"Lack of Funds"

[SkyRider]

"Lack of funds" now seems to be the excuse for public sector incompetency.

However, it seems we have enough funds to overpay municipal workers by 22%.

http://mytoba.ca/news/municipal-workers-paid-22-more-than-private-sector-counterparts-cfib/

 

[rhuarc29]

This isn't just at the municipal level, but at all levels of government. I've been saying that for years. What's worse is that not only is the private sector paid less, they're being charged more in taxes to pay for these government payrolls.

The excuses are always the same: there's a revenue shortfall. To make up for it they say they'll have to increase taxes or cut programs. There's a third option: pay less for existing programs. Unfortunately, it's far harder to cut wages than to not raise them in the first place. People get used to the increase, then want more. It happens again, and again, and again.

When the recession hit in 2009, the CEO of the company I worked for offered its employees a choice: take a wage cut or he had to shut down the business. I had seen the numbers; they weren't pretty. We all agreed to take that cut. It only took one year (with some hard work) to make the company profitable again. Once that happened, we all got our regular rates back. Another year later we were looking pretty, and those responsible for the turnaround of the company got significant raises.

So, municipal governments are in the red...just like my company was. It's time to make those cuts.

 

[james t kirk]

This isn't just at the municipal level, but at all levels of government. I've been saying that for years. What's worse is that not only is the private sector paid less, they're being charged more in taxes to pay for these government payrolls.

The excuses are always the same: there's a revenue shortfall. To make up for it they say they'll have to increase taxes or cut programs. There's a third option: pay less for existing programs. Unfortunately, it's far harder to cut wages than to not raise them in the first place. People get used to the increase, then want more. It happens again, and again, and again.

When the recession hit in 2009, the CEO of the company I worked for offered its employees a choice: take a wage cut or he had to shut down the business. I had seen the numbers; they weren't pretty. We all agreed to take that cut. It only took one year (with some hard work) to make the company profitable again. Once that happened, we all got our regular rates back. Another year later we were looking pretty, and those responsible for the turnaround of the company got significant raises.

So, municipal governments are in the red...just like my company was. It's time to make those cuts.

You're not unionized are you.

If you were, the unions would have refused and rode your company right into the ground.

 

[SkyRider]

Every time there is a TTC breakdown, it's the same old "lack of funds" excuse.

Every time there is a power failure it is the old "lack of funds" excuse.

Every time the snow on the highway isn't plowed it is the "lack of funds" excuse.

And so on and so on.

 

[nobody123]

YEah! Fuck those bastards making a reasonable living. What do they think this is, the 1950s? (or 60s? or 70s?) You're not allowed to make enough to raise a family. It's a race to the bottom. If the almighty and infallible free market has squeezed the everloving fuck out of the average private sector wage over the past 20-odd years, then by gawd, workers in the public sector should buck up and suffer too. Otherwise, how are we going to be able to afford those tax breaks for the rich? Think about the children, ya selfish bastards!

 

[FAST]

The commie speaks again

YEah! Fuck those bastards making a reasonable living. What do they think this is, the 1950s? (or 60s? or 70s?) You're not allowed to make enough to raise a family. It's a race to the bottom. If the almighty and infallible free market has squeezed the everloving fuck out of the average private sector wage over the past 20-odd years, then by gawd, workers in the public sector should buck up and suffer too. Otherwise, how are we going to be able to afford those tax breaks for the rich? Think about the children, ya selfish bastards!

The civil servant unions who are the selfish bastards are the ones who are NOT thinking about the children.

Just how the hell can you call anybody who works in the private sector,...which by the way,...is the majority,...be selfish bastards,...you know the ones who support the whole fricken country,...civil servants only spend what the free market creates.

But of coarse anybody who doesn't believe in the free market,... obviously does believe in the ONLY alternative,...starts with a "C",...can you guess commie.

So your rational is for the civil servants to continue on the race to the top,...and screw everybody else.

Since you can't offer a realistic,, rational, none fantasy alternative,...that's what you obviously support.

A side note,...the civil servants sure do like the capital that your hated free market does for their retirement.

FAST

 

[Occasionally]

Problem with government is that there is bottomless pockets. If they run red for decades, all they do is go into debt or raise taxes. Or likely... both.

It's not like normal businesses. Whether it's a mom and pop shop or a big corporation, any company that loses money and doesn't have funds to cover it shuts down eventually. They might some desperate loans, but if it's still bad, they get shut down, claim bankruptcy and that's it. The business didn't do well, the workers couldn't succeed, so things come to an end. Time to find another job.

The issue is that there is no responsibility because the government budgets are not their money, so if things go bad they don't really care. Nobody has a piece of the government, nobody's own money is at stake, and nobody has bank loans in their name to pay off. It's one big "let's all just hum along and get through another day". And unions protect workers to the extreme which makes cuts even harder to do. In the real world, people care about keeping the business afloat by balancing sales and costs. If things go well, there's profit and the business can keep going.

Regardless of money and whether a typical government workers makes more or less than me, no worries. I make in the low 6 digits, and for me that's cool. I don't think I'll ever hit the big payday of VP or anything, but I like what I do, get paid well, non-unionized and work in the private sector.

I'm happy I don't work for lazy government departments. Work isn't just about getting a paycheque. There's pride in working well with people and doing a good job with a good day's effort. It's more than just the individual. It's about coworkers and the company (internal), aspiring to better careers (personal) and keeping customers happy (external). If all things go well, the business succeeds.

I don't think many government workers understand that as the balance sheets seem to have bottomless funds to pay off anything...... at the cost of taxpayers.

I don't think the average government office worker could handle working in a private company.

 

[Serpent]

After living in Canada, I understand what Republicans mean when they talk about Big Government and an entitled batch of self-serving public sector bureaucrats. These public sector employees like teachers have gold plated pensions, work 8 months and average salary is 94k in Ontario......good for them BUT this transfer of wealth to the public sector in return for no accountability or standards of service is plain WRONG!

 

[Occasionally]

"Lack of funds" now seems to be the excuse for public sector incompetency.

However, it seems we have enough funds to overpay municipal workers by 22%.

http://mytoba.ca/news/municipal-workers-paid-22-more-than-private-sector-counterparts-cfib/

Not surprising at all. This has been going on forever.

The government has lots of low end type of jobs. No different than the private sector. While the private sector pays these jobs low wages.... let's say $10-15/hr. The government probably pays $20+.

I'll always remember friends who had part time post office jobs back in the 80s when we were young trying to make some extra cash. They were getting absurdly high pay like $10-11/hr or something at the post office while every other crappy job was getting around $6/hr. Add in OT and they were at around $15/hr. While some people were working at the mall, these guys were doing ridiculous jobs like sorting bins of mail or sitting in a room folding dusty mail bags. There's no doubt an 8 year old could do the bag folder job as good as anyone.

 

[Occasionally]

After living in Canada, I understand what Republicans mean when they talk about Big Government and an entitled batch of self-serving public sector bureaucrats. These public sector employees like teachers have gold plated pensions, work 8 months and average salary is 94k in Ontario......good for them BUT this transfer of wealth to the public sector in return for no accountability or standards of service is plain WRONG!

The problem with too much funds going into government jobs is that most government depts are not revenue generating. The gov makes most of their money from simply taxing things.

For example, let's say 100% of people became government workers. They all get paid wages. But where does the tax money come from to pay them? Government is a service provider, not a goods and service seller. The money would then come from the same money circulating around, but since many people will save some under a mattress, the amount of funds circulating isn't enough. Remember, no banks to drive business and loans.

Business drives additional revenue as Canada (as lucky as it is) has lots of good companies and resources to drive sales (exports), bringing money into the economy.

A good way at looking at the extreme case of government workers is let's say 100% of people were military. And how the economy would be if everyone was standing around getting paid and waiting for a war to react to.

 

[SkyRider]

All one has to do is read the Auditor General's reports on government spending to see the waste that goes on.

Government pay scale is kind of like an inverted paramid. The middle to lower level workers are overpaid but the higher level managers are underpaid compared to the private sector. BTW: We let go one of our poor performers. Guess what. She found a job with the City of Toronto.

 

[Serpent]

The problem with too much funds going into government jobs is that most government depts are not revenue generating. The gov makes most of their money from simply taxing things.

For example, let's say 100% of people became government workers. They all get paid wages. But where does the tax money come from to pay them? Government is a service provider, not a goods and service seller. The money would then come from the same money circulating around, but since many people will save some under a mattress, the amount of funds circulating isn't enough. Remember, no banks to drive business and loans.

Business drives additional revenue as Canada (as lucky as it is) has lots of good companies and resources to drive sales (exports), bringing money into the economy.

A good way at looking at the extreme case of government workers is let's say 100% of people were military. And how the economy would be if everyone was standing around getting paid and waiting for a war to react to.

The way I look at it, these public servants need us private sector employees to be paid just about enough to bleed us with taxes and keep their careers going. I'm sure they have to keep the balance of public vs private sector employees at a fine tuned level to keep the maximum amount of taxes flowing into the coffers.

So work your private sector job - you're funding welfare for the lazy and unfortunate and generous compensation for the public sector. That's your socio-economic value in Canada.

 

[rhuarc29]

YEah! Fuck those bastards making a reasonable living.

They're making a more-than-reasonable (sometimes much more) living on the backs of those who aren't. It's time to take a look at the private sector and see what can be done. And I don't mean raising the minimum wage. All raising the minimum wage does is ensure people who may not deserve a raise get it, while those at slightly higher incomes who do deserve a raise don't.

I agree about taxes on the rich. There needs to be higher tax brackets. I mean, $138,586+ as the highest bracket is ridiculous.

You're not unionized are you.

If you were, the unions would have refused and rode your company right into the ground.

Oh, I know that. I've seen it happen to other companies we've done business with. I see it happening right now. Some of the stupid shit I've seen would have any reasonable person question the state of unions in today's world. Unions are supposed to be a counter-point to corporate greed. But too often they're the greedy ones.

 

[oldjones]

"Lack of funds" now seems to be the excuse for public sector incompetency.

However, it seems we have enough funds to overpay municipal workers by 22%.

http://mytoba.ca/news/municipal-workers-paid-22-more-than-private-sector-counterparts-cfib/

While the same report says the Feds — where cost-cutting Cons have been in power (and passing speedy back-to-work laws) for over a decade — overpay by more than 33%.

You'd think you and the business lobby would want to publicize this factual report, not bury it without a citation in their press-release, nor in your post of it.

It remains to be proven that those in government work are overpaid; workers doing similar jobs in the private sector may well be convinced they're underpaid, but feel they can do nothing about it.

Certainly the pols who have been elected to do something about 'overpaying' have proven to be abject failures and incompetents at rolling back wages and salaries. Perhaps they're the overpaid ones.

Or maybe it's us taxpayers refusing to do without the stuff we want those 'overpaid' workers — cops come instantly to mind as examples — to provide.

 

[elmo]

YEah! Fuck those bastards making a reasonable living. What do they think this is, the 1950s? (or 60s? or 70s?) You're not allowed to make enough to raise a family. It's a race to the bottom. If the almighty and infallible free market has squeezed the everloving fuck out of the average private sector wage over the past 20-odd years, then by gawd, workers in the public sector should buck up and suffer too. Otherwise, how are we going to be able to afford those tax breaks for the rich? Think about the children, ya selfish bastards!

Ya, fuck those taxpayers who are overtaxed and working in the private sector. They are winning the race to the bottom while funding pensions of people who make more than them while they don't have one. Fuck them when interest rates rise and governments have to raise taxes to service an already absurd debt. It's the almighty mis-managed governments squeezing the economic life out of the economy without a care in the world. Think of their children and their children's children who will never see the end of massive government debt because the population is aging and medical and social costs are going through the roof. Workers in the private sector should just shut up and take in the ass for the public sector wages, benefits and pensions, after all, they do provide an impressive level of sub-standard service and are well-protected by their unions. Take your head out of your ass you moron.

 

[techrat1962]

I have not had cost of living increases for the past 5 years. With Bob Ray days for 3 years, the Mike Harris years of no pay rise and now the Liberal attack on public sector workers. This affects my pension and my children's education.

 

[red]

YEah! Fuck those bastards making a reasonable living. What do they think this is, the 1950s? (or 60s? or 70s?) You're not allowed to make enough to raise a family. It's a race to the bottom. If the almighty and infallible free market has squeezed the everloving fuck out of the average private sector wage over the past 20-odd years, then by gawd, workers in the public sector should buck up and suffer too. Otherwise, how are we going to be able to afford those tax breaks for the rich? Think about the children, ya selfish bastards!

While I don't agree with the race to the bottom I do think public sector raises should be linked to the rise and fall of the average salary in ontario or canada or whatever population is supporting the civil servant

 

[SkyRider]

During the last garbage strike I was talking to a City Hall insider who supposely has access to this type of info and he said City of Toronto municipal workers are the highest paid in North America (which probably means the world). True? False? Maybe?

 

[FAST]

While I don't agree with the race to the bottom I do think public sector raises should be linked to the rise and fall of the average salary in ontario or canada or whatever population is supporting the civil servant

Good idea,...but don't forget we are dealing with civil servant unions here,...

FAST

 

[SkyRider]

Good idea,...but don't forget we are dealing with civil servant unions here,...

And unlike U.S. cities (e.g. Detroit), Canadian cities are not allowed to go bankrupt and re-open union contracts. Municipal workers got us by the balls and they don't mind squeezing hard to get what they want which is more pay, more benefits, more vacation time, higher pensions and so on.