A very effective tactic in the war for public opinion is to accuse the person voicing disagreeable perspectives of being biased or otherwise having ulterior partisan motives. While we prefer to focus on the validity of the arguments (and the calculations) when discussing the impact of public sector unions on the sustainability of public institutions,...
By Editor
There are so many facets to the problem of public sector unions that one of their most outrageous abuses, their war on volunteerism, is barely covered by the media. But it happens all the time, especially in public education. If any volunteer does work that could be done by a unionized worker, even if no...
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The challenge of providing retirement security to all citizens is the broader issue behind the debate over what level of public sector pension benefits are both equitable and financially sustainable. California Senator Kevin De Leon’s proposed legislation, SB 1234, will hopefully further this debate. As reported in the Sacramento Bee by Jon Ortiz on February...
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The average state or local government worker in California makes nearly $70,000 per year (ref. U.S. Census 2010 State Payroll – California and U.S. Census 2010 Local Government Worker Payroll – California). The average state or local government worker in California, if they work 30 years, will retire with a pension that averages $66,864 per...
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This week both of California’s largest government employee pension funds, CalPERS and CalSTRS, released their portfolio earnings numbers for the most recent twelve months. In a statement released on January 24th, “CalSTRS Calendar Year-End Investment Returns Show Slight Gains,” CalSTRS disclosed “Investment returns for the California State Teachers’ Retirement System (CalSTRS) ended the 2011 calendar...
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It is unusual to find serious coverage of union “corporate campaigns” in the media. A regular contributor to UnionWatch, Dave Bego, who owns a multi-state services company that has fought back the SEIU for years, has worked tirelessly to expose how unions intimidate business owners into permitting unionization of their companies. Here is another such...
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Earlier this month a UnionWatch editorial referenced “The Atlas Generation,” describing those Americans who are not members of the elite 1% super-rich, nor part of the privileged 20% who work for the government, nor among the nearly 50% of America’s population who are, apparently, poor enough to avoid taxes altogether. Who are these forgotten 33%?...
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An email was received today that appears quite sincere, and invites a response. Here it is: “It is interesting your organization came about as a result of what you perceived to be unfairly high compensation granted to public employees, when your sense of fairness could just as easily have come into play during the many...
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California’s unionized public employees, who enjoy pensions that average at least five-times what a social security recipient can hope to receive, love to claim they have a “contract” that makes reducing these pension benefits impossible. They certainly do have a contract – sort of like the contract an underworld boss might order on a troublesome...
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With government employees, a union agenda is inherently in conflict with the public interest, because unless taxes are raised, there is always a choice between higher wages for government workers, or investing in improving government services. With unions in the government, the overall union agenda – more wages and benefits, more union members – is...
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In an editorial posted in January 2011 entitled “Wall Street & Public Sector Unions,” we identified an irony still lost on the occupy movement’s rank and file – Wall Street is financed by the pension funds of unionized government workers. Every year, taxpayer funded government agencies pour hundreds of billions of dollars into Wall Street...
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In less than five years California will have over 10 million residents who are over the age of 55 (ref. U.S. Census, California Demographics). If every one of these people were to receive a pension equivalent to what the average public employee in California can now expect after working full-time for no more than 30...
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It is impossible to easily summarize all of the efforts government worker unions have mounted in California to consolidate their power. But the efforts by these unions to disrupt reform initiative efforts, as well as undermine the initiative process itself, is worthy of special mention, and is the focus of this post. As Californians realize...
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It is surprisingly difficult to gather data on just how many public safety employees claim disability in their retirements, but this should not prevent us from estimating what the benefits bestowed on disability claimants cost taxpayers. A common program to compensate public safety workers for job-related disabilities is to grant them a tax exemption, whereby...
By Editor
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