Entitled To Their Entitlements

She must not have got the memo from the 'governistas' that the populace at large is merely a vehicle to a 'plunderific good time'.

Vikings looks tame by comparison...

Cheers

Hans Rupprecht, Commander in Chief

1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North”

If we taxpayers have to 'make them whole' for bad public pension fund investment(alternative energy) or mismanagement, why did public unionistas even have any pension withholding at all or even have any pension percentage taken from their paycheques in the first place?

Was it all a scam from word one and should we not be hanging the politicians who scammed us with piano wire?

Time for a tax revolt and depending on how pols react, time for a full revolt.

Those couple of billions that the current gov't of Alberta gave to the nurses and teachers here worked out alright for them.

Allison Redford's gov't was re-elected, and the provincial public servants are happy.

Was it 2005 when Alberta last didn't have a deficit? I think it's approaching 17 billion now. Or was it 18 billion?

Never mind.

It's not very much compared to Ontario. Those folks out east have billions of more reasons to be angry.

I've been discussing pensions with a friend, a former teacher. She received a communique from the B.C. Teachers Pension Fund, claiming that taxpayers "contributed only 15% of the amount paid out by the fund." I pointed out to her that this was misdirection in that what was important was what portion the taxpayers paid INTO the fund.

Interestingly, the B.C.T.F website highlights all of the things teachers will no longer be paying for in retirement - the house will be paid for, the kids gone. No more pension contributions, no union dues, no 'clothes expenses and classroom supplies'. They reassure teachers that they'll receive at least 70% of their pre-retirement income plus CPP and OAS. Oh, and lest I forget, they also trumpet that pensioners will receive more in their first 5 years than they paid into the pension throughout an entire career!

They refer to the sinecure of public sector retirement as a 'social justice' issue, providing "dignity" to members. Never mind that their pension is a fully indexed, defined benefit plan, based on their highest five years of earnings and available after just 25 years of service. A teacher who began at the age of 25 could easily retire at 50.

Many do retire early and then return as 'on call' teachers which in many cases can be nearly equivalent to full time work as they 'fill in' for teachers taking sick or personal days throughout a school district. Meanwhile a backlog of young wannabe teachers cannot find work due to declining enrollments and the fact that the old farts just keep sucking up the public lolly to pad out their 'dignity'.

Education faculties have no trouble attracting the wannabes because they realize that once they do get a teaching position, they're well on their way to a very favorable publically funded retirement themselves.

No Gulf; this actually happens all over the public service. We taxpayers pay atrocious salaries to public servants who are already collecting their hansom pensions.
The gravy train never stops. A public servant retires early and contracts back to his old job at sometimes several times his old salary. Crown corporations operate this way as well. They never seem to have the retiring worker train the newby.
There should be a ruling that this be stopped. In effect the taxpayer is paying several salaries to get one job done.

It would have helped if the video clarified which public service unions are doing this, rather than painting with an extra wide roller. String up all the union leaders you want but before you go around stringing up retirees, read this, it applies to the federal government employees including the RCMP, Armed Forces and all other federal departments. Paul Martin and the Cretch made themselves look better and saved money for every taxpayer by helping themselves to a pension surplus.

http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/12/19/public_service_unions_not_entitled_to_28b_pension_surplus_says_supreme_court.html

Gunney, regarding hiring back a retired worker, here is what I have seen happen, names changed to protect the innocent. This is how it (doesn't) work in the federal civil service.

Shirley is preparing to retire from her position which is unique, complex, aviation safety critical and can only be learned through on-the-job training. The logical person and the chief's pick to secede her is Anne-Marie, so Anne-Marie moves into Shirley's cubicle with her to learn the ropes. Wanda who works in a different section and wants to have Shirley's job files a grievance stating that Anne-Marie is receiving an unfair advantage. Anne-Marie therefore has to leave Shirley's cubicle to ensure a fair competition, so no-one is trained to take Shirley's place. Under the public service staffing rules Shirley's position can only be filled after she has retired and an open competition has to be run. The five candidates who passed the pre-screening were given identical tests using work that Shirley has done as problems, and Wanda won. The job is now staffed with someone who doesn't know what it entails and as stated earlier it is aviation safety critical. The only person in the world who can show Wanda the ropes is Shirley.
The solution is to hire Shirley back on a 90 day contract as a 'casual' (no leave, no benefits, non-union temporary employee) to train Wanda, let the contract expire for a week and then hire Shirley on a second 90 day contract so that Wanda receives 6 months of training. Shirley had to be begged to come back to train Wanda, she told me that if it wasn't for her loyalty to our little group she wouldn't have.

A little explanation. The competition process was created to prevent nepotism and favouritism in who is hired and promoted, the board consists of the chief of the section, their boss and an HR officer. The oral exam will leave you in a cold sweat and the written exam is quite rigorous too, harder than any other exam I've ever written. The competition can only be run after the position has been made vacant, that's a rule created by (I think) the Public Service Staffing Relations Board so the new person cannot be selected and trained before the retiree leaves. Also the manager of each section has only so many PYs (person years) aka salaries in his budget. There is no flexibility in the budget to have two people doing the same job for six months in order to train Wanda. There is however discretionary money for contracts of no more than 90 days, approval by upper management required, with which to hire Shirley to come back.

None of this is the fault of Wanda or Shirley or the 10s of thousands of govt workers out there.

It would actually have been helpful to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, or whatever they call themselves, if they had not made such a big show of endorsing Dalton McGuinty in 2003.

The ad is fine, and all that, but the CTF needs to atone for that most unspeakable error (McGuinty): a public apology would be a decent first step, IMO.

David Southam, you don't happen to remember where you saw that endorsement? I'm a member of the CTF and have never seen an endorsement by the CTF for any politician.