01:00 AM EDT on Friday, August 13, 2004

THIS IS A RESPONSE to Donald B. Hawthorne's July 24 Commentary piece, "R.I. public unions hard at work to reduce your quality of life."

Who are the nurses, firefighters, police, social-welfare workers, prison guards, hospital workers, highway crews, teachers, and others? They are the union members who provide the essential services that Mr. Hawthorne and all other Rhode Islanders enjoy and take for granted, until needed.

Compare their pay and benefits with the remuneration of CEOs in Rhode Island and nationally. Take an objective look at the salaries, bonuses, and stock options given these top executives, and honestly admit who is benefiting from gouging. These bloated compensations assail the average person in the form of ever-higher prices for every necessity, from electricity to milk.

Using my own situation as a union member, I offer a point-by-point refutation of Mr. Hawthorne's contentions:

-- I was a teacher for 30 years; in that time, I never came close to a 12-percent raise.

-- There were no automatic increases in pay; our union had to fight tooth-and-nail for each contract as September approached, and the school committee relied upon Superior Court to order us back to work without one.

-- I never saw a longevity bonus.

-- Teachers were laid off every year.

-- I made ever-increasing co-payments for my health insurance until retirement. Until I was eligible for Medicare, I paid almost $400 per month for medical coverage for myself alone.

-- In retirement, I am paying out of my own pocket for Medicare, Medigap insurance, and $3,000 for prescription drugs.

-- I live on a pension that is considerably less than I would be earning if I were still employed, and have been forced to take many cost-cutting steps to economize.

-- If teachers did not have periodic vacations, the state hospitals would be full of those who had gone berserk. I once witnessed a banker emerge from speaking to three economics classes looking as if he had just gone 15 rounds with Joe Louis; he got an instant lesson in what teachers contend with, and why they need time off.

After retirement, I worked in a non-union office for two years. Regular harassment and belittlement were the norm. Evaluations were works of fiction and instruments of intimidation. Raises were few and paltry. I felt for those who had to remain. I left this toxic environment; they couldn't.

Many well-off people are myopic when confronted with the plight of non-union workers, and would condemn them after retirement to soup-kitchen visits and other assaults upon their dignity -- a life union workers have striven long and hard to escape. Society's first obligation is to its citizens; every person should have access to a decent wage, retirement benefits, and health care. Thus far, this has been only a dream for far too many people.

Men have been hanged from lamp posts for fighting for union protection. The benefits union members receive are moderate in comparison with the obscene monetary packages awarded to the avaricious of Wall Street. Who would want to be in the shoes of the thousands of Enron workers who had their life savings and pensions wiped out by the Ken Lays of this world? I would put my own head in a noose before I would ever again work in a non-union environment.

Incidentally, Mr. Hawthorne, what do you do to "make ends meet"?

James P. Hosey, of North Scituate, is a retired Cumberland High School teacher.