I spent most of my adult life driving trucks. My first long term gig was for what was then called Continental Baking, AKA Wonder Bread & Hostess Cake. We were Teamsters, but under a "second tier" contract that provided us a little less pay and benefits than the first tier companies under the General Freight and UPS contracts. When I was fired in 1992 for becoming disabled we were earning about $15 an hour, had full health insurance, and got a pension of about $50 for each year of service at age 65. I was promptly hired by UPS, but was laid off before I was eligible for benefits. But Yellow Freight was hiring a few months later, so I spent the summer earning similar union scale before getting laid off again. I waited for the call back to UPS for the Hoilday peak season, but none came...
But the Postal Service was hiring, and I took a cut in pay just to get a few weeks work moving the holiday mail rush. For over three years I was a public employee with none of the high pay and benefits Governor (for now) Walker and his republican cohorts claim. For over two years I was an underpaid public employee of the Postal Service, with no benefits, and laid off for nearly half the year. In fact, one time I didn't even get called back for the holiday rush and went back to UPS.
Then finally, I arrived... I became a part time permanent employee! I had no guarentee of 40 hours a week and received a "raise" to about 70% of full scale. It'd take 8 long years to reach full scale, which was still a couple bucks an hour less than UPS Teamster scale. I had no schedule, and was called in to work with little notice at all hours of the day and night. I had a cafeteria of health care plans to choose from, but none of them were free.
About the time the Postal Service made me a "Part Time Regular" I had another job offer, from the city of Minneapolis. The pay was lower, but the pension (maybe) a little better. And the same part time hours, 'cept when it snows. But while the Postal Service's doctor had already signed my DOT medical card, Minneapolis' quack was dragging his feet. So I stayed with the Postal Service. After a couple years I finally got 40 hours a week and regular hours, but there was little of the profitable overtime my Teamster brothers and sisters at UPS enjoyed.
I'm now retired. That "extravagent" government pension barely pays my 30% share of my health insurance. What's left pays for my dental insurance, thank you Mail Handlers Union! For 13 years of service as a public worker I don't even get $300 a month. Fortunately my private sector pension is a bit better- about $1500 a month for 19 years of service. Currently a 60 year old retiree in my Teamster pension plan will get $1950 a month after 30 years of service while an "overpaid" Postal Worker doing a similar job will get about $1000 a month from that "extravagent" pension plan- at age 62. It gets worse- federal workers in the same grade as postal workers are paid less and thusly receive even lower retirement benefits.
I'm a retired public worker, and that's my story. What's yours?