About Damned Time

[Kulaf]

Reagan, Air Traffic Controllers. Any other stupid statements to make?

Only Partha could see an illegal strike by a government union as a work stoppage initiated by the government.

/golfclap

[Kulaf]

This is a pointless comparrison unless you are advocating anarchy. Private business operates for profit......governments do not. If an private employer is not making money, they liquidate and close. Governments do not have that ability. Opinions to the contrary are just arguing from absurdity. Even if 50% of the residents of a state packed up and left, there still needs to be a government and it still needs to keep running.

The only time you would ever see a work stopage initiated by the government would be in failure to pass a funding bill. It would have nothing to do with being a negotiating tool for labor talks.

In terms of employees, private and public industry have the same objective - to get the most value for the least expense. It doesn't matter what the ultimate financial goal of the organization is, neither have the goal (or should have the goal) of "free money for employees".

If a government is not making money, it pretty much does liquidate and close. States can't print money and it has to come from somewhere. Sure, they don't have the voluntary option but there's a definite involuntary one.

In any case, your premise that a private employer can liquidate and close is demonstrably false anyway. There's ample evidence from the GFC that businesses out there are deemed "too big to fail" and will be bailed out no matter what. Do you really think NYSE (for example) could just liquidate and close?

So, no. Opinions to the contrary are not absurd. In fact, there's ample history to show that governments have gone bankrupt and private industry has been deemed too big to fail. There's even history to show lockouts by government to deal with labor disputes.

The mistake you're making is thinking of the government as a monolithic entity. Only a small fraction is critical and can quite happily function in the same way as private industry if allowed to do so. In fact, that's pretty much the libertarian philosophy for driving at smaller governments.

Dd

No states do not liquidate and close. If you think they do then please provide an example. States cut, states raise taxes, states borrow.....but they do not ever close. There is not ample evidence that businesses are "too big to fail" except from government shills too nervous of their own positions or power to let them fail. I have never heard of any lockout initiated by any governmental body in the US to deal with any labor dispute. Even Partha's example is a lot of horse crap.

So yes, opinions to the contrary are in fact absurd. Because they have never happened. EVER.

Well thank you for telling me what my opinion is. Saves me the time from having to state it myself. Can you guess what I am going to say next?

[Rykilth]

Kulaf made most of my rebuttal for me (thanks). One small point though... I think most government workers (most, not all) have salary caps on positions. They have a low start and a max cap. Once the max cap is reached, then the salary gets COLA adjustments.

And I'll ask again to the defenders of public unions... what is the NEED for a public union? I can find no credible argument for that question. Absent any credible need for a public employee union, the governing body should do everythnig in its power to reduce the demand on the budget, and that would include chopping the unions out thus eliminating the political budgetary pressure to fund massive pensions and out-of-whack benefits. Public worker unions have become nothing more than money-grabbing machines that siphon off taxpayer money to fund largess that the average private sector worker doesn't see.

As to the poster who is a California Highway Patrol officer...

http://www.chp.ca.gov/recruiting/osalary.html

If I understand your retirement package correctly, CHP contributes 8% of your salary to your retirement. The officer contributes nothing. Base pay starts at a little over 65K and tops out at a little over 79K. However, that's a bit misleading, because of all the other bumps you guys get. A more realistic range is on the CHP website, and it lists a starting pay package of $87K and a top out after 5 years.... 5 years... of over $100K. And all of that is used in the calculation for your retirement benefits.

Now the retirement... you guys can get 90% of your highest one year salary as a pension, plus medical and dental. You and I both know that cops and firefighters are notorious for loading up on one year with OT and other compensation to drive that number as high as possible, and in many cases they retire with a benefit that pays them MORE than what they were making in their final year of service. And what's your retirement age? 50? 55?

Those are the types of incredible pensions and benefits that are killing government budgets.

Just a little clarification here, and it's a common misconception. As far as the CHP goes (it's the only state agency I've worked for) if we retired with maximum time on (90%) it would be 90% of our highest BASE salary. Overtime is not included in the calculation. Again, I'm not sure how it works for hose draggers or any other state agency, just the CHP.

As for maximum retirement and age, etc: The formula is 3% per year of service at 50 years old. If I came on at 35 years old, I'd have 15 years of service at 50. Which is 45%. Again, this is strictly with the CHP, we have a mandatory retirement age of 60, so a 35 year old (oldest one can apply to our department) would max out at 75% of his/her highest base salary. Now, the 35 year old could buy state time which you had mentioned earlier in the thread for probably around 100k or so and be able to max out retirement at 60 years old. I do agree purchasing of state time is stupid and probably should go away, even though it would definately benefit someone like me who came on late in the game (Prior military can buy back up to four years at a much lower rate). One that comes on at 20 and a half (the EARLIEST one could get on with our department, and the chances of that happening are slim) would be able to retire at 50 years old at 90%.

I came on late, I have an engineering degree and worked as an engineer for a company which designed and manufactured medical x-ray equipment. I took a substantial pay cut to switch over to what I do now because I was bored, and wanted a secure retirement when I do pull the plug. If I were to lose my retirement, I would gladly leave and go back to the private sector. There is no need for me to go out and risk my life if there is no light at the end of the tunnel so to speak.

Oh yeah, here's some reading for you too:

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/06/345361 ... pting.html

Here's the text from the link if you don't want to click it:

WASHINGTON -- From state legislatures to Congress to tea party rallies, a vocal backlash is rising against what are perceived as too-generous retirement benefits for state and local government workers. However, that widespread perception doesn't match reality.

A close look at state and local pension plans across the nation, and a comparison of them to those in the private sector, reveals a more complicated story. However, the short answer is that there's simply no evidence that state pensions are the current burden to public finances that their critics claim.

Pension contributions from state and local employers aren't blowing up budgets. They amount to just 2.9 percent of state spending, on average, according to the National Association of State Retirement Administrators. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College puts the figure a bit higher at 3.8 percent.

Though there's no direct comparison, state and local pension contributions approximate the burden shouldered by private companies. The nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute estimates that retirement funding for private employers amounts to about 3.5 percent of employee compensation.

Nor are state and local government pension funds broke. They're underfunded, in large measure because - like the investments held in 401(k) plans by American private-sector employees - they sunk along with the entire stock market during the Great Recession of 2007-2009. And like 401(k) plans, the investments made by public-sector pension plans are increasingly on firmer footing as the rising tide on Wall Street lifts all boats.

Boston College researchers project that if the assets in state and local pension plans were frozen tomorrow and there was no more growth in investment returns, there would still be enough money in most state plans to pay benefits for years to come.

"On average, with the assets on hand today, plans are able to pay annual benefits at their current level for another 13 years. This assumes, pessimistically, that plans make no future pension contributions and there is no growth in assets," said Jean-Pierre Aubry, a researcher specializing in state and local pensions for the nonpartisan Center for Retirement Research at Boston College.

In 2006, when the economy was humming before the financial crisis began, the value of assets in state and local pension funds covered promised benefits for a period of just over 19 years.

At the bottom of Aubry's list is Kentucky, which would have enough assets to cover 4.7 years. Other states do much better: North Carolina local government pensions are funded to cover 19 years of promised benefits; Florida's state plan could cover 17 years; and California's plans about 15 years.

"On the whole, the pension system isn't bankrupting every state in the country," Aubry said.


States having the biggest problems with pension obligations tend to be struggling with overall fiscal woes - New Jersey and Illinois in particular. Many states are now wrestling with underfunding because they didn't contribute enough during boom years.

Most state and local government employees across the nation have defined-benefit plans that promise employees either a percentage of their final salary during retirement or some fixed amount. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 91 percent of full-time state and local government workers have access to defined-benefit plans.

Several states - including Florida, Georgia, Ohio, Colorado and Washington - have adopted competing defined-contribution plans, or a hybrid plan that provides government employees both a partial defined benefit in retirement and a supplementary defined-contribution plan.

Defined-contribution 401(k) plans divert on a tax-deferred basis a portion of pay, generally partially matched by the employer, into an account that invests in stocks and bonds. In 1980, 84 percent of workers at medium and large companies in the U.S. had a defined-benefit plan like those still predominate in the public sector. By last year, just 30 percent of workers in these larger companies were covered under such plans.


Defenders of the public pension system say anti-government, anti-union elected officials and interest groups have exaggerated the problem to score political points, and that as the economy heals, public pension plans will gain value and prove critics wrong.

"There's a window that's closing as market conditions improve and interest rates rise, the funding of these plans is going to look better than depicted by some," insisted Keith Brainard, the director of research for the National Association of State Retirement Administrators in Georgetown, Texas.


Critics of public-sector pensions paint the problem with a broad brush.

"Unionized government workers have tremendous leverage to negotiate their own wages and benefits. They funnel tens of millions of dollars to elect candidates who will sit across from them at the negotiating table," said Thomas Donohue, the chief executive of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in a Feb. 24 blog post. "This self-dealing has resulted in ever-increasing wage and benefit packages for unionized government workers that often far outstrip those for comparable private-sector workers."

In a Feb. 23 radio interview, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., called federal stimulus efforts to rescue the economy "essentially a federal bailout of public employee unions." Nunes described money owed to state pensioners as a crisis "about ready to happen."

Except that two out of every three public-sector workers aren't union members.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in January that 31.1 percent of state public-sector workers were unionized in 2010, compared with 26.8 percent of federal government employees. The highest percentage of unionization, 43.3 percent, was found in local government, where police officers and firefighters work. Teachers can fall into either state systems or local government.


Ironically, in Wisconsin, where Republican Gov. Scott Walker is trying to weaken public-sector unions and reduce pension benefits, he's exempted police and firefighters, who are among the most unionized public employees. And Wisconsin's public-sector pension plan still has enough assets today to cover more than 18 years of benefits.


The most recent Public Fund Survey by the National Association of State Retirement Administrators showed that, on average, state and local pensions were 78.9 percent funded, with about $688 billion in unfunded promises to pensioners. Critics suggest that the real number is at least $1 trillion or higher, using less-optimistic market assumptions.

The unfunded liabilities would be a problem if all state and local retirees went into retirement at once, but they won't. Nor will state governments go out of business and hand underfunded pension plans over to a federal regulator, as happens in the private sector. State and local governments are ongoing enterprises.

The flow of employees into retirement matches up with population trends in states, with Northeastern states with declining populations, particularly Rhode Island, seeing more stress on their pension systems than Southern and Western states, where there's been vibrant population growth.


Another misperception tied to the pension debate is that while the private sector has shed jobs during the economic crisis, state and local government employment has grown - and pensions along with it.

Since September 2008 - when state and local government employees numbered 19,385,000 and the economic crisis turned severe - the governments' payrolls shrunk by 407,000, to 18,978,000 this January, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data.

When calculating from December 2007 - the month that the National Bureau of Economic Research determined was the start of the Great Recession - state and local government employment has fallen by 703,000 jobs amid a downturn that cost the nation more than 8 million jobs overall.

"The down economy has had an effect, and the loss of employment outside the public sector has created a contrast" said Brainard, of the National Association of State Retirement Administrators.

Also fueling backlash is the perception that state and local workers don't contribute to their own retirement funds the way private-sector workers do.

Four states have non-contribution public pension plans - Florida, Utah, Oregon and Connecticut. Missouri until recently had a non-contribution policy for state workers, as did Michigan until 1997. Michigan workers hired before 1997 still don't pay toward their pensions, and some teachers in Arkansas don't have to contribute toward theirs. Tennessee doesn't require contributions from most workers and employees in the state higher education system.

Those notable exceptions aside, most states require employee contributions. The midpoint for these contributions for all states and the District of Columbia is 5 percent of pay, according to academic and state-level research. That contribution rate climbs to 8 percent for the handful of states whose workers or teachers are prohibited from paying into the federal Social Security program.

By comparison, private-sector workers shoulder a bit more of the burden.

In its data for 2010, Fidelity Investments, the largest administrator of private-sector 401(k) retirement plans, showed employee contribution rates in its plans averaged 8.2 percent of pre-tax pay.

Separately, the Employee Benefits Research Institution estimates that most private-sector employers match up to 50 percent of employee contributions up to the first 6 percent of salary.

The utility or burden of either type of retirement plan depends on whether the plan is measured by what it delivers to an individual, or by how much it delivers to all workers receiving retirement benefits from their employer.

"It really comes down to what you are attempting to do," said Dallas Salisbury, the president of the nonpartisan Employee Benefit Research Institute.


Viewed through the lens of an employee, defined-benefit plans are more cost-effective at providing a pre-determined level of benefits to an employee. But the shortcoming of these plans is that they reward seniority. For workers with a shorter tenure, they're far less generous in retirement.

This fairness issue is one reason why 401(k) plans have grown steadily in prominence since the mid-1980s. From the payroll perspective of an employer, these defined-contribution plans produce at least some retirement income for the greatest number of employees, and the plans can move with employees who change jobs.



Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2011/03/06/345361 ... z1FyuMKs5o

[Rykilth]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50568.html

Good for Ohio. This should sail through the Ohio House and be signed into law. And its a very fair bill. I especially like the elimination of pay increase based on time in service, and replacing it with merit increases.

Forgot to make mention on this:

Would you really want public safety to base their pay on merit increases?

[Ddrak]

No states do not liquidate and close. If you think they do then please provide an example. States cut, states raise taxes, states borrow.....but they do not ever close.

Note that I said "pretty much does", not "exactly does". States go bankrupt and can't pay their employees and have to suspend services. Ultimately either debt gets forgiven or the state goes into anarchy for a while. There's numerous cases of bankrupt states:
Argentina 2001, Iceland 2008, Germany 1920 & 1945, Great Britain 1945, Russia 1998, Pakistan 2008, Zimbabwe 2008, Ecuador lots, France lots, Spain lots.

In any case, like I said, your mistake is still treating governments as monolithic. If a government program is not funded then it closes. If a government section is not funded then it closes. If a whole department is unfunded then it closes. The GOP have even suggested using this to shut down Obamacare. Don't get the funding, you gotta close.

There is not ample evidence that businesses are "too big to fail" except from government shills too nervous of their own positions or power to let them fail.

Rubbish. If businesses weren't too big to fail then governments wouldn't spend public monies bailing them out. TARP would have been unnecessary and a whole lot more banks would be dead in the water right now.

I have never heard of any lockout initiated by any governmental body in the US to deal with any labor dispute.

Who's talking about the US only? I couldn't tell you specifically if a governmental body in the US has locked out workers but it's certainly happened in other nations with similar laws so there's nothing that STOPS a government locking out workers. Just because it hasn't been exercised doesn't mean it's not possible.

Well thank you for telling me what my opinion is. Saves me the time from having to state it myself. Can you guess what I am going to say next?

Uh, I didn't tell you what your opinion was. I told you the mistake you were making in your argument, which was to treat governments as monolithic. The argument that "governments do not have the ability to close" is self-evidently incorrect if you're not treating them as monolithic because governments can easily close sections or even whole departments if they choose.

Dd

[Kulaf]

Ok we are having a disconnect here. States = WI like what we are talking about.....not states = Norway. This is a US centric thread so you need to apply a US filter.

I'll pretty much ignore the rest of this as I think that is the heart of our dispute.

[Embar Angylwrath]

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/50568.html

Good for Ohio. This should sail through the Ohio House and be signed into law. And its a very fair bill. I especially like the elimination of pay increase based on time in service, and replacing it with merit increases.

Forgot to make mention on this:

Would you really want public safety to base their pay on merit increases?

Absolutely. Wouldn't you think that would encourage public safety employees to perform as best they could, increasing competition for wages by increasing performance in their particualr position? What's so wrong with merit increases for public safety employees?

[Arathena]

Absolutely. Wouldn't you think that would encourage public safety employees to perform as best they could, increasing competition for wages by increasing performance in their particualr position? What's so wrong with merit increases for public safety employees?

Do you want your local policeman's raise to be given out based on the number of speeding tickets he writes per year?

[Embar Angylwrath]

If that's the metric the agency uses to guage performance, then yes, of course. Although I'd prefer something like "number of arrests that are brought to successful prosecution", "proficiency with weapons", "continuing education credits obtained", "adherance to policy and procedure".. that sort of stuff.

But for some agency like CHP, sure, I can see some metric that ties into the number of vehicle citations issued... seems like a reasonable metric for a traffic related agency.

How would you evaluate an officer's performance? They must have some grading system, correct? Otherwise, how do you know if they are doing their jobs in the best way possible, which is what we all want, correct? Why should a cop that gets (I don't know the specific rating system used, so I'll just use a grade-type system) a D in cop performance get the same (or better pay because he's been in the position longer) than a cop that gets an A in cop performance? What's so wrong with that?

[Torakus]

Absolutely. Wouldn't you think that would encourage public safety employees to perform as best they could, increasing competition for wages by increasing performance in their particualr position? What's so wrong with merit increases for public safety employees?

Do you want your local policeman's raise to be given out based on the number of speeding tickets he writes per year?

I sure do. It might get some of the fucking Mexicans and women off the road and the rest of us will be safer. Sorry Rsak moment.

Tora

[Ddrak]

Ok we are having a disconnect here. States = WI like what we are talking about.....not states = Norway. This is a US centric thread so you need to apply a US filter..

Ok, fair comment.

I understand that you're saying it hasn't happened, but there's really nothing that stops a state (US) from going the same way the nations I mentioned went, short of the federal government deciding that (like BoA) they are just too big to fail. Similarly, there's nothing to actually stop the governor enacting a lock-out short of the disastrous effects on his polling, though if the people really and honestly thought the public workers in question were that far out of line then even the lock-out scenario wouldn't hurt him.

I'm just not seeing that the constraints on the governor are really that significantly different to the constraints on a CEO when dealing with labor disputes to afford a good reason to enact legislation that prevents a group of state workers deciding to negotiate their wage contracts in unison. I just see it as a fundamental right of the individual to associate with whoever they like in their contract negotiation and though I despise most unions for their self-serving attitudes, I respect their right to exist and shake my head at the workers that continue to support the bad ones.

Dd

[Fallakin Kuvari]

Reagan, Air Traffic Controllers. Any other stupid statements to make?

Only Partha could see an illegal strike by a government union as a work stoppage initiated by the government.

/golfclap

“…Let me make one thing plain. I respect the right of workers in the private sector to strike … But we cannot compare labor-management relations in the private sector with government. Government cannot close down the assembly line. It has to provide without interruption the protective services which are government’s reason for being.”

[Kulaf]

Ok we are having a disconnect here. States = WI like what we are talking about.....not states = Norway. This is a US centric thread so you need to apply a US filter..

Ok, fair comment.

I understand that you're saying it hasn't happened, but there's really nothing that stops a state (US) from going the same way the nations I mentioned went, short of the federal government deciding that (like BoA) they are just too big to fail. Similarly, there's nothing to actually stop the governor enacting a lock-out short of the disastrous effects on his polling, though if the people really and honestly thought the public workers in question were that far out of line then even the lock-out scenario wouldn't hurt him.

I'm just not seeing that the constraints on the governor are really that significantly different to the constraints on a CEO when dealing with labor disputes to afford a good reason to enact legislation that prevents a group of state workers deciding to negotiate their wage contracts in unison. I just see it as a fundamental right of the individual to associate with whoever they like in their contract negotiation and though I despise most unions for their self-serving attitudes, I respect their right to exist and shake my head at the workers that continue to support the bad ones.

Dd

The biggest reason it doesn't happen is states in the US do not have their own currency which would normally plummit in value if you draw a comparrison to nation states. The states always have a support net in the use of the US dollar.

I am all for fair negotiations. So I stand by my stance that state governments simply do not have lock out power. The governor can't just say he is closing schools, fire departments or police stations as a tactic in labor negotiations. It just doesn't work that way.

[Ddrak]

The governor can't just say he is closing schools, fire departments or police stations as a tactic in labor negotiations.

This is what is annoying me about this discussion. The government is far more than "schools, fire departments and police stations". Why on earth can't the governor lock out non-critical workers? Is the public really going to miss them for a short time? Schools aren't even critical - if teachers can strike then why not lock them out?

I've already conceded that in respect to services that can't reasonably be locked out (ie safety related ones), the workers should also not have a "strike" option. That doesn't mean they shouldn't have their freedom of association taken from them.

Dd

[Kulaf]

What other state functions are not critical? Department of Liscensing? Department of Transportation? Department of Corrections? Public Records? DSHS? Court System?

What exactly could you shut down that wouldn't cripple the states ability to function that has any major barginning position to have a budgetary impact.

[Rykilth]

The government has temporarily closed down areas before, if just for a day a week. It's called furloughs and is an ongoing issue in California and I'm sure other states. In my department, our non-uniformed was a part of this, having to take one day off a week (known as Furlough Friday), DMV, etc. all became part of it.

[Rykilth]

Sorry disregard the last post. Reading comprehension skills are poor. I didn't realize you were talking about permanent shut downs.

[Embar Angylwrath]

Lets mention furloughs though, as they do tie in to the topic. And lets take the "furloughs" by the California prison's union. Here's how it worked for them. They received furloughs. Then came in to work on the furlough days. And even though they weren't paid for that day, they were granted PTO for it, so it became a form of deferred compensation.. they'll get paid for it later.

As a result, the California prison system, which has a $9 billion dollar annual budget, now has $1 billion in future PTO liability. The can was just kicked down the road.

Also, I know of several local (so I can't attest to other state agencies) that merely furlough workers and then give them overtime to make up for the compensation of the lost furlough day. One of the reasons why by and large, payroll expenditures haven't marginally decreased as a result of furloughs.

[Arathena]

If that's the metric the agency uses to guage performance, then yes, of course. Although I'd prefer something like "number of arrests that are brought to successful prosecution", "proficiency with weapons", "continuing education credits obtained", "adherance to policy and procedure".. that sort of stuff.

But for some agency like CHP, sure, I can see some metric that ties into the number of vehicle citations issued... seems like a reasonable metric for a traffic related agency.

How would you evaluate an officer's performance? They must have some grading system, correct? Otherwise, how do you know if they are doing their jobs in the best way possible, which is what we all want, correct? Why should a cop that gets (I don't know the specific rating system used, so I'll just use a grade-type system) a D in cop performance get the same (or better pay because he's been in the position longer) than a cop that gets an A in cop performance? What's so wrong with that?

I'm persuadable here, I'm also just very concerned about perverse incentives where the interaction with the public involves the fining or punishment of individuals.

[Torakus]

That doesn't mean they shouldn't have their freedom of association taken from them.

I am guessing you meant to say should rather than shouldn't but either way can you please post the language in the WI bill that does this? I can't find it.

Tora