RI Teacher Union Leader shoot self in foot
Our friends over at AnkleBitingPundits had this news / commentary snippet:
If you want a perfect example of the “gimme” mentality of teacher’s unions and just how out of touch their leaders are with the real world, look no further than this article. As you may recall a few months ago we wrote about how Rhode Island teacher’s unions couldn’t face the reality that they were getting gold plated retirement benefits. Now a new study came out showing how each retiree could get as much as $1.1 million over the course of their retirement, and how good they have it.
Well, now a study has come out showing that the state is $4.9 billion in the hole for these costs and are looking to try and solve this seemingly insurmountable problem. And how does Robert Walsh, the head of the Rhode Island NEA respond? Well, just read.
But Walsh rejects the argument advanced by Governor Carcieri that the state needs to bring its employee benefits — including pensions — “back in line” with what private-sector workers get.
On the retirement front, Walsh said: “All you have to do is look at what happened to the market in the last three weeks to understand why private accounts and 401(k)s don’t offer nearly the security of a defined benefit plan,” he said. Estimating that one out of five private-sector workers in Rhode Island still has a defined benefit plan — with guaranteed income no matter what happens on the stock market — Walsh said of the other 80 percent with no such guarantees: “We are never going to compete with folks, with employers who are so ridiculous they do not provide retirement security plans for their employees.
“If they don’t, they are terrible people and they shouldn’t be allowed to exist and that’s always going to be the union position on those issues,” he said.
You got that? According to Mr. Walsh’s typical union thug mentality, unless a company promises retirement benefits to workers that bankrupt the company, they are “terrible” and “shouldn’t be allowed to exist”.
Basically he’s talking about 90% of the companies out there that have to survive financially in the real world that know such a system is unsustainable. But Mr. Walsh and his ilk have been sucking off the public teat for so long they are utterly blind to reality and doesn’t care one damn bit about the taxpayers that pay the lion share of these costs.
And somebody ought to ask this financially ignorant fool that what the hell does he care what happens to the stock market? It doesn’t matter to him because the taxpayers just pay more for his and his union’s guaranteed income - in addition to having to save for their own retirement. Unlike his lucky ass, nobody bails them out. But that’s the liberal and union mindset - everybody needs to be bailed out by the taxpayer.
And while he’s bashing the market why doesn’t he take one minute to think that it’s because of the market, and the contributions of the taxpayers that he’s able to have his gold-plated benefits. His union members can retire at 55 and collect about $38,000/year (plus a guaranteed 3% yearly increase) for the rest of their lives.
He actually thinks it’s in his benefit that Rhode Island teachers contribute a whopping 8.75% of their pay toward their pension costs. Big damn deal. The state - meaning the taxpayers - kick in about 21% of total payroll. In the real world companies match contributions up to about 6%. Rhode Island teachers get about have their contributions nearly triple matched.
Somebody might want to tell Mr. Walsh to shut the hell up and take a look at the real world. And please don’t say I’m bashing public school teachers here. My dad is a retired public school teacher, I’ve got 4 aunts and uncles who are retired public school teachers, and my brother and wife are currently teaching in the public schools.
It’s the gimme mentality of these union leaders that gets me irritated. And yes, if the teachers blindly follow the garbage spewed out by these leaders then they too are just as guilty as being financially blind and ignorant, not to mention greedy.
After all, it's always "for the children", isn't it? With individual teachers, more than likely. I think Bull Dog got up a head full of steam, however, when looking not at teachers but at unions. Face it, unions exist for the betterment of their members just as companies should be enriching their owners - that's what they both do. And power dictates who gets the better of the deal in many cases.
