Once upon a time, in a land not far removed, there developed a tidy idea: you could get a job as a public servant, which meant that you wouldn’t earn as much as your private sector counterpart, but you’d be pretty well guaranteed a job for life.

It was called a trade-off, the idea being that “service” in the job description actually meant more than doing service to your own bank account.

Times change. Now, alas, public “servants” not only manage to avoid the layoffs which come with regular economic downturns - which have hit private sector workers over the past two years - but they’re making more money while they’re at it.

And we wonder why taxes are so high. Hah!

A front-page story in USA Today last week found that an analysis of 10 occupations comparing private and public sector workers showed that federal employees outpaced private sector employees in eight of the 10 occupations, often by wide margins. A chemist working for the federal government, for example, averaged $98,060 in 2008, compared to $72,120 for a private sector chemist. A federallyemployed janitor averaged $30,110, nearly $6,000 more (20 percent) than a private sector janitor. What’s more, these numbers didn’t even include pension, health and other benefits, which average $40,785 per federal employee in 2008 compared to just $9,882 per private worker. And so it went..

Public sector employees also beat their private sector counterparts, although not by quite as much, in both state and municipal jobs.

So much for trading off a bit of cash for job tenure. So much for sacrificing for “service.” Now our public “servants” have it both ways. Higher pay and better job security to boot.

It’s not just in the U.S. where this is true.

The Canadian Federation of Independent Business released a lengthy study last December based on a detailed analysis of 2006 Census findings comparing public and private sector wages.

They too discovered that government and public sector workers - which, in addition to direct government employees, includes school employees, transit workers, healthcare staff, etc. - earned between eight and 17 percent more than their similar counterparts in the private sector.

The CFIB study broke the wage and salary advantages into seven broad categories, with public workers beating private workers in every one, led by federal government employees (plus 17.3% over private sector workers doing similar jobs), post office (16.9%), urban transit (12.9%), municipal government employees (11.2%), educational institutions (10.8%), healthcare workers (8.5%), followed by provincial government workers forced to struggle by with just 7.9% more than their private sector counterparts.

In Ontario, however, many of the public sector advantages were even more pronounced than the

national numbers. Without getting too bogged down in figures, just take a quick look at their findings for Ontario government employees. They earned an average of $60,656 (nearly $4,000 higher for those in Toronto) as opposed to $53,682 for comparable private sector employees in Ontario. That’s a 13 percent advantage. But add to that the benefits package afforded by the longsuffering taxpayers and the advantage jumps to 30.8 percent. Yes, I know that public sector workers pay taxes too. But they can afford to, can’t they?

When you combine both salaries and benefits, federal government employees in Ontario make 38.4 percent more than their private sector counterparts. Geez!

So what to do about this?

Well, one thing the CFIB says government could do - and it’s not hard to do - is keep government spending increases no higher than inflation plus population growth. And one way to do that is for government employers to consider “the combined value of wages, benefits and working hours in evaluating appropriate compensation levels. If the public sector decides to offer more generous wages, then benefits levels can logically be lower, without compromising fairness in total compensation.”

They also urge government to move toward

implementing no-strike legislation for a larger proportion of its workforces” and revise arbitration laws to consider private sector comparables and taxpayer interests when determining wage awards.

There’s much more, but you get the drift.

Next time you hear a public “servant” complaining about their pay packet, why not ask them how much they make, including benefits, and compare it to your salary and benefits.

More often than not, they won’t have a case. And to add insult to injury they want your taxes to go up to pay for it.

The heck with that.