It Makes No Sense

Wisconsin and other state's teachers are making approximately what I did with a master's degree in engineering. How about some comparisons?

Teachers there and to varying degrees elsewhere:

1. On average have bachelor's degrees.
2. Work, on average 36 weeks per year.
3. Have a long work week averaging around 50 to 60 hours (for 36 weeks per year) based on what I personally hear from them.
4. Current average salary is $51,000/year. Adjusted for a 52-week year of employment translates to $68,000/year.
5. In the case of Wisconsin (most other states being somewhat near the same), teachers can retire as early as their 50's.
6. They retire with an annual pay of approximately $40,000 on average from their pension fund. Add to that the $20,000/year most of them will also receive from social security and their total retirement income is about $60,000. (My total income is about 1/3 of that and I saved well.) Question: why are so many folks getting all worked up about how poorly the Wisconsin teachers have it? Why isn't $60,000/year in retirement (ie, approaching what they made while working!) plus generous benefits enough? I completely don't get it!
7. At retirement they will have contributed into their pension fund approximately 2 to 3 year's worth of what they'll get back. After those 2 to 3 years, their income will be paid by someone else ... by Wisconsin citizens who are still working.
8. They retire with overall VERY generous benefits, medical and others.
9. Job Security and Seniority. Better pay, benefits and work the older one gets in the education sector. Doesn't matter too much if you're not performing well. In fact, most government jobs are jobs for life ... followed by generous guaranteed retirement benefits.
10. Their pensions were pretty well protected/rebuilt after the 2008 financial collapse. They'll still receive in retirement pretty much what they expected to receive. In fact, about half of the stimulus money all Americans paid went to prop up union pension funds. None of it went to prop up the retirement funds of the average American whose savings were hammered, in some cases to near oblivion. Teachers' annual retirement pay is largely unaffected by the state of the economy. The American taxpayer was forced to ensure that.

Let's compare that with others like myself:

1. Master's degree in engineering.
2. Worked on average at least 48 weeks/year. 1 week off between Christmas and New Years; one or two days off for other holidays. Note: Most years I had to work during much of what were supposed to be holidays, including Christmas.
3. Worked on average 50 to 60 hours per week. In fact, during 'project crunch time' I often worked around the clock for up to three days with little to no sleep.
4. My planned vacations were frequently cut short by 'work requirements' and ALL of them had to be worked around what was convenient for my company.
5. People in high tech get 2 weeks of vacation per year to start. Those companies often have policies that increase that to 3 weeks AFTER 5 years and to 4 weeks after 10 years. Problem is that layoffs happen often enough during employees' working years that most of them don't achieve more than 2 weeks per year.
6. My average salary was around $70,000, including occassional bonuses and near trivial stock options. That's approximately the same as what Wisconsin teachers with master's degrees make, adjusted for a 52-week year. (By the way, I'm 68 and retired so it's not like I was working so long ago that it's not comparable to today's salaries.)
7. I put into my retirement savings more than twice what Wisconsin teachers put into their pension plan.
8. I was VERY successful at what I did as a design engineer, manager and program manager, completing almost all of my assignments and projects on-time and on- or under-budget. I was in charge of many very complex design projects with budgets over $10 Million. So, compared with the education system results over the past 30 years I performed very well ... at approximately at an "A-" level.
9. Most of you've heard about stock options given in high tech companies but those don't amount to much except for employees in the top 10% performance rating. For everyone else here is the real story. These options can't be exercised until a future maturity date. By that date, there's a good chance of being layed off or if you're still working there, the price to exercise the option at that future maturity date is often MORE than the current price of the stock. Who wants to pay more for a stock option than they would pay for it on the open market? If you're fortunate enough to still be working there when the option matures AND the option price of the stock is less than the current market price, you still pay almost the market price. That's because when options are granted to the average employee, it's usually only a small discount off the market price ... the average employee does NOT receive free stock. So the stock option thing is wayyyyy overblown by people who don't work in high tech and, therefore, don't understand how they work. The average high tech employee does NOT receive much benefit from stock options.
10. Bonuses in high tech companies are sporadic and don't amount to much. They're given annually only when companies achieve certain profitablility AND the employee receive a very high rating in their performance review. When I did receive a bonus it was on the order of $100 to $1,000, usually toward the low end of that spectrum.
11. I was required to do random work wayyyy outside my expertise and was still REQUIRED to do it well. For example, although I was only experienced at performing and managing computer hardware design, I was once asked to be in charge of a division's facility move. My boss PROMISED(!) me that I'd have job security if I took the assignment (as if I really had a choice, right?) and completed it well. I found out what building we had to move into on December 8th and was REQUIRED to make it happen by the end of January, about 7 weeks later. I obviously had to do the work over both Christmas and New Year 'holidays'. We had to move into a 3-story building and it required major rennovations to create workspaces out of nothing and the purchase/installation of all new furniture. The work entailed: getting architectural drawings, city permits, construction company hiring/planning, construction (walls, electrical, plumbing, painting), multiple city inspections (and resulting construction tweaks), choosing furniture and getting it built/delivered, building and equipping 4 engineering labs and a manufacturing area. I got it done on-time AND on-budget. I had to work right through Christmas and New Year and my work week that entire time was approximately 80 hours/week. My wife and children rarely saw me.
12. Note: I had hired the second largest contracting company in the San Francisco's south bay area for the division move (#11 above). At the end of it, their construction project manager told me that in all his years of experience he hadn't seen anyone accomplish what we did in so short a time, so smoothly and with such high quality results.
13. NO job security. In fact, I and most people I knew averaged a layoff every 7 years or so. And the layoffs often had nothing to do with accomlishments and seniority worked against us, not for us. For example, a year after I completed the aforementioned division move I was layed off (in spite of a promise of job security by our VP beforehand if I took that assignment and completed it well). To make matters worse, at the time I got my layoff notice, I had just returned to work after 8 weeks off recovering from open heart surgery. In the REAL WORLD, employees are disposable 'resources' and compassion is an irrelevant concept. In education job security is considered to be a 'right'. There's no such thing as tenure in the real world.
14. One job I was able to land after a layoff when I got older paid so little that I had to take a second job (ITT electronics instructor). That was also a full-time job so during the year I had that job I worked at least 80 hours per week and didn't see much of my family.
15. My retirement pay is around $20,000/year. That includes social security plus income from my investments. Yes, I saved rather well. In fact, I put into my own savings about twice what Wisconsin teachers do. Although I made approximately the same as teachers with master's degrees, I worked harder at savings than they do. But with today's interest rates, retired folks who responsibly have their money invested in secure things get very small returns. Contrary to what teachers receive in retirement, our retirement income is significantly dependent on how the economy is doing. Right now it sucks badly. Many of us lost large sums of money from our retirement investments in 2008's crash and will never get it back.
16. The earliest I was able to retire was about 2 1/2 years early at age 62+. Note: retirement age for folks in my profession is about to move out to 68 with early retirement at 65. Teachers' early retirement is still in the late 50's. That means they retire after (57-24)x 36/52=22 years' worth of teaching. High tech folks retire after (63-24)x48/52= 36 years of actual work. Hmmmm. Wisconsin teachers retire on more than double my income and with generous medical benefits after 1/3 fewer working days over a teaching career. Hmmmm.
17. In retirement I have NO health benefits beyond what I have via Medicare and I pay for it all ... medicare part A, B and D out of my $20,000 income. Frankly, that doesn't leave me much to live on. I have no dental, hearing or eyesight coverage because I'd have to pay full price for it and I can't afford it.
18. AGE DISCRIMINATION. In the REAL WORLD, age discrimination is rampant outside government jobs. Especially in high tech, the older you are the more often you're layed off AND there's pressure to keep your salary low because you're deemed not as 'productive' as younger people. Experience counts for precious little past the age of 50. In fact, seniority flat works AGAINST you in high tech! I experienced much age discrimination beginning around age 50. More layoffs and the older I got, the longer it took to find someone willing to give me a job. And, yes, I was flat TOLD I was too old! (Problem is, it's hard to prove age discrimination with no witnesses to or proof of the comments.) JOB PROTECTION VIA SENIORITY IS A NON-EXISTENT CONCEPT in many lines of work. Age is a disadvantage most of the time. Unless you're a teacher.
19. By the way, I'll get out of Social Security approximately what I put into it. I'll get AT BEST out of my other retirement funds what I put into them. As I described above, Wisconsin teachers will have put about two or three years' worth of retirement money into THEIR pension fund and will receive way more than they put into it.

How do these things balance out? Would you say that Wisconsin teachers are poorly treated or well treated compared with us in technical professions with advanced degrees? By ANY measure they're doing well today, regardless(!) of the FACT that our kids' education places them near the bottom of all developed countries. I did my job responsibly and very successfully by any standard, worked harder for longer and my retirement pay is sadly about 1/3 of theirs and my 'benefits' suck by comparison.

So, don't expect me to feel sorry for them having to pay for 2 to 3 years of their retirement. In fact, expect me to be angry with their self-centeredness and greed. I've paid for 100% of my retirement. I won't be asking ANYONE to pay more for my retirement than what I contributed to it. I never expected to get something I didn't earn and that's always been okay with me because I've always believed one should try to pay one's own way in life. But that's clearly(!) not what teachers' unions are about these days because they have others paying for most of their retirement pay AND benefits and they don't want to give up their bargaining rights so they can get even more from us. What they're practicing is not the American way that I grew up believing in. And it's not the attitude toward self-sufficiency that'll serve our country well in the future.

When they start producing results as if our kids' education is truly important to them (ie, RESULTS) I'll consider supporting some of this nonsense I hear them whining about.

By the way, why are so many people upset over us who are on social security? We paid into the system approximately what we'll get out of it. Wisconsin teachers will get WAY MORE out of their retirement for a whole lot less work. Who picks up the balance they haven't put into it? Wisconsin citizens and, via stimulus and bailouts, the rest of us. No one sees that as a problem? Why?