It's bad enough that dairyland dictator Scott Walker prevailed in his recall election in Wisconsin. Now comes news that voters in San Diego and San Jose have approved legislation to cut pensions of city employees--and not just benefits for future hires, either, but for those currently employed as well.
Being a public employee myself, I am not unbiased, but I would like to reiterate my disgust at these maneuvers. I understand states and municipalities are struggling to make ends meet. I understand public-sector workers should share in the burdens imposed by fiscal exigency. But allowing the general public to override collective bargaining agreements calls into question the rule of law--contract law, at any rate.
People have some misguided notion that city and state employees are generally lazy or incompetent or parasitic. No doubt some are--just as some employees in any industry are. The vast majority, though, are not. Many voters probably see public-sector employees as disposable bureaucrats whose jobs add nothing to the public weal. In contrast, "public employee" should conjure images of policemen, firefighters, and, yes, teachers: highly trained, highly motivated people, who willingly choose careers that do not make them rich--and often put them in physical danger--out of a sense of public duty.
Sure, one reason people choose these careers is the comparatively generous (when compared to the private sector, anyway) guaranteed pensions. And I understand these pensions can seem "unfair" to a voter who has seen his or her own retirement savings vaporized by greedy corporate raiders. The solution, though, is not to punish people who chose less lucrative career paths in large part because of the guaranteed (though hardly lavish) pensions; the solution is to claw back money from feckless robber barons who have done quite well, thank you very much, amidst the general misery.
Unions are not the enemy, people! And unless you all want to be working for the Koch Brothers and their ilk, you should realize that unions--shrinking and endangered as they are--are about your only useful ally.
To be blunt, as I often am, the Mafia has their hands in union pension funds. That aside, unions have little place in government jobs. When a government union strikes it holds the taxpayers and the cities hostage, the little guy, not the greedy corporations. Many jobs are not quite so noble as firefighting police work, and teaching, and in those jobs, employees go home at 5 pm. In the private sector, many a manager puts in extra uncompensated hours. The private sector IS a tougher gig, and the private sector lost its pensions in the 1990s as the pensions were converted to 401ks. Who pays the salaries of the government workers? The little guy does. The private sector worker with few tax deductions pays a chunk of his income to government. The cities and states ARE broke. To raise taxes to continue to pay for govt pensions of employees who retire after 30 years at age 52 and collect retirement benefits for 40 more years until they die is grossly unfair to the taxpayer who works in the private sector, working harder, longer, and for less benefits. Such taxpayers may need their money to buy food instead of forking their cash over to govt in increased taxes. So, govt union people, suck it up.
ReplyDelete