Article

2010-07-21 Economy

Oakland Can't Afford These Cops - Average compensation $162,000 per year

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Posted by GolfBravoUSMC 2010-07-21 11:41|| || Front Page|| [3 views ] Top

#1 ...the alliance between "progressive" interests and public employee unions has grown more and more puzzling -- what's progressive about cutting services to low-income people so that public employees can lead affluent lifestyles?

In Oakland's case, police staffing will be cut in one of California's most crime-ridden cities. In New York and Washington DC, transit agencies have been forced to raise transit fares and cut bus and rail service, as they struggle to cope with pay increases awarded to transit workers in arbitration. In New Jersey, most teachers will get 4 percent raises this year while localities decide whether to raise property taxes or cut positions.

Public workers now typically make more money than the citizens they serve. The median family income in Oakland is $47,000, far below the starting salary for an OPD cadet. In New York City, transit workers are earning an average of $94,000 in total compensation, even as the MTA cuts dozens of bus lines that primarily serve lower-income New Yorkers. These bizarre priorities can't be justified as a stimulus measure, and point to an employee compensation system that is broken

Feature, not bug. Again, one of the hallmarks of Peronist and other forms of latin-style oligarchy is the alliance between the political class and powerful public sector unions such as the unionized employees of state-owned Mexican oil company Pemex. The employees get a grand lifestyle with "Cadillac" benefits, and the pols get a lock on power thanks to loyal employee shock troops who raise funds and vote in lockstep for the ruling social welfare party. Mexico's PRI maintained power for over half a century in this manner way.

Posted by lex 2010-07-21 12:36|| 2010-07-21 12:36|| Front Page Top

#2 You'd think the employees would get wise when the pink slips start flying. Maybe these people just aren't very smart.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2010-07-21 13:00|| 2010-07-21 13:00|| Front Page Top

#3 You'd think the employees would get wise when the pink slips start flying.

The union anticipated that long ago, and mitigated the harm with their seniority rules. It's the junior members who are at risk of gettign pink slips. The senior ones are golden. This btw is the main reason that heavily unionized countries in western Europe such as Spain and France have extraordinarily high rates of youth unemployment.

Senior labor union members aren't working class. They're aristocrats, members in full standing of the crony capitalist elite.

Posted by lex 2010-07-21 13:20|| 2010-07-21 13:20|| Front Page Top

#4 We could just wall off oakland and we wouldn't need cops.

Posted by Cyber Sarge 2010-07-21 16:29|| 2010-07-21 16:29|| Front Page Top

#5 That's more than a City of Oakland Civil Engineer makes. Just turned in a application and saw the pay brackets for myself. An Assistant City Engineer pays $5,102 a month (That's with a year min. experience), a new police recruit starts (at day one, with a h.s. diploma) at about 5,414 a month. So much for higher education paying off in the end.

I don't know what a city engineer maxes out at, but I have seen no salary higher than 126,000 a year, probably for a director. I wouldn't care to see them make the money if they weren't such an ineffectual bunch of snotty little bastards.

Posted by bigjim-CA 2010-07-21 17:16|| 2010-07-21 17:16|| Front Page Top

#6 The union anticipated that long ago, and mitigated the harm with their seniority rules.

So when the old guys get fat and slow (hey, I resemble that remark!) they cannot be replaced by the faster, stronger, young whippersnappers. Sounds like built-in inefficiency.

Posted by Abu Uluque 2010-07-21 17:47|| 2010-07-21 17:47|| Front Page Top

#7 "Sounds like built-in inefficiency."

Yep, that's a union.

I quit my first full-time job because I found out I would have to join a union. (I was 18 and had moved there from a right-to-work state, and had foolishly thought everyplace was like that.)

Posted by Barbara Skolaut 2010-07-21 18:24|| 2010-07-21 18:24|| Front Page Top

#8 bigjim-CA, on the other hand, a civil engineer doesn't usually have to worry about whether or not the car he just pulled over for a broken tail light has a gang-banger with an uzi in it, or the husband he just arrested on a domestic violence call will get defended by his wife/girlfriend with a frying pan.
Frankly, you could not pay me enough to be a police officer - anywhere.
On the other hand, the city council members pulling in 800K in another city in CA is truly obscene.

Posted by Rambler in Virginia 2010-07-21 18:47|| 2010-07-21 18:47|| Front Page Top

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