If we can pay public safety people less and still attract qualified applicants we should do so. However much F & P personnel are worth, it seems we just can’t afford them at current benefit levels. As it is they and public service employees in general have evolved into a privileged section of the working class. I suspect that very few public employees would leave service if given a take it or leave it salary and benefit reduction. And even if they did, that would present an opportunity to test the hypothesis that only cadilliac compensation packages can attract qualified applicants to public service. Speaking of which whatever happened to the idea of public service? My hunch is that qualified applicants can be found at much lower wage levels for many public service jobs. Just as families need to be thrifty to prosper so do municipalities and other levels of government. Being thrifty means not paying more than you have to! As it is I believe we are getting royally screwed blued and tattooed by the public service unions.
One participant wrote:
“While those other jobs are important, they are not a matter of life-and-death, nor do they provide society with the same overall benefits that public safety personnel do.”
While agreeing that manicurists are probably not as important as cops and firemen there are many professions and economic sectors equally important to our way of life. Consider the U.S. with no professional educators or truckdrivers or miners or store employees. Economically things would be such a shambles that we would indeed be forced to revert to voluntary public security. Are cops more important than the workers involved in maintaining telecommunication and electrical systems? More important than folks who work in meat packing plants? By the way thats pretty damn dangerous work too.
Just as we are considering universal health insurance I believe it is time to begin consider having some sort of universal retirement program beyond the peanuts provided by SS. Many countries do that are at our wealth level. Under such a system most participants could make out a little better and the public sector employees would probably make out a little worse.
To conclude, this will continue to grow as a political issue and yes there are resentments brewing among the working stiffs who pay the taxes when they learn how much these folks (Cops and Fire) are getting.
