asking if we had any comment on this story from Oxfam, which is a,
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  consortium of nonprofits, from what I understand,
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  that said North Carolina ranked dead last out of all 50 states, D.C.
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  And Puerto Rico for the best states to work.
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  And I thought it was kind of interesting because that's kind of the opposite
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  of the best place to do business.
• 13:18
  Oh, a big difference, yeah. So it's kind of funny that, you know,
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  I guess that goes hand in hand though, right?
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  So North Carolina is overall ranked 52, wage policies number 51,
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  worker protections number 52,
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  right to organize number 47, and our minimum wage is $7.25, which is 19% of the cost of living.
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  I think it's past time to raise the minimum wage. Thankfully,
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  the state did raise the minimum wage for state employees.
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  What are your takes on that? I mean, I don't think there's a lot of surprising there.
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  I was surprised at how low we were on the rankings because all of the South
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  is pretty much in the same boat on those things.
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  You have to be, things have to be pretty dire to be the worst in that group of states.
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  However, that is not surprising. Number one, these two things go hand in hand.
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  We're most expensive for anybody to get any health care.
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  And health care is one of the biggest industries in North Carolina.
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  If we're most expensive in that, it's not going to be, you know,
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  a great place for workers. Because not only does it mean workers have to spend
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  more of their wages to go get health care when they need it.
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  Healthcare costs are what is eating up money of employers that they could give to wages.
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  So, I mean, Scenic's an employer and healthcare costs a tremendous amount and
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  we could pay more to our workers and that's what we'd rather do than hand it over to healthcare,
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  private equity companies and other people owning healthcare and jacking up the
• 15:01
  prices through the roof.
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  So to me, it makes sense that that coupled with, like you said,
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  a seven and a quarter minimum wage per hour.
• 15:10
  That's just it's 2026. How long is the minimum wage been 725?
• 15:16
  Since 2007, I think, or 2006, maybe. That's nuts. Yeah, that is absolute.
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  Before then, it was since 1989. So it's been like.
• 15:27
  That's just unhinged nuts. Yeah.
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  And I think the argument is that, well, not many people work at the minimum
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  wage now, and that's kind of taking care of itself. But I don't think that's true, you know.
• 15:38
  Okay. Well, it gives employers, though, an out of not having to pay.
• 15:44
  Yeah. In a livable wage. Well, and we're probably paying the health care for
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  their workers, by the way.
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  The ones that are paying a seven and a quarter. Yeah, that's the thing.
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  Probably working them 30 hours a week, and we're paying their health care.
• 15:55
  And we're subsidizing their health care. Yep. Yeah. So, no, thank you.
• 15:59
  However, I do want to say another thing I saw on Twitter from the John Locke
• 16:04
  Foundation. It was a retweet where somebody I've never heard of took some Bureau
• 16:10
  of Labor Statistics numbers and said—,
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  public employees make more than private sector. Okay, first of all.
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  You're taking every seven and a quarter an hour person,
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  whether it's a high school kid, you know, at the Baskin Robbins or what,
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  and comparing them to people fighting forest fires and all the other jobs we
• 16:30
  have in the state and to Bill Belichick. Come on, not fair.
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  So that's so sad, though.
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  If that's the case, How sad is that as a commentary on how workers are treated
• 16:43
  in North Carolina? Yeah. Good point.
• 16:46
  Wasn't there some information about? Oh, in Wake County.
• 16:49
  Yeah. I mean, one of the things about going to these Wake County Board of Commissioners
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  meetings at the last one last month,
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  they gave the average Wake County salary in a presentation on something else
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  unrelated to Atrium and Wake Med.
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  But it was about $20,000 more a year than the average state employee salary.
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  And so many state employees are in Wake County. So we know darn well state employees,
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  are not doing better than the private sector.
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  But for goodness sakes, the private sector is pretty abused, too, at the low end.
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  And just another tidbit on the health care issue in North Carolina.
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  The finance website WalletHub dug deep into the best and worst health care in the United States.
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  North Carolina was 38th on the list. Right. So we pay the most money to be the
• 17:46
  38th. Despite having the most expensive. So you don't get what you pay for in
• 17:50
  North Carolina, right? Clearly.
• 17:52
  So North Carolina ranked 33rd in cost, 45th in access, and 35th in outcome.
• 18:00
  I'm not sure. And we're still thankful that at the time Senator Berger and Speaker
• 18:06
  Moore, Tim Moore was Speaker of the House at the time, the state minimum wage was moved to $15 an hour.
• 18:14
  We're very thankful that we were able to work with them and get that done for,
• 18:19
  state workers. Yeah. It took a few more years for us to get it for all state
• 18:23
  workers. But, you know, most state workers got it under Burger and Moore.
• 18:28
  And that was a big step.
• 18:30
  And it frankly did start to move the needle in places that had a state facility
• 18:36
  near them. We heard that a lot of fast food restaurants near a prison.
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  All of a sudden started, you know, stepping up their game.
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  Problem is, eventually they outpaced us. So they started paying more than the
• 18:50
  state and giving benefits. So...
• 18:53
  I know that was also an issue with like CNAs. Some private employers were having
• 18:58
  trouble competing, which is fine.
• 19:00
  Right. But if you want a robust economy, it seems like a lot of these groups
• 19:06
  that are pro-business would want a really robust economy because that's when
• 19:10
  people utilize businesses.
• 19:14
  That means you want everybody's wages to go up. That's right.
• 19:18
  I don't know. Well, let's get to the question of the week and then we'll get
• 19:21
  out of here. and we've still got lots of work ahead of us.
• 19:24
  So a question of the week, let's just do a simple one. What's your take?
• 19:27
  My favorite question of the week because it's, I love the Subway Takes show.
• 19:32
  I wanted to do that here at convention.
• 19:34
  I was thinking about setting up a little booth that was like,
• 19:36
  what's your take and get record people's takes. I can run around and do that.
• 19:40
  Yeah, that would be cool. But what's your take, Sammy? I know you have one.
• 19:45
  I've been seeing it a lot on TikTok and I see it in real life driving to the
• 19:49
  office and I see it in real life.
• 19:50
  In Raleigh, I see it all the time. Get off your phone while you're driving.
• 19:57
  I have almost been wrecked into so many times by people playing on their phone.
• 20:03
  Matter of fact, bring back those commercials that say if you text and drive,
• 20:07
  if you're on your phone and drive, you will get pulled over or a ticket or die. Please.
• 20:14
  Yeah. So my wife gets on to me a lot for doing that. Talk to text, y'all. Talk to text.
• 20:22
  What's your take? Convention food Oh Not the greatest, huh?
• 20:28
  You know, I'm grateful that we get fed And, you know, it could be worse,
• 20:32
  obviously But I think people think about convention food,
• 20:35
  Being fancy Or, you know, something out of the ordinary That you don't get And
• 20:39
  maybe it is for some folks But as a whole Yeah It's hard to be unique And,
• 20:46
  have a, you know A lot of taste when you're creating 80,000 of them.
• 20:52
  Yeah, true. It's expensive. Yeah.
• 20:55
  From what I understand, it is. Yeah. You have a take, artists? Just flock cameras.
• 21:01
  There's a reason that 50 cities and counties have deactivated those things recently.
• 21:06
  They are, that whole idea is just. Invasive. Yeah.
• 21:12
  It's not American. I saw something about that with the CEO saying,
• 21:17
  well, Americans are just going to have to accept that their privacy is going
• 21:21
  to be invaded a little bit.
• 21:23
  And then someone doxed his home address.
• 21:26
  He said, okay, how do you feel? This is like... Yeah. So coming back to 9-11, this started...
• 21:33
  I mean, it didn't start, but it, you know, the Patriot Act and everything. Kind of did, yeah.
• 21:39
  Like, it's just been a snowball since then. We've just little and little...
• 21:44
  But you can't put a sticker on your car saying, you know...
• 21:47
  Don't tread on me or come and take it and then go ahead.
• 21:51
  And then tread on me. Flock camera me and maybe get my identity wrong and everything
• 21:54
  else. I mean, these things are not making sense. That's where I'm.
• 22:00
  Okay, so that's my biggest issue with flock cameras is logically.
• 22:04
  Yeah. They don't comport with the values we espouse as a country.
• 22:08
  Yeah. Boom. I think that there are uses for it with, you know,
• 22:11
  there was like a robbery the other day that they caught with the.
• 22:15
  Right. Okay, so the one in 50 million people get caught that way.
• 22:24
  My biggest issue with it is that there have been instances where they've gotten it wrong.
• 22:30
  They've gotten the person wrong. And I already have the biggest fear of,
• 22:34
  like, getting convicted of a crime that I didn't commit. Not one or two times.
• 22:39
  Exactly. There's been several cases where they've gotten it wrong.
• 22:42
  Thrown people to the ground.
• 22:44
  That is one of my biggest fears, is getting convicted of a crime that I didn't do.
• 22:50
  Right. And with AI, videos and things, they could make a video of you doing
• 22:55
  something, and it might not even be real, right? Exactly.
• 22:59
  So my hot take is, thank God football's back. I got something to do for the
• 23:04
  next 16 weeks, at least. 17, I think.
• 23:07
  And also, I'm being summoned, so I got to get back to work.
• 23:10
  Thanks, everyone, for joining us this week. Pay attention to our Facebook and
• 23:14
  our social media accounts over the weekend, and you may see some live streams,
• 23:19
  some videos, and have a great convention. Everyone have a great week.