Billionaire: Public Sector workers the "new privileged class"....

[Bennyboy]

In the ideological assault being directed today at public sector workers no one has outdone Mortimer Zuckerman — billionaire real estate and publishing mogul, owner of the New York Daily News and chairman and editor-in-chief of U.S. News and World Report — who declared in September that public sector workers are a “privileged new class” dominating U.S. society. Populists, Zuckerman (the 182nd wealthiest American in 2010) pronounced, have long gotten away with their insidious “class warfare speeches” emphasizing “the gulf between the rich and the poor.” The aim has been to divert attention from society’s real ruling class: public sector workers. Forget the corporate rich, forget Wall Street, forget the bank bailouts, corporate bonuses and high-income tax breaks, forget the private jets and mansions. It is the millions of “public servants” with their outrageous five-digit salaries and their galling health insurance and retirement pensions, Zuckerman insisted, who have now become “the public’s masters,” seizing a disproportionate share of society’s rewards and bringing on the failures of the U.S. economy.


Dianne Brown, executive vice-president of CWA local 1033, leads a protest in front of the Mary G. Roebling Building in Trenton, N.J. on March 18, 2010. Photo: AP/ Rich Schultz

Such views might be grimly amusing, if it weren’t for the fact that similar opinions are now widely disseminated in the corporate media and voiced daily by politicians. What we are witnessing is a concerted attack on government at all levels, extending to public sector workers and their unions. It is out of control government spending, we are told, that is at the root of all our economic woes. Public sector workers, it is claimed, enjoy higher salaries, greater job security, and more ample benefits than their private sector counterparts, while continually demanding and getting more. It is time that they shared in the crisis of the rest of the society.

It doesn’t seem to matter to those making such charges that all of this is false — as long as they have the power to spread such misinformation and people are sufficiently gullible.



READ MORE: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/need-to-know/voices/public-sector-workers-are-a-privileged-new-class-says-billionaire/6442/

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Of course a true elite would say that. Private sector workers are generally getting the shaft, so by

stirring them up against their public sector counterparts and getting their benefits/salaries/wages lowered, the billionaires can benefit from their workers feeling better about their situations without ever having to actually improve their conditions.

[FiveGoodMen]

2. Its about time we started fighting back

[vankuria]

3. As a newly retired public employee

I'm not part of any "privileged class", not while working and certainly not as a retiree. I worked for 32 yrs in the area of mental health/mental hygiene, the last 16 as a Social Worker. I did a job not many people would want, dealing with complex issues and many times having my safety and health compromised. I worked in a building that was falling apart with a leaky roof, you couldn't drink the water and the plumbing was scary. We were understaffed and for almost a year didn't even have a secretary to do clerical work. I paid into my retirment fund for 22 years with 3% taken out of every paycheck and a large chunk deducted for health insurance premiums. I just retired last Sept. and I've earned every cent of my modest pension. Many of my fellow retirees have taken part-time positions to supplement their pensions. I am sick and tired of public sector employees being made a scapegoat for our current economic climate. I also want to add public sector employees are among the most dedicated and hard working employees any employer could hope for. Many perform jobs that are very difficult and dangerous. They deserve every bit of the compensation they recieve.

[txlibdem]

8. Some advice

My daughter is taking a hiatus from college while she re-evaluates her goals. She plans to get her BS in social work and wants to be a social worker. I looked up online what a social worker makes, which makes me worried that she won't be able to repay her student loans (and be able to live). Do you have any advice for her?

[vankuria]

12. Yes

For anyone graduating with a degree in human services the best option is still the public sector. I live in New York State and the public sector has afforded me a very good living and farily good retirement. However as you know the public sector is under fire across the country and is a scapegoat for everything thats wrong with the country. Still, unions are battling up for this fight and to protect their members. I believe the way things are going the most vulnerable people in our society will be put at tremendous risk due to the cutback of services and many people who can't get services will end up in long term care which is very costly and county and local gov'ts cannot afford as is. Hopefully this will cause things to change for the better, at least I'm hoping. And congratulations to your daughter for picking a career in Social Work. Our highest calling in life is to help others less fortunate and she should find her work very satisfying. Good luck!

[qb]

4. This meme must be in the official GOP talking points.

Former MN Governor Tim Pawlenty slammed government employees and unions in the WSJ last month.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703766704576009350303578410.html

I'd like to meet this "average" federal employee who makes $123k. If that number is genuine it is slanted by some hefty upper-management salaries.

[Bennyboy]

5. You know it is....

hammer away at it and the idiots will eat it up.

[Angry Dragon]

6. little timmy is a crook just like the rest of them

he cares not for anyone else

[saras]

7. That's what averages do.

"I'd like to meet this "average" federal employee who makes $123k. If that number is genuine it is slanted by some hefty upper-management salaries."

Mathematically, that's what averages do.

100 people with $10k/year income. Ten people with $1 million/year income. Average income $100k.

It's possible that a fair number of people on the street don't get this without doing the math, but there's no way in hell someone gets to be a successful businessperson without understanding this sort of math perfectly well.

That is to say, he knows it's deceptive and is doing it anyways.

If you want a better representation, you use the median income - the number where half the workers make less and half the workers make more.

[Kweli4Real]

9. As a Government Human Resources guy ...

I can tell you, we get Public Information Requests from people trying to support their "over-paid government worker" claim. So this number is not unfamiliar to me.

Well, we spent a couple of hours trying to come up with that number. (BTW, all of us were working on a project after 6:00pm ... all of us are exempt employees)

We found how he arrived at the figure (assuming that he didn't just pull the number out of his butt). What he did (as best as we can figure) was take the total federal wage and salary pay-roll (including the wage and salary line from federally contracted work) and then he added in the total value of benefits, including employee contributions to supplemental retirement accounts, e.g., deferred comp.

Then he divided that number by the number of full-time, permanent, non-contracted employees.

[Blue_Tires]

10. yeah, they've been playing it up huge

it started with teachers, and now it's morphed into all public workers...

[benld74]

11. Mortimer? The last time I heard that name I was a kid,,,,

Mortimer Snerd was a ventriloquist doll used by Edgar Bergen. Charlie Mccarthy was the 'real star; though. I say I was a kid, but these entertainers were on the way out. They had their day, and were fading.
We can only hope this idiotic verbiage is also on the way out.