Opinion: Public employees are under siege

There is an assault on public employees that is on-going and unwarranted.

A recent letter to the editor in the Flint Journal suggested that one way to bring down the federal deficit is to just cut the pay of all federal government workers by 10 percent. The letter was written by an old high school classmate of mine — one who had prospered in the insurance business for nearly 40 years before retiring.

He would have the clerical person earning $40,000 annually who inputs the data to make sure that his social security check is accurate take a $4,000 pay cut. And the mail carrier, at about $50,000 per year — the one delivering his SS check — could take a $5,000 pay cut. The attorney in the Justice Department who guards against Social Security fraud could take an $8,000 cut — and so on.  It goes without saying, of course, that he would not want any cuts in his social security.

And why these cuts?

To pay for two wars — mostly.  And to prevent all of us — public employees and private sector ones alike — from paying an extra $2 to $3 per week in taxes. So public employees could take a $5,000 hit rather than all of us taking a $150 hit.

I'm missing the logic.

Now it is critical to keep in mind that when employees in the public sector are measured against employees in the private sector — taking into account the levels of education and training - the public sector employees already make about seven to 10 percent less. The key is that one must compare employees with comparable education and training.

Another study that compared all private and all public employees showed just the opposite. But that was comparing the grocery bagger at the local grocery store and the attorney in the Securities and Exchange Commission equally.

At the state level, the Michigan Senate recently passed a resolution that could require all state public employees — including school and university employees — to take a five percent cut and have no increases for three years as well as making them pay a larger portion of their health care.

Why ask the public employees to take this kind of rather draconian hit? Because the alternative is to ask all citizens to pay an additional few cents a day to maintain the vital services we all use on a daily basis. It just doesn't make sense.

A few facts that are not widely known:

• All Michigan citizens are now paying income taxes at a lower rate than 10 years ago under the previous governor.
• Most businesses have a lower tax rate today than under the previous governor.
• There are about 12,000 fewer state government employees today than under the previous governor.
• Overall, there are about 43,000 fewer government employees - all levels of government today, than under the previous governor.
• Most public employees have already taken "a hit" in the form of pay freezes, un-paid furlough days, health care and pension concessions and so on.

There is an assault on public employees that is unreasonable. These are the folks who make sure our water is safe to drink, who maintain our parks, who  police the streets and protect us from fire, who maintain or plow the roads, who teach our kids, who mop up after them in school and so on.

They deserve better.

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Jack Minore is a retired teacher, former long-serving city councilperson, former legislator and active in a number of political and environmental groups— notably the Flint River Watershed Coalition and Friends of the Flint River Trail. Jack was in the original group that formed East Village Magazine.