Recently there has been a wave of attacks rendered on public agencies, union, pensions and benefits provided to the people who work in many government fields.
Now getting straight to the point. Most people who work for government agencies are paid less than their counterparts in the private industry.
Most pensions are significantly lower than that of traditional employee pension plans in the private sector.
So why the attack on public sector employees and public unions?
Well, here are some facts.
Public unions negotiate with the public agencies on all these issues. Pensions, benefits, health plans and salaries.
While salaries are lower as are pensions, the fact is that regardless of how Wall St does or doesnt, public pensions are guaranteed by the government aka the ” Taxpayer”.
When Wall St is doing well, the pension systems get high return on the money they invest from employee contributions and in actuality its a rare occurrence when public pensions have had to be subsidized by “taxpayer” money and the times that this has happened its occurred cause of poor management by the government or underfunding of the pensions.
In the private sector, if the plan doesnt fair well, the return isnt good and the employee could lose much if not all of the money they invested. There are no guarantees.
In bad times, politicians incite the public into thinking that public employees are these rich, overpaid employees when in fact even in NYC the average retiree gets about $28,000 per year. Like anything, some get much higher amounts, but most pensioners actually receive pensions either below or just above the poverty lines and continue to work after retiring.
In the private sector , unless the company raids the pension plans, or fails miserably, the average pensions are in the hundreds of thousands and perhaps in the millions depending on the job. These pension plans can be an average of $65,000 to as much as $!50,000 annuities.
The bottom line is this. Cops, firefighters, EMS and sanitation services are critical services for any municipality. Other critical services are also handled by the public unions, like sewage and water services. Besides that are non-critical but nonetheless vital services to the public.
Some of these are street and highway repair, bridges and tunnels. Toll collectors, backbone city services like the court system, county clerks and tax collectors, DMV services, inspectors for service like building inspections, licensing and violation issuing agencies all are made up of public employees, which in many cases generate profits to the city they work for.
Anne Coultier made a comment, that if she could have it her way, she would get rid of all government employees.
Well, who will put the fire out at her house?
Who will come to her aid, when someone steals from her,
When someone violates a copyright of one of her many books, who will take care of the court processing?
If she has a heart attack or is involved in a car accident, who will come to her aid?
Who will repair the streets, highways and bridges she drives on?
Who will she trust when she flies?
What about inspections and construction guidelines and rules for her building or house?

Its very easy to say, lets get rid of government workers, but in actuality many are skilled workers that possess skills that most dont and do jobs that many wont and lower salaries than most are willing to work for.
The only thing that attracts people to these jobs are the desire to commit their lives to public service, a guarantee of employment and whatever benefits, medical and pension they may receive. Even though those very same benefits are much lower than the private sector.