Screwed So Long They Can't See Straight

[ksmith]

This point has been made several times this weekend, and it's true:

Before the emergence of public unions, public employees were compensated significantly less than people in the private sector. The reason? Much of the private sector work force was unionized. What changed is not the public employees got a better deal, but that the private sector became deunionized, lost the right to bargain collectively, and saw their compensation and benefits stagnate or fall. But I have another question. Do taxpayers want public workers to get the smallest possible salaries? Do they want a government administered by paupers?

Crabs in a bucket. If we're slicing at one another, we're not paying attention to the folks with the pot of boiling water.

Wrong target.

Comments

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

"Do taxpayers want public workers to get the smallest possible salaries? Do they want a government administered by paupers?"

As a state employee, I can answer that: Yes. Rather, no: they want it administered by *slaves*. Everywhere in my state that I go, I get crap from taxpayers from every social and economic stratum. They don't even know what I do, they don't get past the "state employee" intro, and they already know that I do nothing for my wages except sit around on my fat fanny with my feet up on the desk, ignoring phone calls and emails and letters, doing nothing at all. Therefore, I should not get any salary at all - but I had better be there if one of them wants to try to use me to bludgeon someone else with a non-existent state law they are sure I could use for their benefit, if only I'd get off my butt and do it. When I explain there is no such law and I do not have that power, then it's clear to them that the rich and well-connected are obviously paying me off, and that's of course what they tell everybody in their lives who will listen once they've hung up angry.

Bitter? Who, me?

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I don't know what to say. Some of the things you see on TV and in movies don't help.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

Indeed - and my most fiery rage is directed at those government employees who only feed the stereotype, to the detriment of we 99% who are devoted to public service.

Here's one thing I've learned in 20 years: private sector employees think government employees wallow in gravy, and gov't employees think private sector employees do. Fact is the Powers that Be screw ALL of us, every chance they get, maybe in different ways, but we're all pawns.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

Fact is the Powers that Be screw ALL of us, every chance they get, maybe in different ways, but we're all pawns.

Yup, that "crabs in a bucket" analogy I've been seeing all weekend. *All* middle class and working class folks are in this together, and any division plays into the hands of the PTBs. They want us confused, angry, divided. It sounds so black helicopter, but it's true. Divide and conquer.

[threeoutside.livejournal.com]

So sad, so true.

[leahbobet.livejournal.com]

This would also be my experience after 2.5 years in the public sector. I kind of can't tell people where I work anymore.

[puddleshark.livejournal.com]

Crabs in a bucket... Oh, that describes it perfectly. In the UK, public sector workers are under constant attack in the newspapers because they have a decent pension provision. There's no talk about increasing pension provision in the private sector, so that we all have decent pensions. No, the public sector workers have to be dragged down into poverty in their old age as well as the rest of us.

[e-moon60.livejournal.com]

Love your analogy: absolutely right. As long as the PTB can keep the public's mind focused on some other small-fry who can be accused of being "unworthy", they have control of the stove, the water supply, and the bucket of crabs.

Time to swarm out of that bucket and put the pinch on the dangling part(iciple)s of the smug SOBs who put us IN the bucket.

[kristine-smith.livejournal.com]

I wish I could take credit for "crabs in a bucket," but I picked it up from the various political blogs that I read. Not sure where it originated, but it is perfect.