WI Gov. Forgets -

[talon]

Public sector employees are also taxpayers. They are suffering the same issues as private sector employees with increased taxes, increased costs of living, and decreasing pay.

Many public sector employees are "enjoying" anywhere from 1 - 3 days of furlough a month, unpaid overtime, reduced benefits [1], and other work deprivations. Public sector employees never did receive bonuses like private sector employees, or holiday parties, and if we celebrate birthdays - it's done during break and out of our own pockets, not some corporate HR account.

Many public sector employees are also older workers who couldn't find work in the private sector [2] and yet we still had decades of valuable skills and work ability to give to our employers[2a]. We were willing to take pay cuts [3] to get any job at all. I took a $15,000 a year pay cut to take my current job when my former job was outsourced to the Phillipines. It didn't matter to us if the job that could use our skills, experience, and knowledge were private or public sector, we just wanted work. In my case, and in the case of many other people, the public sector didn't care about our age, just our skill sets, so theywere the ones who hired us. I see it as the private sector's loss, because we would have been happy with a private sector job, but all they saw was our years, not our skills.

With recent pay cuts, furloughs [4], reduced benefits, reduced equipment and supplies with which to do our jobs [5], a seriously depleted workforce [6], and being the constant target of the media and politicians [7], it's any wonder we get any work done at all, and yet - we do. Probably because we are older and accustomed to coping with adversity.

Now, we are being singled out for additional penalties just because we are public sector employees, as well as taxpayers.

I wonder how much of that ire is because we are older workers?

[1] usually in the form of increased out-of-pocket expenses for health care

[2] because the private sector employers couldn't look beyond age

[2a] raises hand - despite advanced education and decades of experience, no private sector company was willing to hire a woman of my age, not even fast food

[3] often steep

[4] or as we like to call them "workloughs" as we are "essential personnel" and have to go to work even when we don't get paid or the snow is a dangerous 12+ inches in a city acclimated to scant millimeters of snow

[5] many of us now have to buy our own supplies, for example

[6] in addition to deep layoffs [6a], when employees retire, leave, or are fired, there is no replacement

[6a] our agency experienced a 50% reduction in workforce in addition to workloughs - mostly removing the lowest paid employees so now we have to do those jobs in addition to our own - a lot of work doesn't get done anymore that should because we are so short-handed and short-supplied. We aren't the worst off agency, either.

[7] Articles like this one, governors like Scott Walker, upset shooters like Lee Loughner, threats of anthrax and bombs in the mail, threats of bombs in our buildings, angry people walking in off the street to rant at us for our "cushy" jobs [7a], and people reporting us for any little thing if we forget to take off our work IDs after we get off work or if we go out to eat, shop, or run errands during our unpaid lunch hour.

[7a] "Cushy" apparently means that we even have a job - it certainly doesn't equal to being well paid, seeing as I now earn less than I did the first year I worked here.