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Quote of the Day: Unions Have Priced Themselves Out of a Job; WSJ Mentions Freshman Rep. Koenig's Bill | Missouri Political News Service

Quote of the Day: Unions Have Priced Themselves Out of a Job; WSJ Mentions Freshman Rep. Koenig’s Bill

April 1st, 2010 by mopns · No Comments

No, that quote is not from a ‘greedy’ CEO or a heartless Republican, it comes straight from the mouth of the chief of staff of Los Angeles’ staunchly Democratic mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. Despite what the state run media tells us, informed citizens know that the only jobs being created by the president’s ‘stimulus’ plan are temporary constructions jobs and public sector, government jobs.

The Wall Street Journal has an interesting article today (you have to be a subscriber to read the entire piece unfortunately) on how cash strapped cities and states can no longer afford the generous benefit packages negotiated by the greedy union bosses.

Wall Street Journal:

Mayor Villaraigosa wants to re-open contract talks with 45,000 cops, firefighters, librarians and other city employees in hopes of persuading them to contribute more to their pensions and health-care costs. His deputy chief of staff, Matt Szabo, puts it bluntly: “Unions have priced themselves out of a job.”

In 2009, the nation’s 7.9 million unionized government workers eclipsed the number of private-sector union members for the first time since the Labor Department began keeping track in 1983.

Virtually all full-time state- and local-government employees have access to retirement plans, and most are employer-funded. By contrast, only three-quarters of full-time workers in the private sector have access to retirement benefits.
Disparities like these give politicians ammunition for cost-cutting. “Public-employee benefits have to be reined in,” says Andrew Koenig, a Republican state representative in Missouri.

Mr. Koenig is sponsoring a bill in his state that, over the next several decades, would shift away from a defined-benefit plan, where an employer puts as much money into a pension fund as needed to cover future retirement benefits. It would be replaced with a 401(k)-type of plan (similar to those now in place at many private-sector employers) where workers absorb the market’s ups and downs.

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