Yet more apples and oranges

To the editor:

The Feb. 8 Review-Journal included a public-employee union advertising attack on the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce suggesting that, because some notable chamber jobs pay attractive salaries, public employees, including some making as much as $149,940 per year, deserve a raise.

With the passage of a large federal stimulus package, are we to assume that now is the time to play Santa Claus with this debt-financed bundle of money?

The truth of the matter is that public- and private-sector salaries are an apples-and-oranges comparison. Sure, private-sector executives and managers may make more money than comparable public employees. Public employees, on the other hand, can look forward to generous pensions, outstanding fringe benefits and health care and job security that is often unmatched in the private sector.

Private enterprises can fire an employee, often "at will," leaving the affected individual to scramble for a replacement job or face severe financial consequences. Public employees are most unlikely to be discharged for anything but the most egregious of offenses, and then only after a series of civil service hearings where they can defend themselves.

Then, if you look around and note the number of seniors on fixed incomes, young workers earning mostly minimal salaries and the huge number of currently unemployed citizens, the question becomes, "Who is going to pay for these proposed more generous salaries?"

One can be sympathetic about teachers' salaries, but even then, the concurrent salaries of educational administrators often dwarf those of the educators.

And in a larger sense, there is a solution for public employees who feel they need salaries comparable to those in the private sector. If they are willing to take on the challenges of private-sector employment, then they should go to work at private-sector jobs.

Eric Stefik

LAS VEGAS