Liberals don't claim that the government should renege on a contract that was lawfully entered into with a military contractor. In fact, nobody claims that, ever. Yet whenever local budgets are crunched, we always hear about how greedy the municipal workers are. You know what policemen and highway workers get paid?
I've negotiated union deals from the government side. I negotiated fairly, in good faith, and nobody attempted to bribe me with campaign contributions or do 1/10 of the stuff that regularly happens in Washington with military contractors.
Your assumption that the deal must be crooked because it's paying workers is ridiculous. How about the fact that they were out of money because they were cooking the books? How come the workers have to pay for that screwup?
Liberals generally favor making it easier to renege on contracts when the financial consequences of paying off one's debt might be dire. Here is Krugman's opinion on the topic:
The workers pay for the screwup just like any other creditor would. It's not as if OC bondholders were paid off but workers were not.
In general, I assume a deal is crooked when one party gets consistently above-market rates for their product, when there are laws on the books explicitly giving one party massive advantages, and when the political interference of one party is plain to see for anyone with a TV.
> You know what policemen and highway workers get paid?
Policemen get paid a lot of money where I live. (http://sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=1655). Personally I think an entry-level pay of $80k for someone with only a high-school diploma is pretty good. There are other areas in the Bay where pay is even higher, like Oakland.
They work in a city where it's difficult to buy a home for less than a million dollars. Contrary to your assertion, further highly specialized education beyond a bachelor's degree is required to be a police officer (hint: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Police_Department... ). Also contrary to your assertion, it appears starting pay is no higher in Oakland than SF (hint: http://www.opdjobs.com/ ). They perform a very important service and risk their lives doing it. They deserve every cent IMO.
> They work in a city where it's difficult to buy a home for less than a million dollars.
Yet Starbucks baristas still get paid the same as anywhere else (modulo some minor cost of living adjustments) and don't get to retire at 50 with 90% of their last year's income (which should be a good deal more than the starting salary).
> further highly specialized education beyond a bachelor's degree
You should say "separate from," since all that is required to join is a high school diploma: http://sf-police.org/index.aspx?page=1646. Then, I suppose, you must attend police academy, but it's not clear from your links exactly how much time you have to spend there. Given that the mayor cancelled two thirds of their classes, either the force must have cut hiring by 66% or those classes are not required for all kinds of police duty. That "hint" bit was rude, I should know since I troll occasionally too, but you'd be better off avoiding it if you want people to listen to you.
> Also contrary to your assertion, it appears starting pay is no higher in Oakland than SF.
I believe my claim was about overall pay, not starting pay, for Oakland. That said, I don't have numbers to back that up. I can only say, "I heard it from Michael Krasny on Forum." Being that he seems to lean left, I don't see any reason for him to exaggerate the pay of unionized government workers, but it's possible he got it wrong or I am not remembering correctly.
> They perform a very important service and risk their lives doing it. They deserve every cent IMO.
Being a policeman is not really that risky. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_officer#Line_of_duty_dea.... Pizza drivers are at greater risk of death and you don't see them getting paid six figures for their work. Politicians beholden to unions is a much better explanation. I do believe they deserve to get paid something, but I don't think their jobs are so hard that they should have money thrown at them the way they do.
It's fine for you to "feel" the way you do, but to my eyes you haven't provided much rational justification for it.
My wife happens to be a teacher in L.A. (not lausd). Her entry level salary was barely 40k and she is now in the 50k range after 6 years. I'm a programmer with less education, less years of experience, and I make more than double what she makes. If they are getting a posh deal I sure as hell don't see it.
But, neither of our single data points says anything about the situation. I'm assuming most people on here took statistics and understand that both are meaningless. We need the average, and the standard deviation at a minimum to say anything meaningful.
> If they are getting a posh deal I sure as hell don't see it.
We were talking about policemen and road workers, but now that you mention teachers, we can talk about them too. Among other things, it's almost impossible for them to get fired and their raises don't seem to be connected to performance. They also get to take three months off during the summer, bringing their annualized salary up to about 70k. If you throw their pension plans into the mix, it is actually very profitable compared to most employment pursuits available to liberal arts majors.
Also, it's hard to compare the deal they are getting versus the one you are getting, because unlike yours, the price on teachers' labor is not set in a market environment. You might also say that the labor of a construction worker or fast food cook is more back-breaking and intensive than yours, but ultimately that is not the criterion on which wages are decided. The same goes for level of education and experience. None of these are the sole factors that determine what an individual's labor is worth.
most programmers pay isn't related to their performance, hell most ceos pay isn't related to their performance, so that's a red herring.
I'd love to know what factors actually set programmer or ceo pay. Saying, "market factors" is just hand waving.
Now on to the specifics. According to this article they probably aren't going to get the pension they were promised since it's insolvent. They don't get 3 months off, exaggerating won't help your point. It's closer to two months. I get 3 weeks off.
So I'm still failing to see the posh deal. An insolvent pension, and an extra 5 weeks of vacation is traded for a loss of 60k of money right now. That's a pretty lousy deal if you ask me.
In NYC, teachers get july, august, 1 week of september, the week after christmas and a week of spring break. That's 2 months 3 weeks, though obviously this varies from place to place.
I'm not sure why you think teachers take a loss of 60k right now - most teachers are low human capital individuals and would not be earning $100k/year right out of college.
And yes, most programmers pay is related to their performance. Rock stars quickly get paid more, either at their current job or they quit and move on. If they suck, they get fired (a concept teachers may find somewhat foreign). That's what "market factors" means. In contrast, teacher pay is set by politics and longevity.
Also, most teachers get early retirement (at 55, vs 65 for the programmer) on a defined benefit pension. Maybe it's insolvent, but most likely the rest of us will be forced to pay. In contrast, if my 401k tanks, I'm fucked.
Ok, I wasn't counting holidays for my time off, only vacation days, so the difference is still the same.
I didn't earn 100k a year right out of college, your trying to change the facts of the comparison.
"And yes, most programmers pay is related to their performance."
It really isn't, it's based primarily on years of experience, who you know, and how outspokenly confident you are (regardless of whether the confidence is deserved). Every company I've ever been at has had programmers there were twice as productive as other programmers. They never got paid twice as much, and there was no correlation at all really, even it it isn't linear.
Every programmer I know with 5-10 years experience gets a salary within a narrow range.
"If they suck, they get fired (a concept teachers may find somewhat foreign)."
No they don't. I get the distinct impression that you have an ideal in your head that isn't remotely close to the reality. If you are at a company of any size it's very hard to fire someone.
I'm not counting holidays, I'm counting week long periods where NYC teachers don't have to work. Do you get spring break and a week long Christmas vacation at your job?
I got the number $100k from you: a teacher makes $40k, and when one takes a job as a teacher, "an extra 5 weeks of vacation is traded for a loss of 60k of money". Then I used fancy mathematics.
As for programmer pay, I'll just tell you the range from the last time I looked for a job. My lowest offer [1] was about 40% of my highest offer, but they weren't seeking great developers. I also happen to know of someone considerably better than me making 50% more (at the same level of experience).
As for firing the incompetent, I don't know what company you are talking about. Plenty of people get fired. In NYC, until very recently, they were paid to show up to rubber rooms for years.
[1] Not technically an offer, but salary was discussed.
Different people have different tolerance for risk, different preferences for activity, different sets of cultivated skills etc. Mine line up better with programming than teaching, and I can make more doing it to boot.
Earlier, you were claiming that teachers are getting a raw deal because you are paid so much better as a programmer. To put the previous paragraph in completely unambiguous terms, let me ask you this: "If programming is so great, why isn't your wife working as a programmer?" Does that really sound like a reasonable or relevant question to you?
Programming is a very difficult field to enter and it is very lucrative. You can't really compare the programming job vs any regular government job. Consider that most employees in private areas are probably more desk jobs (not programming) they get equivalent salaries minus all the lush retirement.
> You know what policemen and highway workers get paid?
$400,000.
Cops and some prison guards and firemen in most of New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, California, and other poorly managed jurisdictions with public unions average $300,000 to $500,000 in total compensation. To be fair, the job does require a bachelor's degree and not just a high school diploma. And you usually need a good friend who can pull strings to get you hired, obviously.
The mid career base salaries are about $150,000 and the pension plan usually are full final-year pay and benefits retirement at 45 or 50. That pension plan costs more in present value than the salary according to sane actuarial assumptions. Furthermore, there are effectively eight weeks of paid vacation, a short work week, generous overtime pay, and pensions are usually calculated based on final year pay including overtime and vacation cash-out so they can be well over official salary.
State highway workers get paid considerably more than the market rate paid by contractors but not as much as cops.
I've negotiated union deals from the government side. I negotiated fairly, in good faith, and nobody attempted to bribe me with campaign contributions or do 1/10 of the stuff that regularly happens in Washington with military contractors.
Your assumption that the deal must be crooked because it's paying workers is ridiculous. How about the fact that they were out of money because they were cooking the books? How come the workers have to pay for that screwup?