Sen. Diane Savino, D-Staten Island, had strong words today for local government leaders who are seeking a new pension tier, saying they “demand a front-row seat” at firefighters’ funerals but are seeking to strip away their pension benefits.
Savino, a former labor leader, didn’t mention Gov. Andrew Cuomo, but instead focused her ire on mayors, county executives and other local officials who have formed the group New York Leaders For Pension Reform—to back Cuomo’s plans for a less generous pension tier for new public workers.
Savino spoke at a rally held by the New York State Professional Fire Fighters Association outside the Capitol, where hundreds of firefighters from across the state gathered to oppose Tier VI.
“We have mayors and county executives and town supervisors running around right now, all over the place, trying to rile up the taxpayers against you –- say that we can’t afford it, say that if we have to continue to provide pensions and benefits for you that we won’t be able to provide services to the taxpayer,” Savino said. “Well who the hell do they think is providing the service? It’s you.”She continued, “These same mayors, county executives, town supervisors and other politicians are the first ones to show up at the hospital with a news camera when one of you gets hurt, right? And they demand a front-row seat at your funeral. You need to demand from them where they stand on these issues.”
Savino said that when politicians “show up at your firehouse and they want to take pictures for their campaign literature, you need to ask them where they were on this issue. Did they stand with you or were they silent?”
Savino also took some shots at the media, saying that unions have always fought claims that it’s too expensive to provide them fair pay and benefits.
“We have the same fight all the time. It’s a little bit different these days, though, because our enemies are smarter,” she said. “They have a lot more money, they own most of the newspapers now, and they are delivering this one-sided narrative over and over again that unions are selfish, that union leaders are greedy, that taxpayers can’t afford to provide these exorbitant pay and benefits anymore.”
Firefighters were hitting the Capitol after the rally to urge lawmakers to reject a new pension tier.
8 Comments
State Senator Savino hits the nail right on the head. God bless her soul. Finally, someone has the intellectual wherewithal to figure out the scam whereby the gains in society are privatized and the losses are socialized. Public servants were not the ones who caused the financial woes of this state. If one of them died doing so, however, I’m sure someone would have been there for the photo op!
Savino is getting HER personal books in order, welcoming the unions’ largesse, financial and rhetorical. Too bad she forgot that she represents NY first. Toss her and her ilk fast, before they totally bankrupt New York. With the mal and non feasance they’ve perpetrated up to now, and continue to do, we’re almost there.
Finally a Senator who isn’t afraid to speak out on labor issues and the blue collared workers who
Show up and do their jobs everyday to make this a better city for all.
Thank you Senator Savino for having the courage to speak out on our workers behalf.
The senator was speaking to firefighters from NYC and others from around the state. I wonder if you’re readers know that the average pension benefit recieved by 80% of NYC fire fighters who retired in 2007 was more than $97,000 a year tax free. The average age of that retiree was 46. That’s right folks, they retire at 46 and recieve almost $100,000 salary for the rest of their life and they pay no income taxes on that amount. If you bought an annuity to give yourself that income (which would be subject to taxes) it would cost you over $2 million to buy it. Guess what suckers, that means while you and I work until we’re 65 or 70 and retire on whatever we can scrap together, they live like the 1% ers because THEY ARE 1%ers. Don’t kid yourself. We need pension reform and we need it right now. nyleaders.org
the senator doesn’t get it….either she is intentionally distorting what the elected officials
are trying to do….for her own political purposes or she truly doesn’t understand the
math…no one is trying to take pensions away…those who put in their years of service
are entitled to retire on a fair pension….but anyone who believes that a pension caculated
by adding overtime in the last year or three years to the base salary is a fair pension is
kidding themselves big time….everyone knows what the scam has been.the young guys
throw overtime to those who are about to retire..with the understanding that when it is
their turn they will get the same..so a person making 80,000 a year gets 100,000 in OT
and his pension is then based on 180,000….that is legalized theft
The senator “gets it” all right. And she deposits “it” in her bank account.
Let me see if I got this right: in order to appease minorities and to buy their vote, the government forces banks to lessen restrictions on mortgage qualification. The banks then go bankrupt because the mortgages were never paid. The government then pays off the banks with taxpayer money, who in turn give their top executives huge bonus for doing absolutely nothing. The government is then broke because they had to pay banks off and then blame civil servants for bankrupting the state. Yeah, that sounds about right. Time for the corrupt politicians to go!
Exactly correct except for one sentence missing from the middle of the paragraph. Just before “the government then pays off the banks with taxpayer money,” should be inserted: Banks then package garbage mortgages that the government forced them to make, and try to sell all this toxic junk off (with the help of complicit ratings agencies,) to unwary, intentionally confused purchasers in order to stick them with the losses.