HuskerDave wrote:DeWalt wrote:Based on recent City Council action, I'd have to say that the tide of public opinion has turned against the Fire Union's runaway gravy train. I'd bet that most of the city council members have been getting a LOT of heat from angry constituents.
Perhaps Omaha Fire Fighters will have to start living in the real world, along with all of us whose property taxes pay their salaries.
I'm sure the vast majority of rank-and-file firefighters are happy to be employed and have fair and reasonable benefits.
As is typical, however, it the union leadership who are bent on squeezing every red cent that they can out of taxpayers. And - as we've seen around the country, public sector unions have had far too much influence over the people across the negotiating table, who are
supposed to be representing the taxpayers.
If/when the Employees Union bleeds a privately owned company dry, the company either goes bankrupt or changes ownership, driving the Union back to square one. It's a hard-core system of checks & balances.
When Public Employees Unions bleed municipalities dry, there is no recourse but higher taxes. Municipalities simply do not "go broke." There is no real built-in system of checks & balances. Nothing to stop the exponential growth of public employee wages and benefits. Nothing happens until some sort of "critical mass" is reached, and all heck breaks loose.
THAT is what has happened in Omaha. People have become aware of what Public Employee Unions are demanding and getting, and have become livid. It is absolutely asinine that a 47-year old Fire Captain - who never went to college - is now retired and making DOUBLE what a school teacher makes, every year, for the rest of his life. WHO GETS BENEFITS LIKE THAT?
Not only is there a demand to stop Public Employee Union Benefits GROWTH, there is a demand to REVERSE those outrageous benefits.
