Life in the private sector

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

One of the things I keep hearing from the right-wing talking heads is that Walker's proposal is modest and that he is only asking state employees to have to pay for their pensions and health-care just like everybody in the private sector has to pay. Along with the sentence, "why should taxpayers pay for pensions, etc., for state workers, when they have to pay out of their own pockets for their own?"

Well. I've been around the block for a while. In the 70's, we all had pension plans in the private sector (free) and the healthcare varied from company to company but was free, some paid 100%, some paid 80% for healthcare costs and you never ever heard of something that wasn't covered. Sometime in the 80's it switched from pension plans to 401k and the health insurance was still free. Does anyone remember the 100% matches to 401k in the 80's and early 90's? I do. Employee stock options and buying into the ESPP plans? Even for admins? I do. That stuff seems to have disappeared.

Also in the 90's is when we started having to pay a portion of our health-care. I was pretty much okay with this at first, but then the health care plans kept getting more expensive as the coverage got worse and worse. Remember $20 co-pays and that was all you paid when you were sick? Those plans are pretty much either gone or so exorbitantly expensive as to be unaffordable. Those kind of healthcare plans are now called "Cadillac Plans". My plan right now is a $20 co-pay and the plan pays 80% of costs. And I ALWAYS have to fight to get the insurance company to pay ANYTHING.

Then we started seeing those letters that told you how much the company paid a year to have you as an employee and it was broken out by your salary and benefits. These letters served to tell us not to be asking for raises.

My point is, we should all be screaming about the private sector, not resenting what public employees get. Because we used to all get it.

[RKP5637]

1. Exactly and well said! I remember having all of the things you mentioned and the

stripping away of these items in the private sector. I swear, most Americans keep their head in the sand or up their butt. Herds of people are so damn clueless anymore, a bunch of sheep moving toward peasantry, embracing it and cheering for it ... what a weird place this has become over the past 30 years or so. Willful stupidity is vogue today.

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

4. Also my Insurance has a $1000 deductible before it pays a cent

I've seldom used $1000 worth of health coverage in a year, but I'm 55, and I simply can't go uninsured. What if I got a catastrophic illness?

[RKP5637]

7. It's horrible. I just think many Americans, those opposing heathcare and the

like, simply do not understand the issues and get sucked in by all of the lies and distortions going around and hence vote in their own worst interest. None of this is happening by chance, it's being rolled out to bring many Americans to the level of peasants.

It reminds me as a kid many years ago that people thought nothing untrue could be printed in newspapers, then TV, and now we have Fox and similar outfits making the best of American ignorance, trust and willful stupidity.

We have become a country that does not care about people and are developing traits that we denounce other countries of having ... Additionally, we are well on our way to being a fascist nation. I hope those sucking on the tits of Fox News enjoy what is occurring.

[Raven]

2. I've worked in both sectors. I am now working for a municipality.

People there complain that they have to pay taxes for town employees and teachers. I suppose they could home school their kids or hire a private tutor and they could haul their own trash, plow the roads themselves and put out fires themselves. I'm not sure what they'd do if they were having a heart attack and 911 was no more.

Oh, and where I am, the pay is shitty and the benefits stink.

[PA Democrat]

3. I wonder why working people allow the most powerful to set the WORST

salary and benefits programs as the standard, rather than the BEST. Workers are allowing themselves to be used as tools of people like the Koch brothers when they succumb to jealous resentment over the pay and benefits of union employees.

They should be looking at the pay and benefits of the CEOs who are moving their jobs overseas while paying a fraction of the taxes that working people do.

[RKP5637]

11. We have tremendous ignorance and willful stupidity in the country today. Many

have forgotten how to think, many do not understand the issues and have been bred to be led by the nose, to be sheep. Additionally politicians use wedge issues to ensure people vote in their own worst interests. There are extremely powerful and wealthy interests at work in this county that manipulate the country to their benefit.

Politicians come and go, but these interests remain slowly eroding the country and serving their best interests. The goal is to have herds of sheep in the US working for the lowest global common denominator wage possible. And they suck off the tits of outfits like Fox News, for example, to get their biased information shaping their ideas, ideals and aspirations.

[canoeist52]

5. $10 copay, $5 prescriptions, no deductible, $89 per mo.family plan

I remember the '80's and '90's

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

6. and no insurance rep

telling a doctor he can't prescribe certain medications without trying cheaper ones first.

[RB TexLa]

15. Right because they should just blindly pay what doctors order them to pay

doctors would never overbill or chose more expensive drugs for kickbacks or the drugs that get the hottest drug rep back in their office.

:puke:

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

19. Ah, yeah, that's right

All of the doctors are criminals and it's only the insurance companies that protect us. Gosh, sorry I didn't see that.

[brewens]

8. I remember the first time a health insurance co. got my raise.

It was in the early 90's, just about when Clinton's health care plan was being debated. I was a non-union salary employee as part of the wine department at a beer distributor. The beer guys were teamsters.
My union bosses didn't even argue with me about why I wanted a raise. I was getting more work dumped on me and putting in more hours. They told me how much my health care plan had gone up, so they were already paying more to have me there. My deductible had gone up to $500 as well. As a 30 year old healthy guy, that meant that I would be paying anything I went in for out of pocket.
At this time the teamsters I was working with had the full ride health care plan, including two free pairs of glasses every year, if I remember right. Those guys hated the idea that anyone would mess with health care insurance. That also included almost all of the local union mill workers I knew. They didn't have quite as good of a plan as the teamsters though.
Now, every one of those guys, if they are still working, is lucky if they have a plan as good as the one I get at the blood center I work for. It's a $1000 deductible and my contribution is $35 per month. I feel lucky to get that. It's only because I work for a progressive not for profit, where the people running it really want to get us the best plan possible.

[PA Democrat]

9. I worked for a major bank decade of the 80s

and it was that eye-opening experience that shaped my political convictions forever. The executives who were responsible for the banks first-ever losses were all rewarded with bonuses. The CEO who oversaw the risky lending practices responsible for the financial losses was allowed to resign with a HUUUUGE golden parachute.

Life in the trenches was vastly different. I was a middle manager and had to lay off 13% of my staff even though our particular product line was growing and making a profit. I was physically ill laying people off, people that I liked and respected, because they worked hard and most really needed their jobs. Those of us "fortunate" enough to keep our jobs were given additional responsibilities, had our salaries frozen for more than a year and had our benefits cut (bye-bye pension, hello 401K). I realized then that corporate America was not for me and began making plans to get out. I never regretted the move, even though it had a significant effect on our financial situation.

I will also mention that there was an attempt to unionize while I was with this company. As a manager I was required to attend a three day "training" to learn how to try to thwart the efforts. I remember feeling wonderfully emancipated when I resigned from that job.

[malletgirl02]

10. Contractors

I think walker is among the same people who want to replace federal workers with contractors. the reason is they can get the same work while giving people crappy or no benefits.

[RKP5637]

13. Exactly!!! n/t

[PA Democrat]

16. Employers avoid paying Social Security & Medicare taxes for contractors as well.

The contractor is considered self-employed, gets a 1099 and is responsible for footing the entire bill (15.3% for SS and Medicare combined).

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

20. There's also a practice in the private sector

You hire somebody as a part-time 25 hour-a-week employee. No benefits at all. Then you work them 39 hours-a-week, because the job simply cannot be done in 25 hours. I see that all of the time.

[trof]

12. I never looked at benefits as 'free'.

They were part of my total compensation package.
Part of what my company paid me.
Some compensation came in salary, some came in pension and medical insurance.
But I agree with what you say about how it's changed.
And not for the better.

[RKP5637]

14. And if one doesn't like their compensation package today who are they

going to see and/or negotiate with, HR? What a joke HR is. Most employees today are powerless, they have no organized effort to help them. In most cases exec. mgmt. does what they damn well please, even shareholders can't control them. It's become a game of greed, and none are going to level set this again without strong employee opposition and this includes a strong union. I spent my life in management, and often I had wished we had some type of union representation. There is a huge gap between mgmt. and exec mgmt.

[Tesha]

17. Mr. Tesha made exactly that point last night.

It's not that the Public Sector employees have too
much; it's that *WE ALL* used to have these things
and the Private Sector has successfully removed them
from us, so now the Powers-that-Be are trying to do
the same thing to the last sector with any rights,
the Public Sector employees.

Tesha

[iwillalwayswonderwhy]

18. Yep

It's the opposite of the "I got mine, screw you."

It's "I lost mine, you should lose yours."