who took public sector jobs traded the big bucks for a little security and less drama. Why should they be punished for making good decisions?

And there is so little time.

Look, they want to destroy the middle class and to give everything to the top 1%. Can there be any doubt of this?

People used to work for government as a last resort.

The fact that government pays better is only because the private corporations havent kept pace with the cost of living all these years.

I am not sure folk worked for the government as a last resort .... but I do know they worked for the benefits (including job security) vs the salary/ wage

But people didn't always work for the government as a last resort. My dad worked for the government for over 35 years pretty much because of the benefits/pension. He could provide us with a comfortable (albeit tight financially at times) life and provide for his own retirement so he and mom wouldn't "be a burden." He could have made a boatload of money if he took his considerable talent and ability into the private sector, and I know he turned down more than one offer, but the job/life security was everything. In fact, after he retired, he went into the private sector as a mentor and was amazed at what he was getting paid.

and then being amazed at their salaries. They were really excellent to my (poverty stricken) eyes.

I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder but honestly, I've never seen a govt job as some kind of poverty gig.

unions by using a STOOOOOPID 'comparison', because 'private sector employees' includes drop-outs, while 'public employees' more than likely are college graduates."

K&R!

http://www.platteinstitute.org/

They wanted to "clamp down" on public worker unions in Nebraska two years ago. The draft provided for comparisons of public vs private pay scales in contract disputes. Then they figured out that many PRIVATE jobs do pay better. So they had to strip that language out. The reason was that this would have meant revealing private sector wages that should be considered company secrets or proprietary info. Ya right.

This public worker knows more informed workers would organize their workplace once workers realize Faux has an anti-union agenda not in their best interest!

OS

Where the fuck are public employees paid well? I make less than 2/3's of what the private sector pays for my skillset.

Public employees do not, as a rule, make more money. The premise is entirely false because you are comparing two different things. I know it's the Huff Po, but a recent BLS study showed public workers make 25% LESS. If you Google "Public employees make more money" almost all of the articles come from the Heritage Foundation, Fox News and other right-wing sources, yet the public has bought this story hook, line and sinker. Even Daily Kos has bought into the idea that public employees make more.


http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/11/07/government-employees-23-percent-less-private-sector_n_1080108.html

The Economic Policy Institute says this isn't true. It's a PDF article here:

http://www.epi.org/publication/debunking_the_myth_of_the_overcompensated_public_employee/



So, please, stop buying into the myth.

An old Russian joke tells the story of a peasant with one cow who hates his neighbor because he has two. A sorcerer offers to grant the envious farmer a single wish. “Kill one of my neighbor’s cows!” he demands.

Seems fairly analogous to the current conservative attitude towards public sector employees.

private sector employees is a fallacy. I work for a state agency and every year or so the state conducts a market study to compare compensation in each job class to comparable jobs in the private sector. The study consistently shows that we are paid significantly less then the private sector, to the point that they have problems keeping employees in certain job classifications.

The 2011 report showed the average salary to be 19.17% below market. In the particular level of the job classification that I work in, I a am paid 12.72% below market. Believe me, public employees are not getting wealthy doing their job.

I know several attorneys -- one who left the law firm where I work -- who make thousands of dollars less working for the Colorado Attorney's Office or those who are public defenders or those who work for the City of Denver. Their benefits may be better (but PERA is in trouble now), but they don't have the salaries private lawyers have.

At my agency, IT employees make significantly less. Our tradespeople (boilermakers, electricians, carpenters, shoregang) make significantly less. Our engineers (licensed & unlicensed) make less. The Operations group I recently left makes 47% less than other local public employees-- way behind private. It's shocking and our retention is dropping precipitously.

Otherwise, I completely agree.

years ago. One of the biggest reasons for this is the annual increase in health care costs. Most employers have capped what they will pay towards a health plan and are now passing the (considerable) annual increase onto the worker.

My wife got a 2% salary increase this year, but the health plan went up $200/month. Net result? She is poorer than last year.

pretty whacked out.

I don't understand some folks at all. No consideration of lifting one's self and/or creating conditions that improve your lot and straight to ripping the neighbor to shreds. Over bullshit as well.

Maybe...just maybe, the teacher down the way may make more than you but they have a masters, ten years experience, and work at least two hours a day uncompensated. Meanwhile, you graduated high school and got a lawn service started. You work hard but in reality, in good years you make more than the teacher and may have as much time off.

In fact, a few years back (you've forgotten now) that you used to laugh your ass off at the teacher having to go to and deal with your kids all day under all that school debt and all that school for less than you did on the mower.

How are simple fuckers deaf to the back message here? The intent is to crash wages, public sector has usually set the floor or at least a baseline for wages at about any particular job level.

Those on this bandwagon (for the most part, the drivers ca$h out) are cheerleading to cut their own earning power and potential.

Gov. Quinn in said that the Illinois tax payers don't have a pension like state employees so why should the state employees have those pensions. He is actively trying to cut the pensions of state employees and raise the retirement age.

My late aunt was a senior bureaucrat at a California state agency that was in a perpetual state of dysfunction because of inadequate staffing. They had to go to Texas and the deep south to recruit. Their only hook was the old school pension, but that isn't much of an incentive to a twenty-four year old with eighty grand in student loans. When she retired they were losing junior staff to go work in the mortgage boiler room operations.

Entry level positions in her agency paid $36,000 to $42,000. Similar private sector positions started at $50 and up.

When she retired there were more than 150 unfilled positions state-wide, they just couldn't compete and couldn't negotiate. All they could do was troll state agencies in the deep south and hope they got a few years out of a hire before they moved on in California.

purposes. Pay no attention to the billionaires behind the curtain...

Except, you know, anyone they actually have to pay.

From proactive and never ending wars to taking away benefits, they are always about the negative.

As they see it, people should be paying their employers to allow them to come to work.