TKC Note: Local 42 and a few Firefighters are playing the bad guy when it comes to the ongoing pension battle and demands at City Hall for more than $30 million in MAST pension backing, but I wanted to highlight this TKC comment out of hundreds yesterday because it offers a valuable look at the issue from another angle:
A PLEA FOR MAST PENSION IN THE TKC COMMENTS
If you check, it is illegal to use money from a 401k to fund a pension. Please understand, we WERE promised year for year in a side letter signed by Troy Schulte and Louie Wright. Over 200 of the employees WILL work 20 plus years. Very few will retire next year as most want to get the full 70% of their base pay. So, most will donate hundreds of thousands in to the pension before retiring.
You also do not understand the commitment EMS workers put into their jobs. Many work hundreds of hours of overtime to help save your lives and be there for your children and aging parents. Before you say that is our job, working 40 hours a week is but only special people work 70 or 80 a week to keep the ambulances on the streets. We see people dying, already dead, guts, broken bones sticking out, parents crying over their dead infants, mothers crying over their murdered daughters. We get spit upon by people with tuberculosis, HIV, Hep C. We get drunks who smell SO bad from peeing their clothes for days. We treat EVERYONE, regardless.
We may not have made monetary contributions to the pensions but we have sacrificed much of our lives to protect and help the citizens of KC. EMS takes a toll on marriages, families, and children. We are away from our families 10, 12, 24 hours a day, dealing with the most horrendous things society can inflict on people. You say, get a different job. Let me tell you. I LOVE my job. EMS people are special. Different than most. Could YOU do our job? Could YOU stand suctioning a trach in the throat of a patient? Could YOU be puked on and then clean it? Only certain types of people are cut out for this job.
Give us the pension we have been promised. Please.
###############