re: Need to know: 3.9 percent pay raise effective first pay period in 2009

A Postal Wife — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 11:34:52 GMT

It's funny how much outrage the thought of a raise for public workers engenders. When someone in private industry gets a raise, we congratulate them. But I guess everyone feels entitled to every dollar of pay that a federal worker receives, as if we're stealing it from your dinner table instead of earning it.

My husband has worked for the postal service for 20-some years. After 20-some years, he has managed to get a day job with Thursdays and Fridays off. He may never get a job with a weekend day off (let alone 2), particularly as they've been cutting jobs over the past six months. In fact, he may end up back on night shift soon. Hear me out; I'm not complaining - I am responding to your complaints, and trying to reveal to you some of the real people you are talking about with such disgust and hostility.

In his job as a dock worker / forklift operator, my husband still earns the same pay level (GS 4) that he earned when he joined the PO. Without changing jobs, there are no merit increases at the PO. If he did not receive a COLA, he would be working today for the same salary he earned in 1987. Over the past fifteen years, since they adjusted the formula used to calculate the consumer price index, the CPI has been very low, and COLAs have been very low - sometimes less than one percent. Last year, the COLA was 2.9 percent. Meanwhile, I saw a box of macaroni and cheese go from 79 cents to $1.39, and gas to $3.75. But they don't factor food into the CPI. Go figure. Let's just say the COLA often fails to keep up with the true inflation rate. If you don't believe me, check out the statistics on CPI versus real inflation over the past decade. But numbers are so boring when you can just spew hate.

That luxury-job do-nothing-slob federal employee you so resent "supporting" (Oh, wait - we pay taxes, too) - includes people who unload your mail and sort it and bring it to your homes and businesses. My husband works hard, physically, five days a week. He has to take vacation to attend family weddings and other occasions that occur on Saturdays. In exchange we make a decent middle-class living (I also work).

And, again, I am not complaining - I didn't start this thread - I am responding to your complaints. My husband is grateful and relieved to have a job today, and has always felt that way about his job.

I do think you should try getting out and talking to some of the people you feel are stealing money from you by having a job in the public sector. They're not all fat-cat congressmen with their feet propped up on a desk pulling in $100,000 a year. Most federal employees are about as hard-working as most private employees. They earn decent but unremarkable salaries for it. And they depend on COLAS to keep pace with inflation. Whoopee.

The bigger question is why you have such a sense of entitlement to the wages my husband earns. If you don't want to pay him, I'll ask him to set your mail aside on the dock, and you can drive out every week and pick it up yourself, on your own dime and your own time.

re: Need to know: 3.9 percent pay raise effective first pay period in 2009

David — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 18:25:55 GMT

And I'll still be underpaid.