Pickerington Area Taxpayers Alliance

As I read down through the postings on this web site I see a trend of never ending escalating governments with no end in sight.

Unions in the private sector have been shrinking in size and influence. In contrast to the labor unions in the public sector that have increased in size and influence.

The PLSD is a good example of that trend. Our public employees at one time were low paid employees that had secure jobs. These employees exchanged their low pay and poor benefits for the job security. That no longer exists in our society.

We now have the step increases that reward these public employees for breathing.

We have the COLA increases that award public employees with an inflation protection. Many times when inflation is high that also means the economy is in the dumper. Those in our community that must pay for these public salaries are being downsized and our pay is frozen until we make a profit in our company. Many times the company profit has little or nothing to do with these employees but more about the board room decisions that went wrong.

Then we have the merit raises which are scheduled and given to everyone in the public department to be ?“fair.?” So we bring along the public employee deadwood with the high achievers and call this system fair through a union process that rewards poor performance.

So if we relate this to the local school system or the City or County governments we see the same pattern repeating itself over and over again.

In addition to the great salaries our public employees enjoy is the retirement system. If you go to work for the State of Ohio at age 18 (right out of High School) you can retire at age 48 with three fourths of your pay. Since this is compensation I wonder why we never figure this in when we compute the allowable raises to these public employees.

I don?’t know the exact figures that our school district pays to the State Teachers Employees Retirement System but it is around 17 or 18% of their salary. Normally these teachers and staff pay the equitant of what they would pay for Social Security which is around 6.1% (I believe) the other 1.4% goes to MEDICARE. When we complain about our congressmen getting great retirement benefits don?’t forget the teachers of this state and other states employees.


In our recent history we find that this same union that has been given unbelievable powers by the state with its bargaining rights now can torpedo a school levy because they were not consulted before hand.

Now it seems to me that we as citizens and those that must pay for these outrageous benefits need to take back some of this power we have allowed to be bestowed on a class of people that now want to extort money from us by holding our children hostage.

Clearly in the 1980s President Reagan fired the public employees that dared to go on strike. They were the Air Traffic controllers. He caught a lot of heat for that but were the jobs of these fired air traffic controllers any more important than our public school teachers, with the generous benefits that these teachers have received over the years from the private sector?



By Scab

Employment at Will

One issue that we all must consider is the public safety with teachers allowed the right to strike then they must accept the public?’s right to fire them. I think the Public Collective Bargaining laws that this state has will bankrupt us all one day if it hasn?’t already.

The fact that we have allowed our teachers and these school systems go unchecked for years means we either will accept this line of thinking while a small portion of our (public employees) citizens are showered with extra benefits while the private ?“WORKING CLASS?” is employed at ?“WILL?” in this state.

If we are going to allow Collecting Bargaining in this state by our public employees then we must also give the state and local governments some relief in how they administer these contracts and the condition of employment for these public employees. I don?’t believe they should have both. One of the main reasons for a labor union is job security. In the years of the Great Depression these unions fought for that job security and job benefits. Today that system has got out of hand.

I read on this web site a number of months back that the rest of us that are not unionized should form our own unions or stop our complaining. That is a sad commentary for where we are. It was probably a school teacher trying to protect their lavish benefits package and not thinking of where the money that comes to appear in their paychecks twice a month really comes from.

I think the state legislature needs to review and take action on these public employees unions and reduced their power over the state and local governments. I don?’t believe these employees should have it both ways. Either they get the great retirement and other benefits and give up their right to unions or the state declares them essential employees and the school districts have the right to fire them in the case of a strike.









By Scab

When do we work for them?

Take a look at the graph on the front page of yesterday's Dispatch. Growth in government has far exceeded any other measure of economic activity. We are fast approacing a point where most folks pay only a token income tax and public employees have a high enough percentage of the work force that government tax and employment policies will favor them over us. They will continue to levy taxes and fees that further entrench their position. At some point a minority of the taxpayers will be supporting the rest of the population. And at that point you will loose all incentive and we will go the way of Rome.

Kids versus money

Picktown

I want to point out that School Teachers in the PLSD are government employees.

Second if you make a graph of the percentage of student population growth versus the operating budget growth you will find that the budget growth is out pacing the population growth by a considerable margin.



By Scab