Posted on 08/11/2010 2:57:27 PM PDT by NoLibZone
You could drop your wallet on the workroom floor and it will be there when you come back days later (unless a management team has rescued it and put in safe quarters).
It's kind of like Saudi Arabia except without the anesthetic when they cut off your hand.
There's a thin layer of government analysts on top of it all who are paid much more than your bargaining unit people ~ but it's not enough to tip the average salaries much one way or the other.
Some agencies have TENS OF THOUSANDS of lawyers. USPS has had anywhere from 167 to maybe 250 lawyers over the years. The USPS also does not pay an area differential like the rest of the fed.
Your typical private sector operator like 7-11 or JCPenney runs a shrink list, and they only get concerned with employee theft rates when profits drop. They pay their workers much less than USPS as a consequence.
Manufacturing companies tend to have high hourly costs, but much of it is legacy for union contracts that soured. When their retirement systems go belly up they are transferred to a government agency. I'm just guessing that the government employees who end up running those private sector plans get paid less than their private sector counterparts who ran those systems in the ground (probably by skimming scams).
To a great degree it is not that easy to find a one to one comparison between a federal government job and a private sector job. For instance there are fellows at Department of Energy headquarters (next to USPS headquarters interestingly enough) who actually do have the knowledge of how to build working atom bombs. Now you just don't find that sort of employee everywhere do you!
That may be true.
“The average federal salary has grown 33% faster than inflation since 2000.”
The point being is that they have a never ending supply of money unlike the private sector. They also almost never get fired. I know I worked in personnel at a school district. Never was a certificated employee fired.
“You’ve certainly sent out a number of interesting challenges. I’ll be watching...”
You and I will be waiting a long time.
No federal worker wants anyone to know what they get. It is a matter of public record, but you can’t really decipher it unless you are a Fed and spend half your week figuring out what you’re going to get paid.
Here’s a secret: early in my career after 4 years in the military I was a Fed - I saw this, I saw the injustice of it all and I wanted to actually work for a living - So I quit and got a real job.
I believe a very high percentage of them will vote for whatever candidates will preserve their padded perks and put what is right to play second fiddle.
I disagree with one of your posts - I don’t think they’ll run when we make them account for what they do (at least not right away) I think many will take arms against the citizenry at the governments behest. They don’t care who pays them - as long as they get paid. They don’t care how much a taxpayer has to work or what a taxpayer must sacrifice - as long as they get paid.
It’s a small step to direct oppression - because otherwise they won’t get paid.
Yeah, I’m poking a little fun, I admit. But I never in a million years thought I’d get a Fed to admit he’d shoot anyone who dared touch his benefits. They do not have a grasp of reality, or the trouble this country is in.
“BTW, federal retirees simply get bumped into Medicare just like you will. On the other hand they get to pay FAR MORE FOR IT.
Whatta’benefit eh!”
I think you should shoot someone over this. Remember, you don’t tolerate someone stealing from you - and even if it’s not true, you should be outraged that you are lumped in with regular taxpayers.
Don’t they realize all you “paid into the system”? Don’t they have respect for all your accomplishments? Somebody should pay.
Lock and load, my friend. Make them pay.
Postal workers get fired all the time ~ when they steal. Then they become school teachers I suppose.
No, that wasn’t the standard. There were such people, but they were a distinct minority. I suppose they thought they were “special” when they came in but postal headquarters is a bear of a place and readily consumes those who didn’t start young and claw their way up.
Oh, BTW, USPS has no locality pay differential. An EAS 25 makes the same in DC or Louisville.
Another small but real way that the Fed bennies hurt. they get $230 / month in transit benefits. In a lot of cases the money is extra so gets used as a slush fund (has to be spent on a “van pool” or metro smartpass but can be laundered into real money). But for those of us with longer commutes, the monthly fare starts at (you guessed it) $230. Because obviously the Fed subsidy sets the floor price. Next month we will pay $350/month for the bus (in my case minus $110 transit benefit from my employer). But many people get no transit benefit at all and will have to pay $350 / month out of pocket. Fed employess will pay $120 out of pocket and many will complain about that.
Just about all blue-collar work in the government is contractors — has been since Reagan trimmed the fat.
Nope; the numbers are all lumped together to produce junk statistics (the reason I noted above is just the most obvious problem).
President of the United States is the obvious parallel to corporate CEO. That isn't included (since including the President's extremely low, by comparison, salary would give the "wrong" answer for the survey's purpose).
Well, duh -- that's why CEOs were left out of this survey, to help cook the books and get the "right" answer.
My guess is that if you follow the money, it will trace back to the people who have been shipping good American jobs overseas and are now attempting to fix the middle class' anger onto somebody -- anybody -- else.
It's a bit difficult to sort through the raw data, but the stats also seem to exclude upper management generally (the government equivalents to whom would be department heads or military general officers, who generally make about an order of magnitude less than corporate upper managers).
Setting aside the bogosity of this "study", there is a genuine problem with the way the federal civil service is structured. It has a "one size fits all" system that grossly overpays some jobs and grossly underpays others (most notably, civil service pay scales are simply not competitive for jobs that require legal or scientific expertise).
One reason the stereotype of the overpaid government drone lingers is that the ones who are most likely to come into direct contact with the general public tend to fall into the former category.
The Federal Employees Retirement System (FERS) is the current retirement system for employees within the U.S. federal civilian employees. FERS was enacted on June 6, 1986 to replace the Civil Service Retirement System (CSRS) and to conform Federal retirement plans in line with those in the private sector....Federal government retirement for the past generation has been essentially identical to retirement arrangements at most large private corporations.FERS consists of three major components:
* The FERS annuity, a defined benefit plan,
* Mandatory participation in Social Security
* The Thrift Savings Plan (TSP), a defined contribution plan which operates like a 401(k).
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.