Wisconsin Unions

                                                                                                                                                                                                                  Thursday, March 10, 2011





                                              Cost of runaway Unions in the County, State or Federal Government is unsustainable.





Wisconsin Unions.





First let me say I started out working for the California Division of Forestry out of high school. Then I was drafted for the Vietnam War and lived through President Regan’s firing of the Traffic Air Controllers.





We never thought about striking. The Government or State set the wages, and we either accepted the pay, or we did not work for these agencies.





Just think about it if the Army would strike! You say that’s crazy and I say why? So why should the police department be able to strike or the fire department? If you worked for the government, state or county agencies, than you accepted the normal pay for that position.





When I was working for the state, and then the government, there was not thousands of people applying for these positions, why is it that way now? Well the pay and benefits are better than private industry, so you have an enormous amount of people trying to obtain one of these jobs. These jobs where never designed to be funded this way.





The pay was not the highest, but you had a lifetime job and excellent benefits. Now we have excessive wages and unbelievable benefits which we can no longer afford.





Before the unions, the market would determine what wages you received, not the union threatening to strike and shutdown everything. These government agencies be it County, State or the Federal Government, are paid for by the taxpayer.





The people working for these agencies are working for the taxpayers, which they have forgotten and seem to want large salaries for their services. If, they want large salaries then go to work in private industry and charge whatever you can get.





There are plenty of people who want to work and do these jobs, so if any one strikes, do what President Regan did, fire anyone that strikes and replace them! So he fired any Air Traffic Controller that would strike, and he replaced them. No planes fell out of the sky! With newly trained Air Traffic Controllers, accidents were predicted to happen.





I will go even further, saying that there will be no double dipping. Your retirement is based on the highest salary level you obtained. You can only start collecting your retirement at age 62 with reduced benefits and at age 65 > with full benefits, just like Social Security.



And any pension plans that are tied to any utility or any type of municipalities and governmental agencies, where the taxpayer has no other alternative way of paying for the supposed services they provide would be tied to the Social Security rules for retirement. This would go a long way in fixing what is happening in our country and would be fair.