Except that public employee workers are generally paid less than their counterparts in other industries and the pension system has been paid into for every year of their work anyways. The problem stems from from three things:
1. Public employees being laid off, therefore reducing the pool paid into the pension system.
2. Retroactive changes to the pension payouts that had the optimism of a 90's internet IPO
3. "Fraud" by high level public employees, who can get away with it because of their connections in city hall and poorly written union contracts. Really no different than corporations moving money to the Cayman Island's to avoid paying taxes, it's perfectly legal but what has been the cost to this country? Or how about upper management in corporations getting paid in stock, which when sold, would be taxed as capital gains(15% in the USA)? Still perfectly legal, but now they're paying less as a percentage of their income than you are in taxes.