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Well $1000 to $1500 per year of service is a pretty large incentive to most people, couple that with raising the cap on cahing in vacation and sick days will make this even more costly in the long run.
The federal government caps cash payments mostly at 140 hours and is gradually removing any cash payments, No cash in for sick leave but it can be applied to retirement time. Allowing the NCPD cash payments of $500,000 for unused time is nuts. Most private companies have no cash payments at all.
All of the items you cite are the subject of collective bargaining agreements. And that's the only way they'll change.
What the corporate world does is not relevant. The fact that corporate America has elected to screw its employees in its quest for ever-higher profits is not my concern. (How well are all those 401k retirement plans working out?)
Not too long ago cops made half of what telephone repairman made -- with no overtime. (And there were tons of applicants because people were drawn to the profession as a calling, not for the pay or benefits.) I don't recall a whole lot of outrage when most cops were forced to work side jobs just to survive. We all make choices in life. Some work out better than others.
I don't know how you can call yourself a Republican and at the same time support these collective bargaining abuses. Did you support the UAW running our auto industry into the ground? You are 100% correct that these perks were negotiated in the past. However, these were NOT arms length negotiations. Essentially, you had the union on one side and the taxpayer on the other side. The taxpayer was represented in its negotiations by its agent...the politicians. Unfortunately, the taxpayer's agent was in bed with the unions. Yes, there was wining and dining, backroom deals, favors, campaign contributions...you name it. Without that, there would be NO WAY any sane person would have agreed to these contracts given the huge supply of police labor desperate to get a job in NCPD.
Therefore the taxpayer was represented in these "negotiations" by an agent who had a major conflict of interest with the other side. There was nothing arms length about these negotiations and they did not represent the interest of the taxpayer. You keep saying these contracts are "legal". I'm not sure that is true anymore. Under contract law, fraud is a defense to proper contract formation. I believe a fraud was committed on the people of LI by its politicians. That's how badly skewed these contracts are.
I admire your posts and your grasp of details, but I've never seen you once acknowledge the skewed bargaining during the collective bargaining process. People are out there struggling...I mean really struggling...and many of them are conservatives just like you and me. If we really care about the free market, lowering public debt, and reducing the size of government, then we must be consistent and attack it at all levels. That means Suozzi's crony deals should be repudiated (which Smash fails to do). It also means that the corrupt collective bargaining process in Nassau and Suffolk must be exposed and remedied before it is too late (which you fail to acknowledge).
We need NCPD to make more concessions before we implode. Everyone has to tighten their belt....the service workers, civil servants, police, administrators, teachers...everyone.
[FONT=Arial]Well then let me be more direct, even 20-30 years ago when the salary was lower there was a waiting list for NCPD. If you lowered the salary there would still be plenty applicants begging to get a position. There is no need to pay those types of benefits to a public employee. The job is not as bad as you make it out to be.[/FONT]
Twenty or thirty years ago, everyone's salary was lower. You're not suggesting a return to 1980 salaries, are you?
And I don't think you can apply your statement across the board to all public employees. The starting salaries for pretty much all of them suck as it is.
As for your second point, unless you've been a cop or other member of law enforcement, or very close to one--and I don't mean your sister's husband's cousin, but close enough to know the daily grind and b.s.--I'm not so sure that you have talking room to declare what is or is not "bad," so we will have to agree to disagree on your last point. Never mind what I've heard directly from the horse's mouth, and never mind the injuries I've seen from everything from "altercations" and "incidents" to car wrecks. One well-placed bullet and it's a moot point.
Threads like this crack me up. They make it sound like civil servants are living high on the hog. They're not. My mother was one. My guy is one. I've lived and worked among more than a few during my time on the planet, through my family, contracting, and so on.
Someone else mentioned that half the money goes right back to the government in the form of taxes. Yep.
And the ones who eventually make enough to move out of their parents' houses or ditch roommates (mid to late 20s, usually) and then buy a house pay the same property taxes as everyone else. Quite a few have to live a good hour's drive from their workplace, same as everyone else on the Island. More than a few do other things on the side, not because they really want to, but because they have to, especially the ones who have kids. The spouses of nearly all of them who are married and have kids work because they need the second income, just like everyone else.
So, sorry, folks, I'm just not buying 90% of the complaints. It seems like most of the grousing is based on what people read in the paper, and if you're relying on Newsday, there's some swampland in Arizona I'd like to sell you.
I don't anticipate that anything anyone says will change how anyone on this board feels, because it seems a few people are just bent on the subject. All anyone can do is say, "Yep. Try it some time. Walk a mile."
Until you do, you're not going to change how I feel, either.
I don't know how you can call yourself a Republican and at the same time support these collective bargaining abuses. Did you support the UAW running our auto industry into the ground? You are 100% correct that these perks were negotiated in the past. However, these were NOT arms length negotiations. Essentially, you had the union on one side and the taxpayer on the other side. The taxpayer was represented in its negotiations by its agent...the politicians. Unfortunately, the taxpayer's agent was in bed with the unions. Yes, there was wining and dining, backroom deals, favors, campaign contributions...you name it. Without that, there would be NO WAY any sane person would have agreed to these contracts given the huge supply of police labor desperate to get a job in NCPD.
Therefore the taxpayer was represented in these "negotiations" by an agent who had a major conflict of interest with the other side. There was nothing arms length about these negotiations and they did not represent the interest of the taxpayer. You keep saying these contracts are "legal". I'm not sure that is true anymore. Under contract law, fraud is a defense to proper contract formation. I believe a fraud was committed on the people of LI by its politicians. That's how badly skewed these contracts are.
I admire your posts and your grasp of details, but I've never seen you once acknowledge the skewed bargaining during the collective bargaining process. People are out there struggling...I mean really struggling...and many of them are conservatives just like you and me. If we really care about the free market, lowering public debt, and reducing the size of government, then we must be consistent and attack it at all levels. That means Suozzi's crony deals should be repudiated (which Smash fails to do). It also means that the corrupt collective bargaining process in Nassau and Suffolk must be exposed and remedied before it is too late (which you fail to acknowledge).
We need NCPD to make more concessions before we implode. Everyone has to tighten their belt....the service workers, civil servants, police, administrators, teachers...everyone.
Never called myself a Republican. And I think it's quite a stretch to label labor negotiations as corrupt and fraudulent.
Lots of opinions on this topic, but they're all just that - opinions.
Pdcnret,
I don't know how you can call yourself a Republican and at the same time support these collective bargaining abuses.
Party affiliation has nothing to do with this. If it did, I could pull out the "Democrats are soft on crime" theme.
The traditional party split is that Democrats side with unions and labor, and Republicans side with the suits, true.
BUT the traditional party split is also that Republicans side with law enforcement, union or not. Law enforcement is not considered "labor" like the UAW. Supporting law enforcement goes up on the GOP platform along with supporting capital punishment and getting rid of parole. The GOP is the first to point fingers at Democrats when the number of police goes down, and the GOP will invariably tie a low number of police under a Democratic administration to higher crime rates. Being "soft on crime" is an image problem Democrats have had to fight as long as I've been old enough to vote.
To keep this a little more local, Rudy Giuliani's clean-up of New York after David Dinkins is a prime example of the traditional party split.
So, bringing parties into it, on either side, is tenuous.
Twenty or thirty years ago, everyone's salary was lower. You're not suggesting a return to 1980 salaries, are you?
And I don't think you can apply your statement across the board to all public employees. The starting salaries for pretty much all of them suck as it is.
As for your second point, unless you've been a cop or other member of law enforcement, or very close to one--and I don't mean your sister's husband's cousin, but close enough to know the daily grind and b.s.--I'm not so sure that you have talking room to declare what is or is not "bad," so we will have to agree to disagree on your last point. Never mind what I've heard directly from the horse's mouth, and never mind the injuries I've seen from everything from "altercations" and "incidents" to car wrecks. One well-placed bullet and it's a moot point.
Threads like this crack me up. They make it sound like civil servants are living high on the hog. They're not. My mother was one. My guy is one. I've lived and worked among more than a few during my time on the planet, through my family, contracting, and so on.
Someone else mentioned that half the money goes right back to the government in the form of taxes. Yep.
And the ones who eventually make enough to move out of their parents' houses or ditch roommates (mid to late 20s, usually) and then buy a house pay the same property taxes as everyone else. Quite a few have to live a good hour's drive from their workplace, same as everyone else on the Island. More than a few do other things on the side, not because they really want to, but because they have to, especially the ones who have kids. The spouses of nearly all of them who are married and have kids work because they need the second income, just like everyone else.
So, sorry, folks, I'm just not buying 90% of the complaints. It seems like most of the grousing is based on what people read in the paper, and if you're relying on Newsday, there's some swampland in Arizona I'd like to sell you.
I don't anticipate that anything anyone says will change how anyone on this board feels, because it seems a few people are just bent on the subject. All anyone can do is say, "Yep. Try it some time. Walk a mile."
Until you do, you're not going to change how I feel, either.
First off I don't think anyone is saying we should go back to th 80's type salaries. Nor is anyone saying cops shouldn't be paid well. My Uncle, who is now retired from the force was a cop in NYC for over 20 years. I have no problems with paying cops well, and they should be. However, when you are dealing with taxpayer $$$ you need to have some sort of limits put in place.
The $400,000 to $500,000 payouts in addition to annual six figure pensions they will already get, all of which is taxpayer funded is just very poor policy, even if its just some senior level officers.
Yeah, it was the UAW that drove the auto industry into the ground. It had nothting to do with the auto makers building an inferior product that no one wanted to buy thereby losing market share and earning less money.
Yeah, it was the UAW that drove the auto industry into the ground. It had nothting to do with the auto makers building an inferior product that no one wanted to buy thereby losing market share and earning less money.
You clearly haven't studied the auto mess and how much money the auto makers have tied up in pension liabilities. We are talking 10's of billions. There is no way the US automakers could put enough capital into research and development, design, and quality control to compete with the Germans and the Japanese. Why? Because they were busy paying outlandish union benefits.
This isn't even an argument.
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