I Knew There Had to Be More

I personally don’t mind about teachers having a good pension or having a higher salary, in my opinion teachers are the base of everything in a society (BTW, I’m not a teacher). But what I do have a problem is congressmen and senators, who make the laws, punishing everyone else but themselves; I don’t see them ever having pension or health insurance problems like the rest of us.
Other federal employees in embassies and such have awesome salaries and very unnecessary benefits that we pay for, but the same federal government want to scrap basic benefits for cops, firefighters and teachers that don’t make much to begin with; I mean, you can’t tell me that teachers choose that profession for the money, most really like kids and like to make a difference.

I am personally against cutting pensions for current employees. A pension is really a contract between the State and an employee. There are those people that spend their entire career in public service and do count on that money. I don't think that changing the rules in the middle of the game is fair. I wouldn't have a problem if they looked at making some changes after a specified cut-off date for new hires. Then, someone would be able to decide if they could live with the new terms and take the job or if they wanted to decline and work somewhere else.

I speak from both side of this issue. I work in private industry and have never had a pension...just a 401K. My husband however has been a State employee for the last 10 years. He doesn't get raises and his health insurance seems to go up every year. He got what amounted to a 3% paycut last year. To have benefits cut when there have been no raises for years is just really a slap in the face. I have been after him for several years to move on...

J. - I wrote a long, comprehensive (I'd say great LOL) answer to this and the whole thing disappeared when I hit "post." So frustrating.

The gist of it: there is a conflict of interest with public sector unions, imho. That being said, the larger issue is that we're fighting each other over the deck chairs on the Titanic. Nobody is fixing the real problem.

Again, I had a lot more explanation but I don't have time to re-type it. :(

teachers around M. make way more than I do as an accountant and get huge pensions, go on strike annually, and get the summers off. Personally I think in most areas teachers make what they should and get overcompensated in pensions. I'm going back to school to become a teacher=)

I pretty much agree that something needs to be done and like you, can't grasp that they somehow play both ends against the middle!

- but can I add this into the mix - the other side, "private" sector unions?? What about the retirements that people that worked at any of the Big3, IH/Navistar, etc -all I seem to hear is that they shouldn't be getting such "deals" when some do not seem to realize what they gave up over the years to be put into retirements or healthcare... And I really LOL to hear some bash them in general cause I seriously doubt very many people's pay would be where it is w/o what prevailing wage pulled (minus the CEO's etc of course!)