Why do Police and Firefighters always get Pay/Salary Cuts?

Question

Why do Police and Firefighters in unions always get Pay/Salary Cuts?

Do Electrical Union Workers (IBEW) get pay cuts as well?

Answer 1

The IBEW is a private union, they would have to agree to their own cuts.



Police and Firefighters belong to a public union, so it's easy for law makers.. who are usually republican, to dip into their funding.

Answer 2

Police and Firefighters are government jobs. And, when people talk about downsize, they mean take away Police, Firefighters, and Teachers. If a population is 1 million people, and you have police officer for each 250 people, that'll cost X amount of dollars. The problem is that the population grows, but the dollars do not. Instead, voters don't want to pay for anything and vote in politicians to cut taxes. Therefore, the population that grows to 1.2 million is served by even fewer police officers, fireman, and teachers than the population did when there was 1 million people.



Electorial workers work for free. They are not in a Union.



Problem: Mass misinformation which is propogated by news organizations that do no research and have an interest in confusing the public so that their parent Corporation leaders get bigger tax breaks. These are not patriots. A patriot serves their country or pays for public services.

Answer 3

In 2009 our IBEW local gave an 8% pay and benifet cut.

Firefighters and police get paycuts because there are less taxes being collected and the states and cities can no longer afford them.

I think they have to many police anyhow. Crime is down but police numbers have increased.

Answer 4

Tom,

The answer is purely political. When budgets get tight the police and fire departments are usually the first to get cuts or at least threatened cuts. This is because people want to feel safe and most elected officials know that citizens will endure tax increases to prevent police cars being parked and fire stations closed. This way they don't have to give up the city council retreat to Hawaii or the multiple unneeded staffers and perks in their own offices.

Answer 5

Maybe instead of having 9 cops at a construction site all of whom are texting away and shooting the $hit, they could cut down on unneeded spending.