State workers should not be scapegoats

Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere, Martin Luther King said. Why is it an injustice to break the trust among individuals and the pension systems into which they have elected to participate? And why would someone want to take away a person’s right to bargain for benefits and working conditions?

Surely, we know that the teachers and other state employees should not be held accountable for a state’s budget deficit. Could it be that a state is in trouble because of the incompetence, arrogance, irresponsibility, cronyism, and corruption of some of its legislators?

Is it an injustice for some legislators to change existing laws, especially those laws that compel others to accept them but are not made compulsory on themselves? Are state employees allowed a voice regarding the laws that will impact only them? Why are we making state employees the scapegoats for today’s financial problems anyway? The state retirement systems are not responsible for the state’s budget deficit. State employees have contributed responsibly to their pension funds. Most of them have worked for lower wages and without bonuses or Social Security for a guaranteed pension.

So what else may have contributed to a state budget deficit beside some of its legislators? How about Enron, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, Merrill Lynch, WaMu, AIG, and Lehman Brothers, to name a few? How about the likes of Bernie Ebbers, Ken Lay, Jeffrey Skilling, Franklin Raines, David Moffett, James Cayne, John Thain, Kerry Killinger, Maurice Greenberg, Martin Sullivan, Robert Willumstad, Dick Fuld, and Bernie Madoff?

Shouldn’t we also be outraged by today’s bank CEOs who pay themselves million-dollar bonuses with our bailout money and by a Wisconsin governor who gives tax breaks to those who supported his election but not to those who didn’t?

Glen Brown

Naperville