Posted on 03/11/2013 4:38:05 AM PDT by IbJensen
The Washington Post has a sympathetic article today on federal workers who consider themselves unfair victims of the sequester. Unfortunately, the article does not consider data and evidence, instead characterizing criticism of federal worker compensation as mere assertion, jealous emotionalism, or politicking.
Federal employees are upset about “perceptions” of government work, according to the people interviewed for the story. They have to defend themselves from “arguments” about excessive compensation and short working hours. They are “the target of popular rage” because the private sector is “frustrated, even jealous.” There is a “drumbeat” of negativity, “ritual denunciation,” and “bashing” of federal workers.
These sentiments supposedly come from “talk radio and websites devoted to bashing the government.” They’re driven by “a small minority of vociferous people.”
A reality check is needed here. Numerous independent analyses—including from The Heritage Foundation, the American Enterprise Institute, and the Congressional Budget Office—find that compensation for federal employees is higher than for comparable private-sector workers. The Government Accountability Office recently summarized the results of these studies:
As these studies indicate, overcompensation of federal workers is a widely acknowledged fact, not a mere “perception” generated from a dark corner of the Internet. And far from “bashing” federal workers, these studies are calling attention to a serious fiscal problem—the overcharging of taxpayers for federal personnel costs. Should we just ignore this problem because some federal employees are offended?
As for the question of being “underworked,” there is strong evidence that federal employees do work less, on average, than private-sector employees—about one month less per year, in fact.
It’s fine for the media to get federal employees’ reactions to sequestration, but hard data and evidence should accompany the stories.
well whether you realized it or not, you were a government employee while you were in the service and you were on the gravy train
Thanks to the unions, it is nearly impossible to get rid of poor quality workers. They are entrenched for life, if they choose.
As a retired Army Ranger with multiple combat tours, I did not have 8 hour days nor did I push paper for a greatly exagerrated wage, if anything, our salaries and benefits bring down the averages given out by the GAO and CBO - To say that I was on any kind of “gravy train” and compare me to a bureaucrat is offensive
Take the private security guard example versus the TSA rent-a-cops.
Private security guards at our plants have to watch a whole battery of security monitors and be off in a flash to check out anything which looks even remotely suspicious in all kinds of weather. They make about $12 per hour and a provided with a fairly generic uniform. Their benefits are minimal.
His TSA counterparts start at $18 per hour and get a full range of government benefits including (starting this year) another $1000 allowance for spiffy new uniforms which went into effect just before the March 1 sequester started.
Agreed. Entirely different animals. There are a relative handful of jobs in the military (think of the paper pushers in the Pentagon) which even compare with the massive bureaucracy prevalent elsewhere. And a good share of those actually got their Pentagon jobs as a reward for meritorious service in the field.
Go to the Pentagon and you will find a lot of cubes occupied by people who lost limbs in combat. Go to Foggy Bottom (the State Department) and you'll find almost none. Their credentials are overwhelming the right libtard university degrees, the right ethnicity and the right political views. I've done business with both in a previous life (as a contractor) and can tell you that from firsthand observation, not here-say.
I know what you are saying is true, however I was an officer in the head shed and you should have seen that place empty out at 4:30...............
Go to usajobs.com and you can get an idea by looking at the current job openings for different engineering disciplines. The job announcement will have the gov. org. hiring, pay et al.
Here’s a link that’ll give you a taste of it:
https://www.usajobs.gov/JobSearch/Search/GetAdvancedResults
Example: Industrial Engineer with DOD in Philadelphia working for the Defense Contract Mgmt. Agency, Pay range $ 87,292 to $ 113,478
Civil Engineer with the Coast Guard in Juneau, Alaska Pay Range $ 62,703 to $ 97.701
Chemical Engineer with the FDA in Rockville, MD. Pay range $ 89,033 to $ 115,742
Interdiscplinary Engineer with the DoD Defense Contract Management Agency in El Segundo, Ca. Pay range $ 91,141 to $ 118,481
Nuclear Engineer with the DOE in Germantown, MD Pay range $123,578 to $ 155,500
Mechanical Engineer with the Air Force material Comman in Utah Pay range $ 35,567 to $ 89,450
Interdisciplinary Engineer with the DoD Defense Contract Management Agency in Oklahoma City Pay range $ 86,489 to $ 112,432
Supervisory Civil Engineer with Air Force national Guard in Mansfield, Ohio Pay range $ 81,823 to $ 111,148
Industrial Engineer U.S. Army Acquisition Support Center in Warren, Mich. Pay range $74,794 to $ 115,621
You are a funny guy.
Familiar with the site. Can’t pull the trigger yet, I’m just not ready to retire. ;-)
Plus TSA seems to be affirmative action central hiring hall. 90% of the personnel in the big city airport seem to be black, Hispanic or Muslim....and 99% of them are Obama voters who will be ever grateful for their Federale jobs and vote accordingly
In our zero sum economy the central Obama racket is to fund his people, his voters, his green energy scammers, Department of Education grants etc etc make sure they get Federale money in their hands in a hundred different ways which means the economic universe of money for conservatives and traditional Americans automatically shrinks due to our zero sum static (maybe shrinking) economy
Meanwhile the Obamas/Democrats are pro-actively defunding conservatives and traditional Americans. Such as defunding Catholic social welfare organizations if they don't comply with 0-Care. Or 0-Care leading to a lot fewer private sector mediucal insurance jobs while the Federale jobs to administer and enforce (IRS) 0-Care will explode...all hiring done via affirmative action guidelines of course and my guiess id 90% will be in the DC region which is always sucking wealth out of the far flung provinces, all states actually except for Virginia and Maryland where 99.99% of Federale drones reside. Also Washington DC proper where there is so much Federale connected $$$ flowing in (salaries etc, lobbyists money) the white population (of Federale drones who tilt gay by the way) is increasing and gentrifying blacks out of DC. Very very few cities have a white population that is increasing with a black+minority population decreasing. Parts of Brooklyn and Manhattan are like this
It took a while for me to realize they weren't talking about teaching 10 classes of 3 hours each per week. They meant that I had to be on campus or working from home for 30 hours each week. My teaching schedule would be 16 hours per week (four classes of four hours each).
And I would only have to do that for the 34 weeks per year that faculty is required to be on campus. All for a starting salary of $48,800.
Oh, and the school is suggesting to each of its instructors that we contact our state legislature to increase funding for the community colleges because they can't make it on the current funding.
The “right” to keeping a Federal job comes from a desire to have a professional career civil service and bureaucracy that is insulated from partisan influence (or threats).
That’s a good thing, in principle anyways.
The problem with Federal employment isn’t that Govies are paid too much, or too little. It’s that they aren’t really paid (or promoted) based on performance and merit. Step and in some cases grade increases are automatic.
What’s needed isnt an across the board pay freeze/cut ... OR increases. What’s needed is a major overhaul of the compensation system so govies are really paid for the work the do and what they accomplish. I’ve seen plenty of govie slugs who are performing well below their grade. I’ve also seen a lot of govies who are paid much less than what they are actually providing.
Our 3 sons did 5 tours Iraq tours with the USMC. The oldest lost an arm and a leg on 11/8/2004 at Fallujah. The other two spent time at Ramadi, also cleaned up a helicopter crash site (31 Marines & Corpsmen killed) at Ar Rutbah.
Mortar rounds were constant during their time there. No showers, no running water, no hot food for many months. Pretty much a gravy train, right?
Bump
Plus, to fire a civilian employee is nearly impossible. First, You have to counsel them on what their failure is. Then you have to give them like 6 months to improve. If they still have not improved, you have to counsel them again and again give them an amount of time to improve. By the time you go through all these steps, you are probably, as the military supervisor of this dud of an employee, sent on to another assignment. EVERYTHING against that employee STOPS!!!! New person comes in to replace you and has to come to the opinion on his own that this person is a dud. You cannot even leave a file of what you were doing against this person for the next boss. The new boss has to determine the employee a dud and the entire ball has to start AT THE BEGINNNING to start rolling again. Same system, same results. Military person leaves, dud stays in job until he retires. This is a system, written by and formed by and administered by civilians to protect their own. In my 20 plus years of service, I saw tons of times where actions were started against dud civilian employees. IN THOSE YEARS, I NEVER SAW ONE FIRED. Not one!
It is also a liberal sick leave and vacation policy with 4 hours of vacation and 4 hours sick leave that are earned each 40 hours. Most of it can be carried over from year-to-year.
For a 2000 hour work year that is 25 days vacation and 25 days sick leave. Growing up in a civil service household vacation time and sick leave were never problems.
‘Imagine the power of the federal government if they efficiently and effectively spent over a trillion dollars a year and had employed two and half million highly skilled and motivated bureaucrats.’
His reply after thinking it over a few seconds....
“Three cheers for government waste and inefficiency!”
Yeah, not so much for those guys, but for the chairwarmers in the head shed, it is a different story
If you're speaking of state, county and city governments, all those people ~ including the cops, consider it a hard day when the nearest doughnut shop runs out of french crurlers.
In my days in the Air Force, a lot of the civil servants I worked with spent the first two hours everly day talking about things like how many sick days they had and how many years early they could retire because of it and other useless stuff like that.
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