The new class warfare: Private vs. public worker

[Liberal_in_LA]

The new class warfare: Private vs. public worker
August 5, 2010 | 4:30 am
Class warfare in America used to mean rich versus poor.

Now, that age-old social conflict is taking a back seat to a new one: private sector versus public sector.

Many private-sector workers have long considered it their civic duty to question how the public sector spends their tax dollars, of course. But nothing could have prepared them for the Los Angeles Times’ revelations last month of the absurdly monstrous salaries of Bell city officials.

If we’ve reached the tipping point in the political battle nationwide to rein-in pay and benefits for public-sector workers, credit Bell City Manager Robert Rizzo, the $800,000-a-year man.

To be sure, pressure to restrict public-sector compensation has been building for years. Millions of private-sector workers have seen their benefits slashed by corporate America while many state and local governments have gotten more generous with their own workers -- at taxpayers’ expense.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2010/08/public-pensions-private-sector-bell-city-class-warfare.html


State workers should be screaming bloody murder as they did when furloughs were imposed last year. But public resentment at their compensation, including what analysts describe as "pension envy," has reined them in and muted their protests.

"Most Americans believe that federal employees and other government employees are paid more than comparable private-sector employees," said pollster Scott Rasmussen. "When we've asked about 10 percent pay cuts for public employees, people have overwhelmingly supported that."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6733DY20100804?type=domesticNews

[inthebrain]

1. This article is a load of fake leftist BS

The rich vs the poor is not being replaced by the private sector vs the public sector. If anything it's heightened and this is another one of those wrenches thrown out there by the bosses to pit workers against eachother. This is what the the bosses want.

[shanti]

7. exactly

all this is is more ammo to bust the unions - that is the prize here! :grr: funny how people used to laugh at the public sector and their low pay. now they despise them for their retirement and bennies. you don't believe me, read the sacramento bee state worker blog. it's disgusting.

that said, rizzo is a piece of shit.

[Starry Messenger]

2. I'm public sector and I think $800,000 is disgusting.

That's obviously a situation that got out of hand with zero oversight and needs a complete overhaul and heads to roll.

As far as anything else, private sector people should be demanding the same protections public sector jobs strive for. I know several people who work in private sector jobs who told me unions were "outdated". Yeah. about that...

[laughingliberal]

4. The goal should be for all to have good benefits, not take them away from those who do.

I agree about the $800,000 but that does seem an aberration.

[Starry Messenger]

5. Exactly! Workers need to stick together, not fight each other.

I don't have the link handy but I think the bloated mega-salaries are getting audited at the state level. I'd love to be a fly on the wall at those meetings...

[shanti]

8. rizzo is NOT the norm

for the public sector. what happened there was a travesty and a ripoff, criminal if you ask me. i hope PERS snatches his retirement!!

[Starry Messenger]

11. Totally agreed.

Anti-union forces are just using this as a wedge to force an opportunity to take down protections for public workers.

[Marr]

3. The most anti-government people I've known were also on the government payroll.

In fact, I'd even say their small-government zeal was directly proportionate to their level of dependency on said government. John McCain sorts. I started my own business in my 20's and have been working in the private sector ever since, and doing pretty well. It's really odd to debate my career postman uncle, when *he's* the one saying government should be drowned and replaced with private industry, and I'm the one saying private industry can't be trusted and government has a role to play.

[PassingFair]

10. Same in my family!

My right-wing brother is about to retire from a
civic job (EMT) with a tidy pension and health
care all sewn up.

Two of his kids are in government-subsidized programs
for engineering.

All he does is bitch about unions! (He's IN one!!)

At the last birthday party for one of his (grown) boys,
who all still live at home, he was RANTING against people
on food assistance.

My older brother, who had just applied for food assistance,
sat a quietly died a thousand deaths of humiliation.

[LooseWilly]

6. Bell City city manager obviously found a loophole to exploit, just like Ken Lay...

The notion that one city's corruption should be blamed on the system and justify the reduction of pay for all public sector employees is like arguing that Ken Lay and Enron are proof of private corporate executive corruption and should justify the reduction of pay for all corporate executives. (Ok, sure... I'm fine with the latter, as a result of my own prejudices against corporate execs... but I doubt many would agree to both.)

The biggest irony of the simmering resentment against public sector employees is that the problems all trace back to corporate profits, and corporate executive successes at taking every resource in sight. Private sector employees are right to be simmeringly hostile, their pay has stagnated &/or decreased over the last 20 or 30 years... and every dollar that they don't get goes to the corporation, which tends to use a lot of those dollars to fund bonuses for the executives.

With the growing ability of these corporations to then take their operations overseas, they have extorted tax reductions from local, state and even federal government, which means more money for them and more bonuses for their executives... and also means that the governments need to rely on the taxes on individuals for all operating expenses... which then leads those employees of the private sector to feel like they, with their stagnating-at-best wages, are being made to subsidize what seems like a bloated bureaucracy (when you're starving, everyone else looks over-fed)...

so they jump on board with the corporations who finance votes to further reduce taxes... which then puts more pressure on government budgets, leaving them even more vulnerable when corporations then start demanding not only tax reductions, but actual subsidizations of operating expenses in order to stay- knowing that the government now depends on the taxation of the employees, and unemployment caused by a corporate move would lead to government budget catastrophes...

so the governments pay the corporate extortion, and the executives grant themselves another bonus... and the governments then face the need to begin cutting pay for the public employees- because otherwise they won't have the money to pay the subsidization-extortion monies to the corporations...

and the private sector employees cheer, thinking that the public sector employees didn't deserve to be making more than they, the private sector employees, were making... and all the while, the corporations are counting all that money they've taken out of everyone's pockets.

The important thing, perforce, is that the US not be allowed to become like Western Europe...

[Hannah Bell]

there is no "new" class warfare, it's the same old warfare, & this article was written by a player

for the other team, trying to disguise a piece intended to stir up inter-worker resentment as some kind of cool new leftism.

stupid fucks.

[Hannah Bell]

9. there is no "new" class warfare, it's the same old warfare, & this article was written by a player

for the other team, trying to disguise a piece intended to stir up inter-worker resentment as some kind of cool new leftism.

stupid fucks.