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There's 9 private sector jobs with higher fatality rate before police and fire isn't even in there at all. Where's the pension crisis for fishers and lumberjacks? If anyone then they deserve it.
fishers and related fishing workers: 116.0
logging workers: 91.9
aircraft pilots and flight engineers: 70.6
farmers and ranchers: 41.4
mining machine operators: 38.7
roofers: 32.4
refuse and recyclable material collectors: 29.8
driver/sales workers and truck drivers: 21.8
industrial machinery installation, repair and maintenance workers: 20.3, and
police and sheriff’s patrol officers: 18.0.
I disagree because there is one huge difference.
With the exception of police/sheriff deaths, the other occupational deaths tend to occur due to industrial accidents or environmental factors, such as weather conditions. They are, for the most part, preventable.
However, most police sheriff deaths are caused by physical violence (i.e. - ambushes, physical assaults, shootings, stabbings, etc.) and, for the most part, are not preventable due to the obvious necessity of having to enter potentially deadly situations instead of avoiding them.
There's 9 private sector jobs with higher fatality rate before police and fire isn't even in there at all. Where's the pension crisis for fishers and lumberjacks? If anyone then they deserve it.
fishers and related fishing workers: 116.0
logging workers: 91.9
aircraft pilots and flight engineers: 70.6
farmers and ranchers: 41.4
mining machine operators: 38.7
roofers: 32.4
refuse and recyclable material collectors: 29.8
driver/sales workers and truck drivers: 21.8
industrial machinery installation, repair and maintenance workers: 20.3, and
police and sheriff’s patrol officers: 18.0.
I wonder how many of these were killed by human hands? I wonder how many of these were assaulted by other human beings? I wonder how many were injured or killed running into a fire, or a situation, knowing that they might be injured or killed? I wonder how many lives were saved by these other sector employees? I wonder who has the highest risk of developing PTSD, next to combat veterans, that leads to mental and physical illness issues? Just wondering.
Phil and Hap, let's not belittle the injury risk of those in the most deadly professions. Tow truck driver is one of the most deadly professions there is ... similarly, many of the public-service deaths occur when highway patrol officers are killed on or alongside highways. And there is a reason taxi drivers, truckers, garbagemen, and pilots are ALL on the list.
It's dangerous to operate transport equipment, be it a truck or taxi or plane or car or a boat or heavy equipment or farm equipment...or a police cruiser or cycle.
The real problem with public employee pensions are those who earn more in retirement than they ever did working. That's nonsensical and those on the gravy train now are lucky because most young workers I doubt will see anything close to what their pension plan tells them to expect in terms of retirement payouts. All it takes is a municipal bankruptcy and then all creditors take a big haircut, a la Detroit.
I'd be scared to death to be on a public pension plan right now for that reason, unless it was the federal system since they can always print more money with little real-world consequence (amazingly) to pay their debts.
As a tax payer I would much rather pay our public service employees twice as much in salary and provide half as much in benefits and let them pay into Social Security and have 401k's like the rest of us. The cities and states would still come out ahead in that equation.
It's not just public safety, of course. Fun fact from a different state -- Illinois increased education spending by $9 billion during 2009-2014. Great for the kids, right? Until you find out that 89% of that $9 billion went to fund teacher pension plans. (source: IllinoisPolicy.com) That's what we need to avoid with all state and city pension plans in Arizona. Deal with the problems now or they become all-devouring hydras as in states like Illinois.
It also makes you think twice about focusing on per-pupil numbers. I haven't yet found similar data for Arizona...our state used to be much smaller so our pension problems are slight compared to most states, but don't sleep on perpetual obligations...people live longer and longer every year and as our state has grown, there have been more and more people on these plans.
Location: Live:Downtown Phoenix, AZ/Work:Greater Los Angeles, CA
27,606 posts, read 14,596,838 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ScottsdaleMark
Phil and Hap, let's not belittle the injury risk of those in the most deadly professions. Tow truck driver is one of the most deadly professions there is ... similarly, many of the public-service deaths occur when highway patrol officers are killed on or alongside highways. And there is a reason taxi drivers, truckers, garbagemen, and pilots are ALL on the list.
It's dangerous to operate transport equipment, be it a truck or taxi or plane or car or a boat or heavy equipment or farm equipment...or a police cruiser or cycle.
The real problem with public employee pensions are those who earn more in retirement than they ever did working. That's nonsensical and those on the gravy train now are lucky because most young workers I doubt will see anything close to what their pension plan tells them to expect in terms of retirement payouts. All it takes is a municipal bankruptcy and then all creditors take a big haircut, a la Detroit.
I'd be scared to death to be on a public pension plan right now for that reason, unless it was the federal system since they can always print more money with little real-world consequence (amazingly) to pay their debts.
As a tax payer I would much rather pay our public service employees twice as much in salary and provide half as much in benefits and let them pay into Social Security and have 401k's like the rest of us. The cities and states would still come out ahead in that equation.
It's not just public safety, of course. Fun fact from a different state -- Illinois increased education spending by $9 billion during 2009-2014. Great for the kids, right? Until you find out that 89% of that $9 billion went to fund teacher pension plans. (source: IllinoisPolicy.com) That's what we need to avoid with all state and city pension plans in Arizona. Deal with the problems now or they become all-devouring hydras as in states like Illinois.
It also makes you think twice about focusing on per-pupil numbers. I haven't yet found similar data for Arizona...our state used to be much smaller so our pension problems are slight compared to most states, but don't sleep on perpetual obligations...people live longer and longer every year and as our state has grown, there have been more and more people on these plans.
Do you realize how public pensions work? The employee chips in 1/3 of his salary and the employer matches it through their working career. So for a public employee who would gross 100k/year, but actually sees 67k/year gross, 33k/year is going into the pension fund from them, and 33k from the employer. That is why public worker salaries seem lower than the private sector.
With the exception of police/sheriff deaths, the other occupational deaths tend to occur due to industrial accidents or environmental factors, such as weather conditions. They are, for the most part, preventable.
However, most police sheriff deaths are caused by physical violence (i.e. - ambushes, physical assaults, shootings, stabbings, etc.) and, for the most part, are not preventable due to the obvious necessity of having to enter potentially deadly situations instead of avoiding them.
In no way trying to diminish the issue here, but it's worth pointing out that law enforcement deaths from car/motorcycle accidents outnumber law enforcement deaths from shootings and stabbings:
As ScottsdaleMark notes, it's a necessary consequence of a job where you spend hours and hours driving around and walking along at the side of the road, especially at odd hours.
Even for the gunfire numbers, in a typical year, it seems that about 5% of them are accidental. (The Officer Down Memorial Page tracks these separately, where the data above does not distinguish.)
The fact remains that it's a dangerous and stressful job. I just felt that that very specific point had to be addressed, the bare numbers speak for themselves. Either way, it's surprising that younger cities fall into this trap, having seen what's happened in Illinois, etc.
Phil and Hap, let's not belittle the injury risk of those in the most deadly professions. Tow truck driver is one of the most deadly professions there is ... similarly, many of the public-service deaths occur when highway patrol officers are killed on or alongside highways. And there is a reason taxi drivers, truckers, garbagemen, and pilots are ALL on the list.
It's dangerous to operate transport equipment, be it a truck or taxi or plane or car or a boat or heavy equipment or farm equipment...or a police cruiser or cycle.
The real problem with public employee pensions are those who earn more in retirement than they ever did working. That's nonsensical and those on the gravy train now are lucky because most young workers I doubt will see anything close to what their pension plan tells them to expect in terms of retirement payouts. All it takes is a municipal bankruptcy and then all creditors take a big haircut, a la Detroit.
I'd be scared to death to be on a public pension plan right now for that reason, unless it was the federal system since they can always print more money with little real-world consequence (amazingly) to pay their debts.
As a tax payer I would much rather pay our public service employees twice as much in salary and provide half as much in benefits and let them pay into Social Security and have 401k's like the rest of us. The cities and states would still come out ahead in that equation.
It's not just public safety, of course. Fun fact from a different state -- Illinois increased education spending by $9 billion during 2009-2014. Great for the kids, right? Until you find out that 89% of that $9 billion went to fund teacher pension plans. (source: IllinoisPolicy.com) That's what we need to avoid with all state and city pension plans in Arizona. Deal with the problems now or they become all-devouring hydras as in states like Illinois.
It also makes you think twice about focusing on per-pupil numbers. I haven't yet found similar data for Arizona...our state used to be much smaller so our pension problems are slight compared to most states, but don't sleep on perpetual obligations...people live longer and longer every year and as our state has grown, there have been more and more people on these plans.
I don't see where I belittled anyone. I respect all on the list. I simply pointed out that there were other factors to consider when you're talking about fire/police. Apples and oranges.
I don't disagree with some of your options for changing public employee benefits. Change it. But to offer someone a job that they work for for 30 years, where they can't pay into SS so no SS benefits, then change their benefits after they have retired and are into their golden years does not seem quite fair. Honor the contracts that you made and change it for new hires. Seems simple enough. Why blame the men and women who have served the public.
Oh and as far as the point that they knew the risks when they took the job. Yes they did, and they also knew that they would have a pension at the end of their careers.
With the exception of police/sheriff deaths, the other occupational deaths tend to occur due to industrial accidents or environmental factors, such as weather conditions. They are, for the most part, preventable.
However, most police sheriff deaths are caused by physical violence (i.e. - ambushes, physical assaults, shootings, stabbings, etc.) and, for the most part, are not preventable due to the obvious necessity of having to enter potentially deadly situations instead of avoiding them.
Complex and tightly coupled technologies will bring with them a normalized accident rate. A certain amount of deadly incidents are unavoidable as fisherman or lumberjack. A great explanation in the book "Deep Survival". Basically this follows a power law. The grade in the power law governing fishermen and lumberjacks is way more dangerous (factor 8) to law enforcement, and again lower for fire. None of this is preventable - it is an inherent characteristic of the technology / activity. Therefore, fishermen should have a eight-time better pension than law enforcement at similar pay rate.
I don't see where I belittled anyone. I respect all on the list. I simply pointed out that there were other factors to consider when you're talking about fire/police. Apples and oranges.
I don't disagree with some of your options for changing public employee benefits. Change it. But to offer someone a job that they work for for 30 years, where they can't pay into SS so no SS benefits, then change their benefits after they have retired and are into their golden years does not seem quite fair. Honor the contracts that you made and change it for new hires. Seems simple enough. Why blame the men and women who have served the public.
Oh and as far as the point that they knew the risks when they took the job. Yes they did, and they also knew that they would have a pension at the end of their careers.
Courts have upheld the contracts multiple time. There is no way out. That's why we will see pension costs triple over the next ca. 10 years in Phoenix budget. Every other budget will suffer big time. Good for retired emergency staff (maybe .1%) bad for the rest of us Phoenicians (99.9%). Is this good or fair? - Does not matter. It is what it is.
Do you realize how public pensions work? The employee chips in 1/3 of his salary and the employer matches it through their working career. So for a public employee who would gross 100k/year, but actually sees 67k/year gross, 33k/year is going into the pension fund from them, and 33k from the employer. That is why public worker salaries seem lower than the private sector.
There's no way the employee contributes 33% of his income into the pension fund.
First off, it's the public safety pensions, not all of them that are the main problem. Cops and fire fighters don't work enough years to cover the decades they spend in retirement. ALso, they get sweet deals where they contribute little or nothing out of their own paychecks.
Professional athletes don't work enough years to cover the decades they spend in retirement and many of them are millionaires but hardly anyone blinks an eye.
Consider this before criticizing police officers and firefighters who make average salaries and put their lives on the line for the rest of us.
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