Posted on 04/03/2010 6:16:47 AM PDT by jmaroneps37
Los Angeles mayor Villaraigosas chief of staff made it crystal clear: Unions have priced themselves out of a job.
Americas big cities have come to a grim choice: the union party is over or the city is over. The costs of union pensions and healthcare coverage have officials in cash strapped cities and states confronting their union masters and demanding dramatic benefit cuts from the same unions that hold them on a leash.
Memphis is looking to increase its retired employees healthcare premiums by around 15%. Toledo ripped $3.1 million from its fire fighters union contract. At least 17 states have either cut employee benefits or demanded big concessions from unionized workers.
Costs tell the story
Labor Department figures on the costs per worker hour for public versus private employees make the case about the oppressive costs of unionized government workers. It reports that for December the average government employee cost $39.60 versus just $27.42 for private employees.
When this huge disparity is combined with the Census Bureaus report on sharply declining state and local tax revenues which dropped 18% since Barack Obamas election, the way to solvency is not at all clear.
Water lapping the top of the dam
The number of unionized government workers has finally surpassed that of private sector union workers. This means the number of private workers who pay the taxes to support government employees is shrinking and the number of takers is growing. This can only mean disaster for our country.
California in freefall
It has long been said: what happens in California today will happen across the country tomorrow. If this holds true were in for a depression caused by greedy unions controlling spineless Democrats. Californias Public Employees Retirement System at best is funded just 65% of what it needs to function.
(Excerpt) Read more at collinsreport.net ...
Look at Detroit’s mayor Bing. I just love the repeated slapdowns he’s given the unions.
Refusing to deduct union dues from some city workers paychecks. Firing bus drivers who called an informal strike.
New York is having the same problem:
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/new_york_pension_timebomb_ZMXZXjd4ZEBLgSPjAlfQgJ
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6304CG20100402
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/editorials/unions_won_new_york_loses_awNPCY1wC5RMthwIoNUhNJ
Great good news.
In upstate NY, teachers were for freezing or taking pay cut in order to preserve employment for fellow teachers. Mighty union insists on pay raises.
The result? Bunch of teachers fired.
Insane, unrealistic, bullying thugs!
About damned time!
I guess it's not waiting anymore, the disaster is already here.
>”Dying city and state government”
Duluth, Mn
Its so funny watching them grasp at straws as their failed Socialist agenda keeps leaving them deeper and deeper in debt.
A wonderful quote from their LIBERAL mayor Don Ness right before he was elected.
“We wont be chasing any smokestacks”
So, with over 70% of all jobs in the Duluth area in the Service related industry, after you graduate college, you can count on a great career as a waitress/waiter, hotel maid/maintenance, or maybe you’ll get REALLY lucky and get a job in the food court at the mall.
Bye bye Duluth.
Turn the lights off when you leave.
....in North Carolina, the state Treasurer has warned that the tsunami of coming retired workers will be unsustainable...the enormous growth of govt.employees in the 70s & 80s is now coming home to roost.
I’m glad I’m a federal — not a state or municipal — employee. BIG difference between them. For one thing, my pension and other benefits are safe.
hahahaha
Its all going down and unless you served in the armed forces you dont deserve a pension paid for by stealing money from productive members of society.
“For one thing, my pension and other benefits are safe.”
Only if your pension and benefits are stored in the form of food and bullets.
As I remember the story, the Pope pressed the U.S. government to be patient in its dealings with the Soviet Union -- and to minimize hostilities while at the same time pursuing whatever ongoing arms-reduction treaty was being negotiated at the time.
When the Pope was asked why he -- who had lived in Poland during an era when it had been subject to harsh oversight by the Soviet government -- wouldn't recognize the moral bankruptcy of such a governing system and oppose it at all costs, he said something to this effect:
"Communism is so inherently at odds with God's vision of mankind that it will eventually collapse under its own weight."
Do you seriously believe that?
Is Satan ordering heavy duty winter gear?
One thing most people don’t point out about Union Workers is that their productivity is way below private sector workers.
The whole govt pension scheme is nothing more than theft from the taxpayers. The amount that “civil servants” contribute does not nearly or even remotely cover the payouts these people are getting.
Just another thought, my MIL was the Court Clerk in our county, there is now one judge more than when she and a deputy clerk ran everything with no computers. There are now 10 people to do that same job.
That’s an understatement!
These clock punchers are mostly overpaid, underworked, and are destroying the states’ finances. I live in NY and its unreal the theft of the taxpayer that is occuring at the hands of these greedy pigs.
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