I think Rick covered this fairly well, don't you?
No. Citing two people who for some reason make vastly more than the average? Anecdotal evidence like that is meaningless.
As far as the number of days worked that's something to consider but you can't just say "well, they work 20% less days so their pay is really 20% more" because it's unlikely they'll be able to find a temporary summer job that will pay very well. Most of the teachers I know end up doing summer classes at a reduced salary or retail or deliverying pizzas or something.
And we're not just talking about teachers here, of course.
They do when it comes to alcohol, tobacco, sales tax, etc...
But they don't when it comes to some things, as I said.
You're hemming and hawing here. You either believe union/government workers should pay what everyone else does, or you don't.
No I'm not, I stated precisely what I think and why I think it, no hemming or hawing involved.
There is no wage/benefits disparity here. The costs of HC plans are figured into everyone's "compensation package", whether they are union or not.
Yes, there is. You didn't understand what I said. Union jobs have frequently have better benefits than their salary would indicate. They've foregone salary increases for benefit increases. Two jobs might both have a total compensation package of 50,000 but a union job may be 30k salary and 20k benefit while non-union 37k salary and 13k benefit. The union member may therefore be taxed on a caddy plan while the non-union wouldn't, even though their total compensation is the same. That's a wage/benefit disparity, and knowing many people that work state union jobs, it very much exists. I thought it was common knowledge that state jobs typically had really good benefits compared to comparable low paying private sector jobs.
