In the online comments addressing a Tribune editorial last week on public pensions there was this poignant exchange:
ehm5290:
Union worker’s don’t have it as sweet as everyone thinks. Our recent raises in the past few years have been some of the lowest in over a decade, percentage wise. My overtime hourly pay at streets and sanitation hasn’t budged in the past year and still sits at $51 an hour. Sure, my pension is a nice safety net to collect at 50, but will it be enough to get me a second home somewhere warm to winter when I am 51? Probably not.
ChristopherWW:
Is this post a joke? You get paid $51 an hour as a streets and sanitation worker?
You get to retire at age 50? With a fat pension?
And you are worried that these reforms won’t allow you to buy a “second home somewhere warm” when you are at the ripe old age of, ummmmm, 50?
This is why Illinois is going broke, folks. A streets and sanitation worker makes $51 an hour and retires at 50 on a huge pension.
How are there any people in this discussion forum who are defending this and the governor (Pat Quinn)? Unbelievable.
ehm5290:
It’s not a joke, Chris. It’s my reality. It is also tens of thousands of other statle/local employees’ reality as well.
Elginbrian:
ehm5290, If you were in the suburbs working for a private hauler, you’d be the only guy on the truck, would have to meet schedule quotas and have a lot fewer holidays. Not to mention your Bennies would look a lot more realistic. Your “reality” is a nightmare to the private sector taxpayers like ChristopherWW and me, who fund your retirement dreams while we will probably work until we die. Wonder why there’s so much anger toward the public sector? Keeping writing posts like yours and you’ll see even more. I hope this state goes belly up and takes your retirement with it. I can move. You won’t find a job in another state.
