Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: WEDNESDAY, February 27, 1991                   TAG: 9102270487
SECTION: EDITORIAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

PUBLIC-SECTOR WORKERS ALWAYS TOPS IN COMPLAINT

How many times did I have it put to me by many on the public payroll (and by those in charge of their hiring): "Either raise salaries substantially or employees will go elsewhere"? Yet decrease the number of public employees in almost any public sector, and there usually is an outcry, sometimes when only a very few are involved.

These furloughs should not appreciably affect public service. As one primarily (for 40 years) rooted in the management of profit-motivated employees, I've observed in many instances the private employee first looks for opportunities, whereas too often the public one's main priority is benefits.

The bureaucracy of the public work place often gives the appearance of a bloated payroll. So much so in California that the voters passed Proposition 140, which resulted in the loss of 600 legislative jobs. Watch a state highway crew at "work" and then a crew engaged by a private contractor. There is a difference, just as there is in vacation time and holidays, with the public employee winning in this area too.

Nobody likes tough economic times. But public employees should not have any more job protection than those on the private payroll who, after all, shoulder much of the tax burden required to compensate the public employee.

I make no blanket indictment of public employees. I salute those who work with zest and treasure the friendship I've made with quite a few locally and throughout the state. I simply tire of the whiners who, it seems, invariably label themselves "dedicated and loyal," as if private workers are not. FRANCIS T. WEST MARTINSVILLE