Imagine one of your children or grandchildren \u2014 perhaps still too young to be messing around online \u2014 innocently opens up an email.<\/p>\n
\u201cDon\u2019t you care about our heroic public workers? Don\u2019t you love teachers? Don\u2019t you want fairness? Click here!\u201d<\/p>\n
Kids don\u2019t know any better. They tap the link.<\/p>\n
In an instant, schemers wire $20,000 out of your family\u2019s savings account \u2014 gone forever.<\/p>\n
You\u2019ve been warned, New York, because this is basically what will happen in Albany this month \u2014 only it\u2019s not your kids being duped, it\u2019s your state lawmakers.<\/p>\n
New York\u2019s public employee unions<\/a> want Gov. Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature to retroactively change public pension rules that have been on the books for over a decade.<\/p>\n Unlike some other states, these pensions are paid on top of, not instead of, Social Security benefits.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unfair, the unions say, that workers hired since 2012 must pay more toward their New York taxpayer-guaranteed, state-tax-exempt pensions than people hired before.<\/p>\n In fact, many union leaders say their members shouldn\u2019t have to pay anything toward their pensions.<\/p>\n And it\u2019s a matter of \u201cequity\u201d and \u201cdignity,\u201d they say, for teachers and office workers at state agencies to be able to retire with full pensions<\/a> (plus taxpayer-funded retiree health insurance) at age 55.<\/p>\n The unions want to \u201cfix\u201d these supposed injustices.<\/p>\n Defined-benefit pensions are\u00a0increasingly rare outside the public sector: Only 14% of private-sector employees had access to one last year, down from 20% in 2010 \u2014 and these weren\u2019t taxpayer-guaranteed, like New York\u2019s.<\/p>\n Facts aside, the unions plan to pressure Albany this coming weekend by busing thousands of their members there for a rally.<\/p>\n There will be signs.<\/p>\n There will be chants.<\/p>\n There will be speeches about \u201cfairness.\u201d<\/p>\n What won\u2019t there be? An actual piece of legislation.<\/p>\n That\u2019s because the unions\u2019 demands are so extreme that they have, shrewdly, avoided having their allies in the Legislature file a bill containing their demands \u2014 because that would trigger an actuarial score, and put a price tag on it.<\/p>\n Instead, they want Hochul to tuck it into the budget and stealth-pass it quickly, before taxpayers hear about it.<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\t\tGet opinions and commentary from our columnists\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSubscribe to our daily Post Opinion newsletter!\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n \t\t\t\t\t\tThanks for signing up!\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n