Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel gets it — at least when it comes to the unsustainability of public-sector union contracts. An Atlantic profile explains:

One day at a firehouse (I agreed not to disclose which one), Rahm gets into a vigorous discussion of pensions, the most burdensome issue for cities and states across the country. The firemen are upset that they’ve paid in all these years and the city hasn’t fulfilled its promises.

“If I were you, I’d be as pissed off as you. We signed not one, not two, but multiple contracts all reasserting the same thing,” Rahm says, implicitly damning the bargains Daley made.

But then, hands on hips, he looks them in the eye and says, “Here’s the deal.” He reminds the firemen that, as he said straight-up during the campaign, he would have to raise property taxes by 90 percent just to cover police and fire pensions, and there’s no way he’ll do that. So Chicago, like other cities, should begin to shift toward a system where everyone on the public payroll can choose to stay in the pension plan with a higher employee contribution or move to a 401(k) with a more generous employer match than offered in the private sector.

“If this was Chicago Tool and they didn’t pay into their pension, I bet there’d be a whole lot of people in the federal penitentiary,” says one fireman.

Rahm tells them that’s wrong. “A lot of companies go bankrupt, and it’s a forced reduction, mandated by the judge. I’m actually trying to negotiate it, okay?” He urges them to support a deal now, when they have leverage. “I believe these are life decisions,” he says calmly.