If you think public employees (city, state, county) have a gravy deal,

[raccoon]

let me enlighten you.

More and more, in my state, public employees are part-time, no benefits. They can work at the agency for years and years, and still be part-time, no benefits.

I work for a state agency and AT LEAST 50% of the employees are part-time, no benefits. A woman in HR told me that a few years ago.

Since 2007, my agency has eliminated 118 full-time, benefited positions.

I should add I am in a so-called right-to-work state where unions are rare as a black swan.

I'm not saying that those who DO have benefits and are full-time have a gravy deal either. I'm just saying that kind of job is becoming rarer and rarer, at least in my neck of the woods.

[RandomThoughts]

1. I think the people busting unions are the black swans.

The people in the street protesting are the ducks quacking.

:shrug: so what is your point again?

[raccoon]

2. My point is lots of public employees don't have any benefits. Many people

seem to think, Oh, state employees have all these great benes and all this leave time.

They just don't realize that nowadays lots of them have no leave time and no group health insurance.

My post was to inform anyone who still believes that that it ain't necessarily so.

[RaleighNCDUer]

3. And it used to be public employees accepted the trade off of low pay

for good benefits - now we have both low pay AND sucky benefits.

Doing my same job in the commercial sector I'd have been making 10-20% more, but the job security and relatively decent benefits kept me going. Then our health plan changed from not-for-profit to for-profit, deductibles went up, co-pays went up, and I've been hanging on with annual pay increases that don't keep pace with inflation, always on tenterhooks waiting for the next round of budget cuts and layoffs.

And I'm one of the lucky ones.