If we manage to escape the economic catastrophe that is ObamaCare, we may breathe a little easier, but watch the horizon for a storm is brewing that makes the health care monstrosity look like pin money.
Unions have long been in decline in private industry, but recently for the first time union membership in the public sector surpassed that in the private sector, and it is still growing. We all know the stories about municipal workers working for 20 or 30 years, then retiring at 50% to 90% of their last year’s pay which is often inflated with heavy overtime, and then they go out and get another job where they work until retirement and a cushy life of a public pension, a handsome private 401k, and Social Security.
It used to be that it was a trade off that government workers (teachers, cops, firefighters, sanitation workers, clerical) got great benefits because they were paid poorly when compared to the private sector. However that is no longer the case as reported in USA Today:
USA Today reported that nearly one in five federal government employees now earn over $100,000. The paper also reported the average federal salary rose to $71,260, almost $31,000 more than the comparative average private-sector wage.
If that doesn’t get the hair on the back of your neck to stand up as, after all you are who pays for these salaries and benefits, then perhaps this will from National Review’s March 8, 2010 issue:
The highest-paid municipal employee in Madison, Wis., is bus driver John E. Nelson, whose salary last year totaled more than $159,000. Half a dozen of his fellow drivers also earned in six figures. How is this possible? The Wisconsin State Journal explains:“A high base salary and other benefits for drivers were largely set in the 1970s and 1980s, when the city took over the bus company.” Combine that with generous, federally mandated leave provisions that make for lots of overtime, and it’s not unusual for a bus driver to out-earn the mayor (and with much better job security). In the 1950s, Ralph Kramden of The Honeymooners was paid $62 a week by the skinflints at the Gotham Bus Company; he was constantly hatching schemes to strike it rich so he could quit. Today Kramden’s dreams of avarice would have been a lot simpler: get a government job and join a union. — The Week, “National Review,” March 8 , 2010
$159,000 for driving a bus. Imagine. I wonder what the private bus company was paying their drivers before the city took them over? I am sure, like ObamaCare, the takeover was a cost savings measure. After all, those greedy private companies are out to make a profit.
Who was the most frequent visitor to the White House at the time the White House released its visitor logs? It was Andy Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union (government workers), which should tell you where this is going. Remember, as well, that when the federal government took over GM and Chrysler they gave huge percentages of those companies to the unions. So when it comes time to negotiate the next contracts the union will sit on both sides of the bargaining table, as management and labor. How will that turn out? It will be one of two ways, either the union will have an epiphany and realize that profits are important to staying employed, or the unions will pick the bones of GM and Chrysler clean, driving them out of business and leaving you and me, brother, holding the bag.
The Ticking Pension Bomb
The killer, however, is unfunded pension liabilities. All those pensions that we will be paying for with retirees being retired for longer than they worked in many cases, will be like nothing we have imagined before from a fiscal crisis standpoint. In private industry as businesses learned to appreciate the value of their human assets, they treated them accordingly and the unions withered. However in the public sector we have elected officials writing laws, e.g., Davis Bacon, that heavily favor or require union labor. Unions in turn, pour millions into making sure those same politicians get re-elected. Who is looking out for you and me? As the ultimate employers of government employees, how about a law that union contracts must be ratified by the public at the ballot box? Too cumbersome? Okay, how about a law that government employees cannot receive salaries and benefits that exceed what the average private employee (the public employees’ bosses) receives in that geographical area?
Tea Party Members, are you listening?
It is clear from the present administration that the statists believe that it is their destiny to rule, not govern, over the masses who they believe are their intellectual inferiors. Keep piling it on, but don’t worry we can always tax the rich to pay for it. But as you board that bus in Madison Wisconsin, ask yourself if Mr. Nelson behind the wheel, is the rich guy picking up the tab or is it you? Watch out folks, if we don’t do something soon, the rich won’t be rich enough to pay for it even if we tax them at 100% and there is no law to stop them from taking their wealth and moving somewhere else where taxes are lower. And at this rate there are a lot of places in the world where the taxes are lower.
