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From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Harry Pollard Sent: Saturday, March 19, 2011 3:30 PM To: 'RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION' Subject: Re: [Futurework] The growing US war against public sector unions: Ed, There is another point of view. Over the years, the public service unions have carried on an unholy alliance with Democratic politicians. They use their enormous receipts extracted compulsorily from members to finance the politicians who decide their wages and conditions. (The major New Jersey union collects $1 million a year from its members.) If the politicians provide robust benefits to the union they get large sums to help their re-election. It's a comfortable arrangement and benefits - for example in Wisconsin - are almost as much as their pay. A favorite ploy is to get a little bill passed that changes 50% contribution each from employee and state to 100% from the state. In California, pensions are so high it is estimated that in a few years the entire tax take from Californians will be spent on pensions. Nothing for potholes! They have simply gone too far. The reason for ending collective bargaining in Wisconsin is obvious. If some changes are made in the too high benefits a couple of years will go by and then the people will be held to ransom again by collective bargaining. If the Democrats are back in charge they are likely to be bought off by the unions and Wisconsin will be back in financial trouble again. I say 'held to ransom'. This, because we rely on government workers to keep our environment working. When a private worker goes on strike, it is between him and the boss. If government workers go on strike, our schools close, our houses burn, we could be mugged, and garbage piles high and unhealthy at the curbs. In the famous case of the air traffic controllers, the threat was to shut down air traffic. All I can remember now of their demands is they wanted the same pay for a controller out in our desert airport with perhaps 2 or 3 planes a day as a controller at LAX dealing with hundreds of planes. If they were trying to get a living wage, one could be sympathetic. But they want much more and threaten closure of essential services to get it. The controllers threatened to stop all air traffic. The average Milwaukee public-school teacher salary is $56,500, but with benefits the total package is $100,005, according to the manager of financial planning for Milwaukee public schools. How can that be? This is how. .Social Security and Medicare. The employer cost is 7.65% of wages, the same as in the private sector. .State Pension. Teachers belong to the Wisconsin state pension plan. That plan requires a 6.8% employer contribution and 6.2% from the employee. However, according to the collective-bargaining agreement in place since 1996, the district pays the employees' share as well, for a total of 13%. .Teachers' Supplemental Pension. In addition to the state pension, Milwaukee public-school teachers receive an additional pension under a 1982 collective-bargaining agreement. The district contributes an additional 4.2% of teacher salaries to cover this second pension. Teachers contribute nothing. .Classified Pension. Most other school employees belong to the city's pension system instead of the state plan. The city plan is less expensive but here, too, according to the collective-bargaining agreement, the district pays the employees' 5.5% share. Overall, for teachers and other employees, the district's contributions for pensions and Social Security total 22.6 cents for each dollar of salary. The corresponding figure for private industry is 13.4 cents. The divergence is greater yet for health insurance: .Health care for current employees. Under the current collective- bargaining agreements, the school district pays the entire premium for medical and vision benefits, and over half the cost of dental coverage. These plans are extremely expensive. This is partly because of Wisconsin's unique arrangement under which the teachers union is the sponsor of the group health-insurance plans. Not surprisingly, benefits are generous. The district's contributions for health insurance of active employees total 38.8% of wages. For private-sector workers nationwide, the average is 10.7%. These excellent benefits are paid for by citizens who in many cases have little or no pensions and no health benefits. The unions appeal to other workers on the grounds that this is an attack on labor. It isn't. It's an attempt to bring some commonsense to the process. The high benefits in Wisconsin don't help labor generally, they are just an additional expense to be recovered in sales taxes and suchlike paid by all labor, As I said, they have simply gone too far. A good wage has been replaced by the gravy train. Harry ****************************** Henry George School of Los Angeles Box 655 Tujunga CA 91042 (818) 352-4141 ****************************** From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Ed Weick Sent: Wednesday, February 23, 2011 3:42 AM To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, EDUCATION Subject: [Futurework] The growing US war against public sector unions: <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/22/AR201102220 5139.html?wpisrc=nl_headline> http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/22/AR2011022205 139.html?wpisrc=nl_headline Ed
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