War on Public Workers

[SHRED]

For those who missed this last time around:

War on Public Workers
Amy Traub

Conservatives have declared a new class war, but it's not on bankers earning seven-figure bonuses. Instead, as Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels told Politico recently, the "new privileged class in America" is government employees, who "are better paid than the people who pay their salaries." We have to escape "public sector unions' stranglehold on state and local governments," agreed Mort Zuckerman, billionaire editor of U.S. News & World Report, "or it will crush us." Meanwhile, the Wall Street Journal's Paul Gigot ominously predicts "a showdown looming across the country between taxpayers and public employee unions over pay and pensions," while the Heritage Foundation warns that "the more the government taxes, the more it can pay its unionized workers."

This decades-old assault on government employees has acquired new potency at a time of widespread economic suffering and populist rage. But the attacks have little basis in reality. A recent study by the Center for State and Local Government Excellence and the National Institute on Retirement Security finds that when such factors as education and work experience are accounted for, state and local employees earn 11 to 12 percent less than comparable private sector workers. Even when public employees' relatively decent pensions and health coverage are included, their total compensation still lags behind workers in private industry. A separate analysis by the Center for Housing Policy finds that despite recent declines in home prices, police officers and elementary school teachers still don't earn enough to buy a typical house in two out of five metro areas. Firefighters and librarians are unable to afford the median home in the New York, Los Angeles and Chicago metro areas. Nationwide, a school bus driver's wage isn't enough to pay rent on a standard two-bedroom apartment.

Despite American Reinvestment and Recovery Act funding, which preserved jobs and public services, city and state workers have been affected by the recession. The Economic Policy Institute reports that 180,000 local government employees have been laid off since August 2008, while furloughs have become a fact of life for public workers across the country. Much bigger cuts lie ahead: Education Secretary Arne Duncan warns that as stimulus funding dries up, as many as 300,000 teachers and other school personnel could lose their jobs this year to budget cuts.

The lavish lifestyle of public workers is a myth, but the right-wing mythmakers know it's a powerful talking point. By attacking public workers, they can demonize "big labor" and "big government" at the same time, while deflecting attention from the more logical target of Middle America's rage: the irresponsible Wall Street traders, whose risky, high-profit business practices brought down the economy, and the lax regulators who let them get away with it.

MORE:
http://www.thenation.com/article/war-public-workers

[AwakeAtLast]

1. One of Daniels's first acts as Governor

was to get rid of the public employees union. Stroke of a pen.

If the IN Statehouse swings to Republican controlled (right now it's Senate R, House D) the teacher's union is next.

He's playing to be President - please help Indiana House Democrats!