Open Letter to Those Who Attack Public Service Workers

[Hannah Bell]

Public service workers are not the problem.

Attacking public service workers will not create jobs.

Attacking public service workers will not solve the problem of trying to save the vital public services that so many rely on.

The only thing attacking public service workers does is divert attention from the real culprits of our country's economic troubles and inequality:

You, greedy Wall Street CEOs, politicians in Washington who turn a blind eye, and all right-wing talking heads who spin lies.

When you attack public employees you are attacking the very folks whose work you benefit from — from providing basic public safety, to fixing potholes in the roads you drive on, to making sure clean water runs from your tap.

No more. It's time to stop the lies.

On the front page, cable news and talk radio, public service workers are under attack every day. Enough is enough. It's time for us to fight back. Join us by adding your name to our open letter.

http://www.afscme.org/stopthelies/



Recently, the former publisher of the Las Vegas Review-Journal wrote a column saying Public Employee Pensions had "metastasized into grotesque shadows of their initial good intention." He blamed workers' pensions for all kinds of things and pushed private savings plans as the future of retirement.

That just doesn't make sense.

So AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer Lee Saunders set the record straight by demonstrating that pensions make sense while privatized retirement accounts put retirees at risk. He also made it clear that AFSCME would aggressively go after those who are "eager to do the bidding of the Wall Street firms that profit at the expense of workers."

The campaign calls out Right-Wing mistruths on issues such as Social Security, the deficit and tax cuts for the very wealthy.

We will use every communications tool at our disposal to dispel the myths and reveal the hypocrisy.

It won't be easy - even as we begin, Beck falsely claims AFSCME is part of a conspiracy to
silence right-wing media.

But we are good at standing up and fighting.

And what's at stake for Working Families is nothing less than the future.

http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=1889§ion=Article

[Sherman A1]

1. It's always so nice to beat up on public employees, but

when the streets are not plowed, the parks showing some wear, the pot holes not repaired or the trash not collected.. who do we call?

Public employees work hard and deserve both their pensions and our respect. Just as do all workers.

[ashleyforachange]

3. it not them....

It not that they workers are not doing their job it the people who are running the show that make it impossible to do it. Instead of looking at the people who are suppose to plow the street, clean the park, and repair potholes look at the people who are running the office. Trust me the public service employees know what needs to be done but they cannot do it if the administration says no.

[rpannier]

2. K&R

[dkf]

4. The problem is the public never came to terms with the taxes needed to fund these benefits.

So politicians have kept taxes low and underfunded them for years. Now the time to pay is way overdue and the bill gets larger every day.

The political sell to raise taxes to preserve benefits most won't receive themselves needs a tremendous sales job indeed. A politician still wants to be reelected. Will this work to get them there or not?

[medeak]

5. Have three different state agencies as tenants

It's common to find them all playing cards in back room, knitting, and most popular of all...playing computer games. But am not complaining as they pay rent on time.

[timo]

6. i hear you

but the lousy cops and county mow guys who take a 2 hour break and nap in the shade of the tree at the corner of the farm really piss me off!! as do the cliche scene of 8 guys standing around while 2 guys do the work!! and I am a little tired of reading headlines stating that the local county commissioner has plead guilty to stealing all the pot hole budget and has had 2 undoccumented workers as her maids on the county payroll for 8 years, things like that make me a little pissy when it comes time to mail in my property tax check.

[Reader Rabbit]

7. Corporations don't want the comparison.

If their wage slaves start saying, "Why don't we get what they get?" how will they be able to continue screwing them into the ground? Much better to convince them that public workers don't deserve what they get. This "if I don't get it, then neither should they" argument only benefits the corporate wealth-hoarders.

[Davis_X_Machina]

8. The new new...

The 2012 election will be fought almost entirely on the war-on-public-employees front. GOP R&D has finally found a message they think will work:

* It's bi-partisan -- you can find threads here vilifying public-sector workers, and especially their retirement provisions
* It's not (overtly) racist -- but we know who those public-sector workers mostly are, right?
* Its appeal is not restricted to the Confederacy and the West.
* It's not overtly religious.

Crab-bucket syndrome* is a winning platform in tough times, especially in a country whose favorite white meat isn't chicken, it's scapegoat.

*"If my job sucks, yours has to, too. If I lose my job, you have to lose yours, too."