Do government union employees really think taxpayers are going to allow their gravy train to continue?

they do pay into their reiterment and benefits plans just like everyone else genius Why cant employees bargain for a contract?

ingsoc1 is correct they do pay into their own pensions and insurance plans. i would agree with you on the 3rd solution but it is true they pay into their retirement plans, from their own salary/money. they pay too much. this is not optional, it is mandatory no matter how much(or how little) you make. if you could though, please tell/protest them to stop taking so much from our paychecks. the only benefit of being a gov employee is the pension....that you may not live long enough to see. an employee working for a private company is better off. there is really no benefit to being a government employee nowadays, because private companies are offering better benefits/perks and more, maybe except the pension. oh and the unions don't really do anything, gov employees have furlough days(no pay), unpaid holidays and we did not get our cost of living increase, which is reallly not an increase because every year prices go up-inflation. but i hear it may be paid back retroactively.

I am just amazed at how well the rich folks have hoodwinked people like you with their self serving propaganda. All working people should have what government workers have. Private industry used to have good salaries with good benefits and retirement plans for good jobs. Rich people/corporations did not like that, they don't want to share the wealth, so they spent decades convincing Americans that unions were bad, that workers don't have the right to live well by working hard on their jobs, that workers are not entitled to a fair share of the massive wealth being generated. You know our country is not broke, we are still the richest country in the world, but the wealthy have us convinced that they are entitled to take almost all of the wealth, leaving working Americans with less and less and you people just go along with it. Yep, it is proper that the rich get obscenely richer and that we get less and less. Now they have just about won. They have us working folks fighting amongst ourselves and private industry people saying that government workers should not have a decent life with good benefits and a safe retirement. "We can't have it so why should you?" Rich folks love this, you are not saying that everyone should have their fair share of the wealth, not you seem to feel the upper 1% should have it all. Seems real dumb to me but who am I?

Take a peek at Wisconsin if you think the foolishness that you propose will produce "prosperity." The soon-to-be ousted right-wing fiscal illiterate Governor Scott Walker went this mistaken route during a recession and now his state ranks 48th in economic recovery and jobs. You have obviously swallowed the GOP's elephant-dung anti-union propaganda hook, line, and sinker without once realizing this is the path to ruin. The "collective bargaining" you are so quick to belittle simply means workers elect representatives from amongst their own ranks to REPRESENT them as a group during negotiations with GREED-DRIVEN management---a DEMOCRATIC PROCESS that is protected by the U.S. Constitution. When workers in the U.S. make money, they spend that money in local businesses which...guess what, little neocon?...GROWS the economy! The payroll taxes states receive from having a strong living-wages-paid workforce (something union representation can guarantee) generate REVENUES that help well-managed (Democrat-run) states remain debt and deficit free! Workers already DO CONTRIBUTE to their own retirement fund, and worker-friendly corporations let these funds be VESTED, which means that management contributes matching amounts. You don't complain about greedy-gut CEOs and banksters giving themselves multi-million-dollar bonuses, but you object to workers getting job-provided benefits. What sense does this make? None.

Of course they do. lol