>So unless that counts something other than the hourly employees, or counts pension contributions as salary (in which case it is just an argument against pensions), I have a hard time believing it.

Usually if the figure includes benefits (as it does in this case) the pension contributions are included. Along with things like medical,life, and disability insurance.

Usually when you total everything up it comes to around twice what people get paid. I worked at a place with federal civil servants, and the total cost to the government for a civil servant was costed out at 2.2x salary.