[quote=harvey]…More importantly, why can’t anyone address the core issue:
Why should public-sector employees receive compensation in a vastly different form the rest of population?
Can we answer without a semantic nitpick?…[/quote]
I’ll answer it, pri. Public employees can be compared to “indentured servants.” Much like members of military service, as a public employee, you are (figurately) “owned” by the organization you work for. You are often held to much higher standards of behavior (on and off the clock) than persons employed in the “private sector.” If you accepted a job 2 miles from your home and your employer later decides they need you in their “branch office” which is 30 miles from your home, you must begin working where they need you (this is often done strictly for “retaliatory reasons”). The “rules and regulations” regarding behavior and integrity exhibited (on and off the clock) is up for departmental or agency scrutiny. For example, as other Piggs have posted, a public employee’s “short sale” or foreclosure could spark disciplinary action by a public employer, on a case-by-case basis. In other words, as a public employee who was hired with a 750+ FICO score and then year(s) later, files a chapter 7 BK, they better be able to prove it to their employer that the filing was to discharge catastrophic medical bills due to an accident/illness not of their own fault.
Believe me when I tell you that public agencies have persons employed in “administration” whose only duties are to diligently follow the “private lives” of the agency’s employees. And they are very persistent, often using high-ranking “lackeys” or “henchmen” to do whatever “dirty work” this “official” thinks needs to be done.
A typical non-exempt public employee is also required to account for (on paper) all of their time on “the clock.” There is usually always a higher-ranking worker present to observe each employee’s arrival and departure (arrives early and leaves late). Whatever time employees are absent from their “post” or cannot readily be reached by phone (while working in the “field”) must be documented by a “leave slip,” written for “sick” or “annual” leave.
A public employee can very easily use up his or her entire annual vacation leave on personal errands (overflow from lunch hr) and being “late” for work due to traffic. A non-exempt public employee does not have the right to make up time lost in the workday by staying late. This is often “against the rules.”
“Exempt” public employees (far and few between) are a different animal and could feasibly get away with working part-time for a full-time salary (IF they have a “cooperative” administrative staff). But most carry the weight of everything that can and will go wrong with their respective departments/agencies. If they are appointed officials and not elected, they could politically “fall out of favor with the PTB” very quickly and be summarily dismissed by the elected PTB without the civil service protections of their “rank and file.” In any case, elected officials may not last in their positions past the four years they were elected to serve by the voters and thus, never “vest” in the retirement system if they have no prior public service.
It’s not all as it appears. That’s why I have repeatedly told the faction of Piggs repeatedly lamenting about how “unfair” public employee retirement packages are to apply for one or more of these jobs themselves and go thru the recruitment process (which will undoubtedly be “instructional” even if not hired).
And then there’s that pesky “20+ years” where one has to devote their lives to continually pleasing their current “supervisors” in succession in order to actually qualify for that “lofty” pension.
The “typical Pigg” that blogs online during the business day (on the clock) and then slides across the hall or up the elevator to the “company cafeteria” for today’s lunch special of endive salad with angula while watching a wide-screen OR visits the “company gym” for a lunchtime “yoga fusion” or “tai-chi” class and then brings a “company-made smoothie” back to their desk lives in whole ‘nother world than a public employee.
Another difference between public and private employees is that public employees at every level of government stationed in the “downtown” area of major cities do NOT receive paid parking unless they are the top brass, that is, unless they are employed as the executive, “unclassified” agency or department leaders. All of the “rank and file” workers receive a monthly “parking allowance” which amounts to 1/2 to 2/3 of the cost of monthly public parking lot decal for a lot situated 3-12 minutes walk from their worksite. The rest is “out of pocket.” However, public transit passes are typically 100% paid for by the employer.
How is a public agency going to retain employees for the duration under these conditions without offering them a “pension” at the end of their “faithful service?” Do you honestly think it is preferable for these “specialized jobs” (to the employer-agency’s business) should experience frequent turnover? Have you really any idea how long it takes a new employee to learn all the nuances regarding the position they occupy and also how it relates to their employer-agency’s overall mission?
Hint: It takes far, far longer than the initial “probationary period.”
