This page has been archived and commenting is disabled.
Are Government Unions Out Of Control? An Infographic
This week, Arizona legislators are voting on a package of bills that would be “Wisconsin on steroids” – banning collective bargaining, release time and automatic deduction of union dues from paychecks. The unions plan state capitol protests this week, so things are heating up and the story has already appeared in various national publications. Since union protests are planned for the capitol tomorrow it will likely involve a lot of drama and TV coverage. Yet like every issue there are pros and cons, and government unions are a very sensitive topic to be sure. While the TV coverage will certainly focus on the favorable side of unionization (after all, what is better for the economy than more people collecting paycheks.... even if these are ever diminishing paychecks) here is an infographic from the Goldwater Institute looking at the cost side of the equation.
»
- 23940 reads
- Printer-friendly version
- Send to friend
- advertisements -
There is the last vestige of the old thinking. "When my argument is completely debased tell them they havent thought for themselves." Any chance this applies to you instead? I mean you smelt it you delt it.
High five all...way to shut down communizm
http://youtu.be/EM2Xm2hMVR8
So your romper room reference would be different how? But you really don't see the hypocrisy. Typical of those with such a self-centered worldview. Do as I say, not as I do, right?
I see, if we all just work hard enough, Goldman Sachs would have 350 million CEOs
Careful with the logical thought there, 323. You will offend the idealogues who think we could all be oligarchs if we just tried hard enough, that they will be oligarchs some day because they are superior, and that everyone who is not an oligarch needs to enjoy eating cat food because they deserve no better.
Made me laugh out loud, if I'd been drinking I'd be halfway through a laughing+choking fit.
Ohhhhh hahahaha
+many
CALL UP PUTIN AND ASK HIM FOR THE CENTRAL PLANNING MACHINE THE SOVIETS USED TO USE. THAT SHOULD SOLVE EVERYTHING TO YOUR SATISFACTION.
The irony is that Putin would run the world that you envision. Take away government by the people for the people, and you are left with thugs like him running the show. NO MATTER HOW MANY CAPITAL LETTERS YOU USE, YOU ARE STILL AN IDIOT.
My boyfriend is a state trooper with 7 years experience and he makes nowhere near 6 figures
Shhhh. They don't like facts and stuff. Stick to theory and what Rush says.
I've never listened to Rush in my life. So what else you got?
Despite your obviously self-centered view, my comment was not directed to you so whether you have ever listened to Rush has no bearing on anything.
Your Rush comment was directed at a generic "they." Do I have to be a narcissist in order to believe that I am encompassed by a generally deployed plural pronoun?
Yes. If 80% of the people who were intended to be included within my "they" are blindly repeating conservative talk radio propaganda, then it is utterly irrelevant that you claim to be an exception.
But enough about what I think of you. What do you think of you?
What does it matter to you what I think of me? You expect me to conform to your government regulated paradise regardless of my self impressions and desires.
I know of an artist (painting type shit) and her husband (poet) who have a taxable income in excess of $150k, and have had for eons.
Their sole source of income is from the Gubamint. State and Federal.
Whatthefuck has that to do with it?
If people want to band togeather to negociate, then the people against whom they negociate should have equal ability to effect such in opposition.
UAW has managemant
Steelworkers have management
In Holland soldiers have the MoD (Seriously!)
In US, public employees have..... Nobody
Fuck 'em
Out here in the Great Peoples Republic of the Winter Home of the Great Satan, the fucking system is broken by patronage, bribery and extortion (effectively) due to such imbalance. And not only on the wage and benefit side, everybody fucking retires and resumes their same job as a consultant the next day at higher wages.
It's fucked up 1000 ways to Sunday.
May God strike these theives down, for the public has absolutely no control over their "servants"!
The artist, poet and union workers who abuse the system thinking of it as entitlements, are bad individuals and need be stopped.
Amen. There is no way that tax money ought to go to individual artists (and poets). And I say that as the wife of a working artist.
I think we can all agree that the arts are totally devoid of value in a free society, especially among the poor.
So Shakespeare's works can't be considered to be artistic because the Globe Theater was patronized by lowly rapscallions? Why do you have such a strong bias against recorded history not to mention the scenes unfolding outside your garret windows?
I didn't say that, I said no individual artist ought to receive tax money. (There are plenty of programs that are poorly run but I'm not including them.) The cronyism for the individual grants in the National Endowment for the Arts was well documented before they were finally stopped.
I think it's unconscionable to fund artists when there is such a high proportion of debt and deficit spending.
A single stealth bomber costs 2 billion tax dollars start to finish. Where the fuck is your outrage over the cost of an individual stealth fucking bomber?
Why the fuck can't you stick to a single point in an discussion?
Sounds reasonable.
Unions are fine, as long as they have no legal protection (beyond what is offerred to any citizen, of course). Workers should have the right to come together and say "We're all going to quit unless you do X, Y, and Z" and employers should have the right to say "Then get out. You're fired."
This isn't the way our system works anymore, unfortunately, and the deck has been continually stacked in favor of unions while it becomes harder and harder to legally fire people. The only blessed relief remaining that can counter the ever-growing demands of unions is bankrupcty, but our government has seen fit to make sure that never happens either.
"This isn't the way our system works anymore, unfortunately, and the deck has been continually stacked in favor of unions while it becomes harder and harder to legally fire people."
Do you really believe that? I mean, really? Most major manufacturers left this country over the last 40 years to build in countries with slave labor because our tax laws and free trade laws make it possible. I suppose you believe the solution is for workers to get paid less. I'm sure your corporate overlords appreciate your support. Go 1%!
There you have it: "Most major manufacturers left this country over the last 40 years to build in countries with slave labor because our tax laws and free trade laws make it possible"
100% Correct. Our LAWS, the ones your beloved Savior State drafted and enacted "for our own good", are the why and the how of America's lost manufacturing base. Free trade, the free market, and capitalism had nothing to do with it. The solution is for workers to choose if they want to accept any offered salary or not, and businesses to decide how much they will pay workers. If you think that equates to slave wages and labor oppression then the discussion is over, the only alternative is an unfree market - a command economy the specific type of which is utterly irrelevant - which is what you've been cheering for all along.
I guess it never dawned on you that the tax laws and the "free trade" laws (a contradiction in terms) were not problematic qua their specific terms, but qua laws, i.e. coercion resulting in a manipulated economy and unfree market.
I suppose you believe the solution is for workers to get paid more - just pay everyone more, no questions asked! Where's the money gonna come from? Just print it!
I really love you guys. You call for no government, but then when I point out that free trade and favorable tax treatment for going to wherever labor is cheapest (the definition of what the free market wants to do) destroyed the middle class in favor of the oligarchs, you blame... government.
"You call for no government, but then when I point out that free trade and favorable tax treatment for going to wherever labor is cheapest (the definition of what the free market wants to do) destroyed the middle class in favor of the oligarchs, you blame... government."
Speaking for myself, I have never called for "no government". I've called for less government many times, in fact all the time.
And seeing as how you and your ilk continually agitate for a higher corporate tax to ameliorate this societies ills, just what is the corporate tax rate in China?
I'm the one who ordered no government. But they keep bringing me government anyway. This is definitely going to effect the tip.
"I'm the one who ordered no government. But they keep bringing me government anyway. This is definitely going to effect the tip."
lol...I can certainly understand why you would not want to pay the devil his due, let alone tip him for his job well done ;-)
I remain in the camp that "something" will hold a superior place in the affairs of men. That thing should be the rule of law as most men of freedom have always known it.
Not the bought one, the corrupted one...the natural one.
This requires enforcement. It requires collaboration of like minded people to enforce it. So far, it has always meant a government (of some description) to achieve those ends.
If a just government acts according to the will of the people then the people should be able to achieve their goals through voluntary agreement and not at the point of a tyrant's gun.
Nice reach around guys.
So you hate homosexuals then? Or do they simply amuse you?
Neither. I was pointing out that you and your friend had a nice reach around.
That's hate speech. Why do you wish to offend libertarians and gays?
Interesting view of reality. I believe that hate speech is telling a poor person in a wheelchair who cannot afford medical care that she should just fucking burn if she can't afford her own fire engine company, and that she should just suck it up if she survives and goes to the hospital without money to pay for skin grafts.
But I never said that. Letting people die is your fantasy, no one else's.
I've come a long way from a simple "teabagger"...for the left, it's like some sort of weird heirachial enlightenment process they have to go through to find the real meat of it ;-)
Too politically incorrect, nmewn? ;(
It's simply a reflection of your own conflicts, EatRand ;-)
Hypocrisy. It's the new white meat.
...said the progressive who thinks that attempting to smear his political opponents by comparing them to homosexuals is inoffensive.
Not only do you criticize what folks do in the privacy of their bedrooms but you also want all people to conform to your political, social and economic views regardless of their own interests. It's a real shame that you can't accept diversity.
Indeed, how said that I can't accept the need for poor people to die so that you can have slightly more shit you don't need.
What poor person died because I took my family to see the Chronicle last weekend? Were they helped or hindered when I paid those exorbitant sales taxes and ridiculous ticket prices?
And who or what died and left you to be "The Decider" of what is the right amount for anyone?
By the way, your doing a great job of exemplifying exactly what libertarians and fiscal conservatives say an out of control, central planning freak of nature sounds like...but still, you're no MDB...lol.
I agitate for a tariff system that takes away the incentive to make shit half-way across the world at slave labor camps and ship it back here to be purchased on credit by Wal-mart greeters.
Saro. Do you think businesses should be able to band together and decide that none of them are going to pay anything more than min. wage. People would have no choice but accept low wages. Collective bargaining is extortion, no matter whos doing it.
the subject is PUBLIC UNIONS
I think businesses should be able to fire everyone and have no one working for them-- duh ??
How could businesses possibly band together and offer nothing but minimum wage? No one would make any investment in developing their skills. Any business that depended on skilled labor would simply cease to operate.
And there would always be a few employers who would pay more to attract better workers. Even if it's ten cents more the better workers would move to that employer. Then that business would grow and the ones paying minimum wage would shrink. Eventually the other businesses would have to pay more to attract skilled workers of their own. In the end the only people making minimum wage would be those with no skills or experience. These people would have the option of improving their skills in order to earn more from interested employers.
That's a free market. It's what free people do. And of course minimum wage laws simply destroy jobs for the least qualified workers who want to gain experience and skills but are blocked by government regulation.
Clearly the solution to our problems is to let free markets allow the demands of of the people, acting on their own wants needs and desires, determine where there are too many people to fill jobs and where there are too few and set pay accordingly. For that to happen both employers and employers need to be free. Employers need to be free to negotiate wages with employees that best serve consumers, and employees need to be free to determine whether unions are providing value for the dues they pay and join or not out of mutual benefit.
Are you guys crazy? They are inefficient and do have some major issues but unions protect the people - wow you are totally brain-washed...
The point of government is to feed the military industrial complex and the prison industrial complex, enrich bankers, and reward CEO's with tax incentives to send jobs overseas. If our firefighters were paid less, all would be fixed. And your point about protecting "people" is misplaced. Corporations are not protected by unions. They are the most important people in our society by far, and in fact were what the Framers really had in mind when they referred to We the People.
You just seem insistent on changing the subject!
http://www.don-lindsay-archive.org/skeptic/arguments.html#digression
My God you are such a tiresome worn out twat.
Coming from you, that is truly a compliment. Thank you.
The prison industrial complex includes some of the highest paid public employees. So you might want to move that into your Do-Gooder Approved list.
The 5 Highest-Paid California State Employees All Work in the Prison System, Make Over $500,000 Per Yearhttp://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/07/highest-paid_california_state...
I totally agree that the prison system is overbloated, including the public employees. Unlike many of this site, I do not believe in black and white problems or solutions. I am also in favor of gutting the military industrial complex. Does that confuse you?
Why do you want to dismantle the military industrial complex? Isn't killing people just one more of those grey areas that can be safely ignored if it remains undefined?
I want to dismantle the military industrial complex because theft and murder are morally wrong. You see, it is as simple as black and white.
You must learn to never compromise your principles but always be willing to change policies in the most efficient pursuit of those principles. Respect for human beings begins with the recognition that each man must be free to live his own life as he sees fit no matter how you feel about it.
Actually, "killing people" is a gray area. Self defense comes to mind. Given how objectively wrong you are about so many things you say, do you ever question yourself? Wait, don't answer that. I know the answer, and the answer is also the problem.
There's nothing grey about self defense as opposed to murder. Specific words have specific meaning. If I spoke in a loose manner by saying "killing people" rather than employing the term "murder" then I am at fault for that. But my verbal miscue can't alter any specific situation in which one can distinguish an act of murder from an act of self defense. These specific terms have specific definitions and can not be confused with each other verbally or in practice. That which is well defined is not amorhous or ephemeral.
I can't read your mind, but I've totally lost your point. Enlighten me.
There are dozens of folks here who are trying to enlighten you but you take no notice. Why have you taken a special liking to me?
Actually there is a much better arguement for privatized fire departments like there used to be. Dont want to pay for it? Let your house burn. That way fire fighters get paid for the risk they take. If your house has alarms, fire suppression and access to water then your premiums are lower. It would actually increase personal responsibility.
That's always a win.
Not if you're our friend Rand, how would his glorious Savior State be able to make everything better for us - for our own good! - if we had to do it ourselves!?!?
By opposing the magnanimity and charity of the Let Them Eat Rand Savior State, you threaten our people with responsibility, entrepreurship, liberty, peace, and prosperity, how dare you???? /////s
So basically people who cannot pay for fire protection should just fucking burn. If they are lucky enough to survive a fire, the hospitals should turn them away while their flesh hangs from their bones if they cannot pay for treatment which by definition, they cannot. Saving a few bucks on fire protection would allow me to buy another bottle of nice wine, and you could buy another puppy to torture. Torturing of puppies would be legal, of course, because there would be no reason for government to meddle in such things that do not affect commerce or contractual rights. Nice plan for our future, sociopathic asshole.
Anyone who can afford a home can afford to pay a small subscription for fire protection in the free market. Those who are down on their luck can be carried voluntarily by their neighbors as no one wants his neighbor's house to go up in flames.
There are literally billions of ways for the free inhabitants of Planet Earth to provide for protection against fire. It's not as if only a government firehouse will douse flames, you know.
You're the one who wants the little guy to pay more for essential services. Stop pretending that you are the friend of the common man.
What if someone's neighbors are greedy assholes and don't want to chip in either because they figure their neighbor will pay? What if the poor handicapped person rents and her landlord doesn't feel like paying? Burn? And I notice you didn't touch the issue of the lady wheeling herself into the emergency room with the crispy flesh and being told to leave because she can't pay.
You guys always suggest that "someone else" will pay if government doesn't. The obvious translation is that you just don't want to pay and you know full well that many will fall through the cracks but you don't GIVE A SHIT. Just fucking admit it.
There are no professional firefighters where I live. We've got dozens of volunteer fire departments within a few minutes drive. We support our fire departments with donations and by showing up at their annual beer bashes. I'm sure they get some grant money here and there but none of the firefighters draws a paycheck. And there's no plethora of crispy grandmas laying around the ICU.
No Utopia required.
Will you just admit that your model wouldn't work in a big city? Or a medium sized city? Or even most small towns that have any dense areas of multi-family housing with relatively low income residents? Do you really believe that what works in your extremely small town and your incredibly simple world can be translated to the entire planet? Have you ever been to a large city?
Why do you believe that only a government operated fire hose can extinguish a fire? Surely intelligent, capable human being can voluntarily agree to make provisions against the ravages of fire, can they not? Or do fires insist on raging unless the firefighter is paid by confiscated wealth rather than by voluntarily supplied wealth? How does the fire know the difference between a public firefighter, a private firefighter and a volunteer fire fighter and why should it care?
Really? How many volunteer fireman with donated equipment does it take to extinguish a fire in a 60 story building filled with hundreds of residents screaming for help from the windows? Or should fires insist on starting only in buildings in which those of means have contributed just enough to save themselves? You didn't answer my question about how many big cities you've visited.
Are you other fucking free market fuckers reading this shit and seeing the poison you are spreading?
But why can't the inhabitants of the city voluntarily assemble fire fighting and other services? Government takes money from people and uses it to provide services. If the government didn't confiscate people's money but instead let the people organize themselves voluntarily the same resources would be available to complete the job at hand. A free market is simply a way to more efficiently orchestrate the resources which are available.
One more time. What if a bunch of people are legally renting apartments and the landlord doesn't decide to give up his money to pay. And what if the renters legally bargained for him to pay. Do they just fucking burn?
And which cities have you visited enlightened one?
And you still haven't addressed the handicapped woman wheeling herself into the emergency room with flesh dripping off. "See 'ya, woudln't wanna be 'ya?" if she has no money?
In any city there will always be a majority of people who will not want the city to burn. These people will gladly take up the financial slack and provide the resources to fight any and all fires.
So, just like now, deep pockets will provide the greatest amount of funding and some people will receive services without paying. But, as always, such a voluntarily arranged system will function with more efficiency and with less acrimony than a system dependent on compulsion.
Really? They protect the people? I was union for almost 20 years and my 2nd to last employer laid me off 7 times in one year and my last employer had me train my replacement which was the owners nephew and his first job out of college and then I was to be let go. The union officials only response was "things are getting better because the stock market keeps going up" I shit you not. Instead of training my replacement I handed my keys to the owner and said fuck you and walked out. I will NEVER work for a stupid fucking union again and I will take great delight when the remaining members are fucked raw.
The flip side is most corporations are evil bastards also I realize that. At this point in time I don't really fucking care what happens.
but their hand was out for "Due's", wasn't it
fuck the unions!
jmo
Unions, like any protection racket, are supremely good at shaking down their victims, but rarely (if ever) deliver on their promised "protection".
bingo
If there is any abuse in a system, it must be completely dismantled not fixed. Black and white is all that exists. There is no gray and complex subjects with complex solutions scare me.
People have a right to make free choices. That much is black and white. Do you disagree?
That's your example of a black and white problem? Thank you for making my point better than I ever could. Do people have the right to make a free choice to kill their spouse? Do people have the free right to break a valid contract? Do people have the free right to pour toxic waste into my well? Still see "free choice" as a good example of a black and white concept? I see it as a perfect example of your inability to think through or even recognize complex problems. Admit you were completely wrong and I will consider further discussion with you.
News Flash: People don't have a right to kill each other! More at 11.
Murder is another one of those black and white things if you hadn't noticed. Or do you see killing your fellow man in shades of gray, such as "Bush was a murdering chimp because he killed innocent civilians in far away lands but because Obama supports the unions he should be given another term, innocent civilians be damned?"
Thank you for finally admitting that you are wrong. Of course people don't always have free choice.
What makes you think I support Obama? Simple black and white thinking again, crockett.
You might as well say that people can not and should not be free in their social and financial affairs because they can not make the choice to fly by flapping their arms.
That's not the way any reasonable person thinks about freedom. Just as each individual is constrained from being able to make a free choice about independent, arm-powered flight so is each individual constrained from committing murder and theft by natural law.
Natural law recognizes that all men have an equal right to life and property. Natural law guarantees a man's right to defend himself and his property in proportion to threats made against them. These constraints are as normal and as natural as the constraint against flight by arm flapping.
If one violates the natural constraints against theft and murder other individuals will justly dissuade the perpetrator of such acts just as surely as gravity will dissuade any would be arm flapping fliers from violating the natural order.
What would you expect? They're just corporations.
Oh yeah, they wanted $100 a month for me to sit at home. I told them to go to hell and officially withdrew from the union. It wasn't a month later they held a meeting and decided to lower out of work dues to $35 month for fear id start an exodus.
Based upon your personal bad experience (which you were able to fix with simple protest), let's get rid of all unions. Good, logical, critical tihinking rsnoble.
As a former union member: Go fuck yourself.
Now, now. Play nice. And go fuck yourself, you fucking ideological douchebag who is incapable of rational or independent thought.
Ah we finally get to the ad hominem attacks you've been so obivously waiting to unleash. About fucking time.
When you can't refute an argument, can't even attack it's premises or structure, just accuse the person presenting it of being an 1) ideologue and 2) douchebag who is 3) incapable of rational or independent thought. Of course, "rational and independent thought" refers to WHATEVER YOU WANT IT TOO AND NOTHING ELSE and has absolutely nothing to do with rationality or independence and everything to do with your opinion - for which you refuse to argue rationally, instead opting to simply attack all with whom you disagree in a manner completely non-conducive to constructive rhetorical argumentation.
If you had a point you thought you could defend for 5 milliseconds, you'd have made it already.
So here's an independent thought: propose a superior alternative to free market capitalism or shut up. I'm not holding my breath.
So when someone tells me to go fuck myself, I cannot respond in kind? What about your little friend you told me to go fuck myself. Different rules for him? I thought so. Your ilk always wishes to impose a set of rules on everyone but yourself. It's in your nature, so I get it. I just don't fall for it.
There is no such thing as a free market. Show me one anywhere in the world throughout history. Ever. Anywhere. Your solution to complex problems is fantasy.
The ZH Readers Union finds you in contempt. You must comply.
Has anyone ever told you that you have a REALLY big ego? You just uniilaterally appointed yourself head of a non-existent union and then suggested that doing so should make me see the light that complex union organizations elected by members should be banned because giant corporations prefer compliant workers.
All I did was glance at the arrow counts attached to your posts. But that's just my silly predilection for looking at the real world that exists around me instead of vacillating in a dream world where everything is gray and any Utopian dream offered up by government is the one and only course for all thinking and compassionate people.
Keep telling yourself you are compassionate and it will be true.
You are the one who says that spending other people's money in order to buy votes from special interests represents compassion.
" The free market in the 1800's and early 1900's routinely employed child labor."
Your words a few hours ago.
letthemeatrand....you can actually see the shit you are typing as you think this through right......You are bashing someone that was actually there, had to make decisions and knows the situation first hand?? WTF? What union were you part of? I would state your argument as best you can and leave out any extra bullshit for people that actually know how the unions work.
So I should take a single person's negative experience and ignore everything I have ever read on the subject or discussed with others who were union members? Do you see the shit you are typing?
That's the problem with group think. You want everyone to be regulated into your way of thinking and the protests of a real individual mean nothing to you. Why should he have to live his life by your rules? He's not asking you to live by his. If you want to pay union workers then go ahead and do it. My family eats best when I find the best deals possible which can only be delivered through voluntary transactions.
No, that's the problem with living in a society. I know it's difficult for sociopaths, but get over it.
Organization by compulsion is neither sociable or civilized. Why do you believe that those who are willing to agree to disagree and afford others the same benefit are sociopaths? It seems to me that those who want to back up their Utopian dreams with government guns and prisons are the sociopaths.
If you live in a very small town, everything you say makes sense. You live in a small town, probably not in the U.S. given your preferred spelling of gray ("grey"). Spend some time overseas in a big city, and then get back to me.
I live 20 miles outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. So you're wrong again. I alternate between "grey" and "gray" because I spend far too much time dissecting old books many of which were penned in the old country, linguistically speaking (no pun intended).
This is just another example of why your suppositions concerning people whom you have never met and whom you know very little can not be centrally assessed and administered according to some Utopian ideal. I'm not the man you think I am but you insist on promoting involuntary policies which you claim will benefit me although they actually do the opposite.
God tell me you didnt send the $35.
rsnoble...sorry about that shit situation, seriously. People need to hear an inside voice about the true union workings or its just all sentimental bullshit about preventing slave labor like in the 1800's!! Ok, the corporations are full of shit too but the topic here is Govt Union, and should the Govt Union Workers be able to collective bargain with ....themselves, the taxpayer, when they are unhappy about anything. The Unions in this respect are absolutely genius since they now can directly deduct dues from workers paid by someone that will Never run out of money, no matter how stupid the economy becomes. Genius. There is still a shadow of the old market force still alive in that union membership is down quite a bit.....and the fastest growing segment is the govt worker. Have family that works with the union in detroit, oh yeah, these guys will like your car on fire if you go against the grain, lovely bunch.
Unions do nothing but protect the incompetent.
Binary.
Black.
White.
There is no gray. Complex thought is for idiots.
If we're at that point, cataclysm is the only fix. Sucks maybe, but there it is. Keep in mind everyone here is fringe element.
Yeah - it's everyone else that's brainwashed.
Thanks -- but I will protect myself. Grow up people.
Unions are most proficient at protecting (and paying) union leaders.
Precisely! Unions are just like any other bureacracy. I don't care if it is government,military, corporate, non-profit, union, fookin girl scouts and kiddie baseball. It's bureacracy that kills everything. I still like a promise, a smile and a handshake with an intelligent, ethical person. Once heirarchal structures that give power to doofus' erupt, it's all over.
Sorry spider, you are NOT going to get any sympathy for unions in this board. BTW, you might be the one brained washed because empirical evidence shows that unions ARE anti-productive not to mentioned a magnet for thugs and organized crime.
Remove Unions and you are simply adding power to the corporate/big business interests. You're absolutely right that unions ARE anti-productive, but i'd take them any day over slavery to corporate interests.
Corporations serve a valuable purpose in providing goods and services to meet the demans of society at a price where people can afford them. To the extent that Unions create favored industries that are payed disproportionaly compared to demand, they subvert the ability of the free market to serve the people. For example, if there are too many people that want to be teachers they should be paid less because society needs some of the excess supply of teachers to be doing other things than teaching. That would bring down the cost of education and in other areas where the demand for jobs is not being filled.
In my experience teathers unions, for example, protect incompetent teachers, prevent teachers who excell from being rewarded, thus discouraging them, create wages that are not in line with demand, stifle innovation that might imperil teching jobs, and are some of the largest donors to the political parties they negotiate with, ensuring the people are not represented at the negotiating table.
This last point is a major problem. It create a cycle for more and larger government, leading to more government employees, who pay dues to contribute to election of the political party that they know will grow government and increase government pay. If we were to stop public sector unions from being able to contribute to election campaigns I think that alone would go a long way to helping keep the size of state and local governments optimal.
GernB +100
And teachers seem to be disproportionally left wing and are very active as a group to volounteer for their favorite political party come election time. this is a highly politicized group of people teachers negotiate their contracts by pointing a gun a your kids head and says " gimme more or the kid gets it", or they say we can't do a good job of educating your kid unless you give us more resources, which means make me rich.
Spider, if unions provided a check and balance on corporations, you argument might hold some weight.
But they don't, so it doesn't, and you're a fucking idiot for thinking it.
"But unions protect the people", Not the TAXPAYER'S WALLET they don't. For what they do some of them are wildly overpaid.
ha ha, I love steroids!
Government unions are a contradiction in terms. Think the taxpayer isn't paying you what you're worth? Then get out in the private sector assholes where the real world lives!
call that nurse an asshole next time you're in hospital...
But why does an electrician working in the public sector need another union than in the private sector?
Whether or not you're willing to call someone an asshole to his face has no bearing on the fact of his being an asshole.
"The unions plan state capitol protests this week"
state terrorism.....i am sure obama will invoke ndaa to take care of the pests....
i for one would love to see the government on strike.....
what we have here is a situation not to comply - a "Cool Hand Luke" scenario of sorts unfolding
the government unions are fine,... but private sector unions are not?
yet, gov't makes on avg. 50% more in wages, and fantastic fringe benefits to boot
someone square this circle-jerk!
fuck "All the Unions"!
jmo
Bankrupt Municipalities dont need advertising campaigns to get their point accross.... The checks that never arrive will bring everyone to the negotiation table...
This thread is gonna get very ugly.
I'm in no mood for this today.
ciao kids...
now go ahead and rip each others metaphoric heads off because we all know that's gonna solve the problem.
as the ostrich raised its voice to the groundhog below - go burrow someone else
Hence this masterpiece:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EmC26RuO26g
The gubment needs to hire everyone. Then everyone is locked in to a good salary and a good job. All problems solved. Ok break! Let's get this thing rolling 100% employment for life there should not be any unintended consequences from this policy.
I want one of those $250k/yr jobs watching porn..........err reviewing porn...........err porn inspector jobs i mean!!
No shit. Hook me up with one of those SEC jobs please!!!
the gubmint's underground militia, ain't gonna let some joe sixpack take his six figures,... no sir`re
I agree. This thread is going to get ugly and I want no part either. That unions have confiscated the remains of the bare carcass that was left to us by TPTB is a sensitive subject and I won't put my two cents in on how corrupt and out of check they are.
Thank you for not saying that.
It took a lot of self restraint to hold it in. Like Steven Wright said it takes a big person to cry but it takes a bigger person to laugh at that person.
just wait till the federal employee unions deal with this issue in 2-5 years. talk about steroids!!!
Here's my take: $40hr to unemployment to NOTHING yes I still see the county tax collectors showing up everyday in a new $100 outfit. These bastards are one of the "priveledged" bunch that REFUSES TO JOIN THE DEPRESSION. They will do anything to keep their level of pay/pension etc from collapsing........including SELLING YOUR HOUSE!!!
I say fuck these bastards, myself and several others can no longer afford you and im not going to lose everything I have left to you.
Unions are finished, particularly public unions. Who's shit are they going to sell next after they've ran everyone off?
I will admit however it is a sad state of affairs and I would much rather be making the big bux again and id be all to happy to fork over the precious tax money. But im not and it's absolutely not fair to impose austerity on one group of people and let the other group finish sucking them dry.
I've been telling these bastards for years their days were numbered.
You're right. My cousin Lazy Bastard is in the union. His brother, Dopey Bastard is the local steward. Thier dad, Money Laundering Bastard is the head of the local Obama reelection campaign.
Sounds like life's a Bitch if you're not a Bastard.
That was my great great great great great great great great grandmothers maiden name. She was one of the original Bitches on the mayflower.
Well played, Cheesy.Dead.Florida!
and there you have it,...
New $100 outfit? Cutoffs and a T-shirt w/some decent sneaks will run you 2x that!
Starbucks is a good fast-food gig, if you can get it. No union there. It's a step up from nothing, right?
Right to work, right to organize.
Natural law.
Suck it.
Read "When Money Dies" Union pensions will be the ones sucking it. As you say Natural Law.
Thats when they will nationalize your 401K plan. And when that fails, they will nationalize your stack of gold and silver. Hope you have it well hidden.
I pray they nationalize 401Ks, because that will be the spark. Mark it.
...right to organize.
@spas--nobody said they couldnt have office softball games..........
Larf.