Shadow bosses --unions corrupting America

Wondered if anyone had read this book yet?

http://www.amazon.com/Shadowbosses-Government-Control-America-Taxpayers/dp/1455522740

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2012/08/20/Federal-workers-earn-twice-as-much-as-private-workers

"Here’s the bottom line, according to Shadowbosses: government service is now more lucrative than the private sector. Federal government workers reportedly averaged more than twice the salary and benefits of an average private sector worker. Even more unbelievably, there are fully 459,016 federal workers who make over $100,000 in salary – one in five federal workers.
They earn like that because many of them are members of public sector unions. And those unions work hand in glove with politicians – particularly Democratic politicians like Barack Obama – to ensure friendly people on the other side of the bargaining table. The corrupt cycle works like this: Democratic politicians negotiate rich wages and benefits for union members with taxpayer cash; the union members then pay union dues; the unions use that money to re-elect the Democratic politicians. Everybody wins, except the taxpayers."

tallen702 21 August 2012 at 10:00am   Quote   Reply
I'd just like to point out that it's not solely due to public sector unions FE. My FIL was a civie for the DoD and he made 6-figures in what I'd consider a mid-level job, and was non-union. What he did have, was his PhD. If you delve a little deeper into the statistics on those in the fed making greater than 100,000/year, almost all have a post-graduate degree in their field of work. The federal government has ALWAYS placed an emphasis on education as a means to better compensation and thus, pays accordingly. Due to the number of federal employees (yes, even the military) OPM has to rely on a uniform system of pay-grades or "pay schedules" to make an attempt to fairly compensate all of its employees on objective criteria rather than subjective. This isn't to say that it's a particularly good system, but rather that it's the fairest one anyone's been able to come up with so far that works.

Now, do public sector unions influence pay and benefits for public sector employees? Of course they do, that's what they were created to do. But the reality is that the public sector employees have been hemorrhaging benefits at the same pace (or faster) than public sector employees have been. Also, remember that these people do NOT get social security benefits on top of their pension benefits like private sector employees do. No medicare, no SSI, etc.

Edited by tallen702 - 21 August 2012 at 10:01am