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Sunday at the Movies (Union Power)
This video is about how American public sector unions have used their immense power to hold taxpayers to ransom and push governments deeply into debt. The same thing is happening in Ontario, as this National Post editorial attests. It has recently come to light that, in a particularly distasteful maneuver, the Ontario government negotiated “only” a 2% annual raise with the province’s largest public sector union, bragged about its acumen in bargaining - all the while concealing a secret agreement to pay the union an extra percentage point raise in 2012 after the next provincial election. As the editorial points out, the Ontario government has increased its spending by 50% since it took office in 2003, leaving the province $200 billion in debt and reducing it to “have-not” status.
Throw in the rich pensions plans, where union leaders claimed that the pension plans are not as rich as everybody thinks
Some will beg to differ.
“The problem, he adds, is the taxpayer bears all the risk if the public-sector pension plan runs into trouble. To that extent, the C.D. Howe Institute recently warned the federal government’s unfunded liability is actually $65-billion larger than what Ottawa has accounted for in its books.
Employee contribution rates for this plan “are not high enough to fund it properly and the unfunded gap is growing over time,” the Ottawa-based think-tank said in an analysis in November”
http://www.bluelikeyou.com/2011/03/05/public-sector-unions-have-no-worries/
“The Value of Pensions
It is important to understand how pensions work.
The payout on pensions is a function of the final salary of the employee based on the accrual rate. Almost all public sector employees are entitled to a full pension after 35 years of service except for protection services (police and firefighters) who are eligible after 30 years.
The accrual rate is 2% for each year of service. This means that for every year worked they accumulate another year’s credit. Pensions are targeted to provide 70% of the final three or five year’s final salary.”
Read more: http://www.digitaljournal.com/article/304791#ixzz1Lm2NRpvT
If a teacher retires at the $100,000 + salary, the pension is $70,000. At the bottom of the last link, there is a link for Fair Pensions, by Bill Tufts. Public sector unions really do have gold-plated pensions.
“Tufts says the recent revelation by Westmount Mayor Peter Trent that he and Montreal Mayor Gérald Tremblay plan to go to Quebec City next month to ask Quebec for help to curtail municipal pension benefits is a sign that the issue is percolating north of the border, too.
“Taxpayers are starting to demand changes,” Tufts said yesterday. “They see the injustice.”
Two-thirds of Canadians don’t have private pension plans of their own and resent paying high taxes to support rich public-sector pension plans that are damaging government balance sheets, he says.”
Read more: http://www.montrealgazette.com/business/Public+sector+pensions+Canada+wide+problem/4381813/story.html#ixzz1Lm3der13