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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.
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Easy to come up with those kind of stats when you compare wages in a depression.
Instead of trying to figure out ways to bring private sector wages and benefits up, lets instead make everyone else (who isn't us) miserable.
Instead of clearing out the shitholes in DC and financial sector (who are responsible for more wealth loss and income disparity than janitor bob collecting his measly retirement), lets go after the last bastion of blue collar strength in america.
I see more destructive solutions than constructive ones. austerity austerity austerity, riots riots riots.
the wages here will never go up for anyone for the most part and that is why we buy all kinds of low quality shit from china. we don;t want the high quality stuff from germany with the exception of volkwagons because their stuff is pricy even though the quality is superior.
Instead of trying to figure out ways to bring public sector wages and benefits down, lets instead make everyone else pay more taxes from diminishing real earnings LMAO
Unions are great..look at what they have done to Greece.....and Italy......and Spain...and on and on....
I see it this way...if their penisions are underfunded.....they pay for it..same for health....same for time off...then it comes out of the politicians pay first..before a taxpayere has to pay for it...
Davis Bacon costs this country billions every year...
Waterloo Iowa in the late 60´s to early 70´s...UAW destroyed it...John Deere is very big there...they employed 14,000 people...a lot for that town...all other manufacturing had to leave....they could not compete with the UAW wages...as soon as a job opened up at JD....the employee quit and went to work for JD...now they emply 4,000...make more and better tractors and engines...and Waterloo is a one horse town...lost a lot of its population...Deere does well with robots and machines...less employees..machines are cheaper.....so the union guy gets his high pay...but where did all the other employees go?????? That is what a union does...
well said
Easier to go after the unions than the corporate interests bankrolling politics...
BULL SHIT
I see your bullshit and raise you a YUR A FUCKING IDIOT.
At least I'm getting some.
edit: not my red btw
Your mom doesn't count.
And that's OK, I didn't junk you either.
I don't have an issue with unions in the private sector per se, as long as it's voluntary; but government unions make no-sense - the workers need protection from themselves?
Now that I think of it, private unions make no sense either, why don't they just use their dues to buy stock in their company, take over their board, and give themselves a raise? Oh yeah, guess it's no fun screwing yourself over.
Note, the union had a controlling interest in GM shortly after the bankruptcy. Go look what they did - they got out fast.
Couldn't blame management for all the problems if they WERE management, after all - leave that job to some new host they can be parasites upon instead. Actions talk, bullshit walks. Historical record.
I'm talented and have never been tempted to join a union. If my employer sucks, I go find someone else - or do as I've done, just start a business myself. Only stupid managment doesn't realize its people ARE the business, and who wants to work for stupid? Only other stupids, who think that if they all band together, stupid wins. I guess in that case I'm glad they leave the rest of us out of it - I'll just enjoy competing with all-stupid - tends to be easy.
Yeah, lets tie these two rocks together and see if they float now! That's the answer!
If you think you need a union, logically you then have to think your labor isn't worth much. Because if it was, you'd quickly find someone who would pay you and treat you well for it. But since you're stupid and also lack initiative, you instead choose to have two bosses, one of which you have to pay! Wow, double your IQ or no money back, sounds good to you, right?
Social darwanism is so attractive, I just get the willies!
I agree mostly, today unions make no logical sense, they've turned into yet another way to exploit people. Growing up and living in SW-VA I have heard enough stories of the Co. stores and union fights in the coal mines to believe that unions were not always useless. I worry that those dark days will visit us again
Hell yeah government unions are out of control! There is no way that I should be forced to pay some lazy eater more money than I make just because they knew somebody. Let me rephrase that. There is no way my kids and grandkids should pay for some lazy eater just because they knew somebody. The bulk of government workers produce nothing but will gladly pick our pockets. A government union "worker" is negotiating for wages and benefits against the very people they are supposed to "serve".
Whaddya mean they don't produce anything?? Why, why they produce information!! Like how many deer turds per square mile there are. Are you insinuating that we should stop counting turds?
The worst part about counting deer turds is when you see a deer run through an area you've already counted and you're not sure if he dropped a deuce or not, so you have to go all the way back to your starting spot and count all over. That's why each government sponsored turd count employs a primary turd counter, a back up turd counter, a primary deer monitor, a back up deer monitor and a supervisor for each division...no different than when you drive though road constuction and see six guys in orange vests standing around looking at one guy in an orange vest actually doing something...they're really just there to make sure no deer come through and shit without being accounted for.
Off topic but very disgusting... Bloomberg article telling everyone how Bernanke saved the day.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-02-08/bernanke-led-economy-proving-critics-clueless-about-federal-reserve-policy.html#disqus_thread
Authors bio
"Mrs. Gage, 28, is a reporter for Bloomberg News in New York, where she covers the Federal Reserve. She graduated cum laude from Harvard.
She is a daughter of Caroline Wilmerding Rupp of Muttontown, N.Y., and Peter Eckart Salas of Fernandina Beach, Fla. The bride’s father is the president and a portfolio manager of the Dolphin Asset Management Corporation, an investment management firm in New York; he works in Fernandina and New York. Her mother sells residential real estate for Piping Rock Associates in Locust Valley. The bride is also a stepdaughter of Christopher Foy Rupp and of Marianne Perry Salas."
Mr. Gage, 30, is a director of strategic consulting at Frank N. Magid Associates, a market research and consulting firm in New York; he develops strategy for corporations and investment firms. He graduated from Hobart College in Geneva, N.Y.
He is the son of Karen Springhorn Gage and John Zeller Gage of Palm Beach, Fla. The bridegroom’s father retired as a partner in Pershing & Company, a New York brokerage firm, and was until 2003 a member of the New York Stock Exchange
Government unions are left-wing money-laundering schemes. Even FDR thought government unions were a bad idea. It's one of those systems that has an "unbounded internal maximum", since there is nothing restraining government unions from simply growing and growing... and the only way to grow a government union is to grow the government.
1) Union members pay dues to the union
2) Unions give money to leftist law-makers
3) Leftist law-makers are addicted to union money like meth-heads, and the best way to get more of it is if the union is bigger
4) Law-makers pass legislation requiring more government employees to be hired.
5) Newly-hired government employees join the union
6) New union members pay dues to the union... wash, rinse, repeat...
You must be from California, because that's EXACTLY how it works! The biggest contributors to the Dem's elections are the Gov't unions! It is amazing! They own Sacramento!
I'm in Wisconsin and I want my Steroids !.
goto mff
Hell, I'm around Madison... So you know what I'm talking about.
yeah, Madison, get stoked!
Lets not get carried away. It's not unions that cause the problems any more than corporations cause inflation. It's crooked politicians. Anyone should be free to organize a union or start a company. What we need to protest is politicians giving away unconstitutional rights to unions or corporations. Davis Bacon is a great example. Personifying corporations by the Supreme Court is another. Now we have the situation where both unions and corporations have so much power they are almost unstoppable.
+100
Kinda off topic but we live in my wifes parents house who we bought out in bankruptcy court 15 years ago when they were in nursing homes. I never changed the electric bill to my name because our "non-profit" electric company that charges us on average $250 month because we live in the country wanted $400 to do the name change.
I've been telling these deuchbags for years they are getting to big for their briches. A non-profit that instead just services us locals seems to want to expand expand expand expand expand now they hire 100's and it's not uncommon for my bill to exceed $300 for average household use.
Long story short they finally told me that the $400 namechange wouldn't apply because we are technically heirs. They have all kinds of moronic rules etc. Anyhows the first bill that showed up in "my" name didn't include the previous months bill. Now that bill is showing up in my wifes dads name and now they have threatened to send it to a lawyer. I'm like heh that's fine. If you stupid assholes want to take someone to court that's been dead for over 10 years go for it. I was sure to keep the letters just in case the letter from the court summons somehow has been changed to my name.
I realize the right thing to do would be pay the bill. And once I get the bill in my name ill pay for. I'm just proving my point that when you operate in a town of 500 and don't even know who's fucking dead it's gone too far.
pop quiz, who unionized federal employees?
Goldwater Bitchezzz!!!
try again
sigh,
50 Years Ago, JFK Opened Door for Federal Employees to Join Unions
http://blog.aflcio.org/2012/01/17/50-years-ago-jfk-opened-door-for-federal-employees-to-join-unions/
'Strength in Numbers'
Generally speaking, i always thought that Unions was the common man's last bit of strong resistance to the tyrants?
Why do you think they want to break down and destroy marriages, relationships, social UNION structures - and manipulate and pervert it all too?
Because the family is a UNION too. They just want to create a bunch of 'non gender, non-thinking' sexual mutants with they're genitals out in hand running around and fucking everything...They love those type of people - very easy to control.
'Di/vide and Conquer ' - Unions, families, male/female relationships, etc... - the whole fuckin show man.
Here's another one........some of these unions have pension funds in "critical status". This was BEFORE the meltdown. Now they have 20% unemployment minimum and are still telling one everything is ok in the sake of that precious dues money. Someone please explain to me how a fund in critical status that has lost 20% employment afterwards is going to keep their promises?
This most certainly proves the DOW is going to 36k because they're going to need a compounded 20% return when you include provided high dollar pensions to even those that don't work anymore.
It's IMPOSSIBLE.
I seriously dislike the entire "union" topic, because any discussion is happening in a fubar minefiled so dense, that it is almost imposibble to discuss this in any halfway reasonable way.... worse still, any reasonable discussion, would be based on a society, that has little to do with current reality. Among the many pitfalls:
- Union proponents like them, because they (rightly so) feel, that the job market is biased strongly towards employers, and that individuals on their own cannot keep up with corporate lobbies, cartel arrangements AND the entire economic system being engineered against them.
- Libertarians hate unions, because in a true free and fair market, unions shouldn't exist. Umm yeah, totally true.... just like lobbies and cartels shouldn't exist.... problem is they do.
- Employers hate unions, because they (be that rightly or wrongly) piss them off.
- Meanwhile, most unions don't actually represent their clients, but have their own agenda, and desire of self-preservation....
- Then there are that kind of unions, that do not even have anything at all to do with representing the workforces anyways, but instead simply some kind of "anti-lobby" and "ponzi-escalator".... take any sufficiently large sector, invent some mafia-like and often gov-backed organization, that supposedly represents that sector.... problem is the entire sector hates their supposed "lobby", but via various means is pushed to "pay up"... basically, yeah, like the mafia.... typically, the organization will get the most of the collected money, the elite of those who "pay up", will get the second-largest share, and the rest runs a deficit.
- And then, there is the combination of unions AND gov-employment.... something by definition impossible to discuss sanely, with the current brand of govs and unions...
Short version: The entire system is so fucked, that any discussion about if/how something like unions should work like, either has to happen in a hypothetical fantasy world.... or will turn into a useless mudwrestling match.
None of those has any imminent practical benefit.
That goes for any economic issue really. Any economic "solution" which neglects the institution of a sound and just monetary system has little practical value and completely subverts the core problem. A dog chasing its tail comes to mind.
Don't go getting all rational on us...
:-) I'm sorry - i'll now go back to being a friend of someone who registered a domainname related to "uncommonsense", and proposing to that someone to switch to a domainname related to "tooreasonable"...
...nope, not just rethorics, but truth... i really am related to such "weird" and probably "extremist" people :-)
Notice to the domainnappers: Don't bother, we already got both - and nope, we're not selling *g*
There will be a number of Madison Wisconsins popping up all over the country the next 5 years. It will be a tug of war between public union rights versus taxpayer rights and the reset of government spending will get uglier every year. Government is the final frontier for denial. There is no money...only promises and IOUs.
Treat workers fairly and there would be no unions. Watch China, you'll see. Shit on people and they organize. Who's to blame for that, the shitter, or the shitee?
See my above post... if unions were simply organized employees, i doubt they would get that much mud thrown at them.... basically, the entire system is so fucked, that there are only aggregates of assholes..... and people will fight over who is the bigger asshole-aggregate.
Public unions are wrong in every way.
Private unions are fine. I don't even have a problem with union members squeezing out independent workers (technically still a free market working).The problem I have is bailing out corporations which unions have destroyed. Uh.. excuse me, but you fucking sucked that company dry. That's your problem. Not mine.
Public and government unions are totally different. For those of you that think workers unions and guilds are useless, your ignorance can be cured. Volunteer your children for the sweatshops and make sure you get them in early, like 10 years old so they don't have to get an education to see how truly dumb their parents are.
I, for one, have been working on my road side vegetable stand. Looking forward to the day that this economic charade goes tits up.
Fucking organized labor. What has it ever done for us, besides ending child labor (wait, did that end or did we outsource it?), the 5 day work week and the 8-hour day.
Harumph! Harumph!
First they came for the private unions, and I didn't care because I wasn't in a private union.
Then they came for the public unions, and I didn't care because etc. etc. etc.
Let's face it.
Most of the folks I talk to hate their jobs because they have to work more to make less. That's if they still have one.
If you're not a member of the 1% or a member of a plump govt. union you're just a "scab".
On a long enough timeline the survival rate for scabs drops to zero.
I don't know what I detest more. Blood sucking unions or blood sucking bankers. Either way they both contribute nothing and suck the life blood out of the economy.
As a business owner, the reason I have been anti-union is I do not know how much money I will make from month to month, or year to year, and I cannot promise to keep jobs or pay certain wages if the business starts to lose money. Unions have not been flexible for businesses which might experience financial problems, and can make things much worse for them.
Unions need to understand this. Business owners risk everything when they sign loan papers or put their entire wealth into their businesses. You might lose a job, but if we go out of business, we lose our jobs, our homes, our property, and our retirement accounts. We must have the flexibility we need to manage our labor costs.
they dont give a fuck about that, they are just leeches and will move onto the next
Sir, has your take home pay from your business kept up with inflation? I would bet it has and more.
They're both the embodiment of the worst attributes of their respective systems. The root problem with both are leaders who pay lip service to the ideals of their constituencies, union leaders to social ideals, and banksters to capitalist ideals, when really they're in it all for their own personal aggrandizement.
Unions can be too greedy but so can be the CEO and other top managers and eventually the company goes bankrupt. That is called the tragedy of the commons. Individuals maximizing their own shares will bring combined destruction like overfishing in a lake with 10 fishermen who are unable to co-operate.
Germans have solved this paradox by bringing workers to governing boards with voting rights. Every company with over 500 workers has to have workers in the board. That is called co-determination.
That is why Germans were able to come back from pretty bad recession in the early 00's. Workers and management actually worked together to create more competitive companies while USA/UK went full ahead with the "screw you Jack, I got mine" Wall Street Gecko greed, combined with housing bubble. Guess which model is winning now...
Germany had the benefit of exporting goods to countries whos citizens weren't paying taxes and could afford profligate spending on German goods.
Ah, now German exports are starting to slump...
http://www.globalpost.com/dispatch/news/regions/europe/germany/120208/german-exports-slump-euro-crisis-bites
Guess that "model" is going tits up.
I used to be a big anti-union person.
Then I saw really bad working conditions in the developing World.
Go back and review the likes of coal mine and textile labor disputes, child labor and the history of union busting murders by the army both in the US and world wide.
The little guy needs some protection.
But frankly these should be for trades and people that work on their feet and with their hands, not desk jockey blow-hards and curved fingernail unable to type secretary prima donnas on their 2 hour lunches.
When I see the AFL-CIO and SEIU going to war in Mexico, China and Indonesia then I will know their dues are going for something real. Not writing fake protectionist laws, GM bailouts and finance crooked politician junkets to Bermuda to discuss the woes of Philippine slave labor.
Otherwise, you get that alleged Miramonte school teacher/rapist/freak collecting their fat pension on the backs of taxpayers.
What the fuck is....
The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA)
OHSA
The Migrant and Seasonal Agricultural Worker Protection Act
Social Security
Child Labor Laws
The Longshore and Harbor Workers' Compensation Act (LHWCA)
The Energy Employees Occupational Illness Compensation Program Act (EEOICPA)
The Federal Employees' Compensation Act (FECA)
The Black Lung Benefits Act (BLBA)
The Employee Retirement Income Security Act (ERISA)
The Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act (LMRDA
Employee Polygraph Protection Act
The Family and Medical Leave Act
The Davis-Bacon Act
The McNamara-O'Hara Service Contract Act,
The Walsh-Healey Public Contracts Act,
The Federal Mine Safety and Health Act of 1977
Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification Act (WARN)
etc, etc, etc; for?
Are you suggesting our workers are not adequately protected?
If you want to know what that stuff is, you should read it.
...the image of corruption is the Suicide Vampire Squid in the mirror. Take the so called Department of Homeland Security for instance and the cost of an airline ticket. Is the price to secure the flight right? Lol. What was the TSA employee turnover rate at Dulles Airport? you know ...the place where the destruction came from and killed people at the accounting section in the Department of Defense Pentagon building. Oh yeah, it was 70% post 911. It seems that paying Security Officers 28K a year cannot secure anyone in the wealthiest area of the United States. Now consider the fact that Dulles is International. Lol. That's just one small part of the image of the Suicide Vampire Squid, on the way to see Madona at the Super Bowl, after just paying to fly out of the 10th District of Virginia. Who's afraid of Virginia (Congressman) Wolfe? Lol. Surely not the Suicide Vampire Squid lobby money in First Class, like NOC, one of Wolfe's contributors that made money training the Dulles HS Security Officers to spot threats. LMAO. Who is still working in Virginia? ...and the Masons have a 501c3 Widows and Orphan fund. Lol. Enjoy the flight to hell ...Bitchez.
Unions are stupid, they are established in the image of the Suicide Vampire Squid. A government Union is just another pathetic reality of that fact, and the fact that people just do not see the Suicide Vampire Squid in the price of a ticked to HELL. Just ask a 911 Widow or Orphan ...if watching Madona do the Roman Orgy Halftime Grand Turismo Dance, without Dear Old Dad or Mom, was fun without them. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pR61QazhztQ
It's a sad state of affairs when the answer to the problem that "half of government employees rate their personal finances as good or excellent as opposed to 33% in the private sector" is by PULLING EVERYONE DOWN TO 33% INSTEAD OF PULLING EVERYONE UP TO 50%.
50% is too fucking low you morons.
< WI native and the grandson of a proud union paper millworker (a mill currently running at 20% capacity with less than 10% of its original 1970s workforce) reads, shakes head, and does a u-turn out of this Charlie Foxtrot thread >
SWAT will soon raid Arizona's legislative offices and send all non-union people (republicans) to Cuba as they are now considered terrorists by the current administration and the FBI...
bu,bu,bu,but only 7% of workers are unionized I read in one of the threads here on ZH.......must be private workforce they were talking about.
Wisconsin citizens, despite what the deep pocket unions may tell you by inundating the airwaves, is very happy with the reforms and it is working well for them. So well, that Illinois has tried to backdoor some of these reforms in. Illinois is a lost cause though. Know many residents up there, including some public sector ones, and they are not complaining. In fact, they are sick and tired of having to go to the polls every few weeks to vote for some BS recall or another.
There is one state which borders Illinois that has 0% unfunded liabilities..........guess which one. That means, people owed money will actually get it.......can the same be said for the federal and most state ponzi schemes?
The view from Madison is slightly different... The reforms are working, but some state employees have had to get second jobs are adjust their lifestyle. That's never easy. However, it is difficult to argue with the results.
I found what Walker did to be a mixed bag. I liked the idea of allowing employees to opt out of the union, and something needed to be done to end the public sector unions being able to contribute so heavily to elect the people they work for, but some of it still puts too much power over local school labor issues in the hands of state government, rather in the hands of the localities where it belongs. Plus measures like capping all salaries does little to encourage the better workers and perpetuates the problem of equal pay for unequal results.
It was clear from the few times I was downtown during the protests that many protesting were either brought out of state by large well funded organizations to make Wisconsin a battlefront, or were students many of whom either liked the idea of protesting, or were from out of state and have no real vestied interest in what happens to Wisconsin finances. I also have many friends who were teachers and you just couldn't have a rational discussion with anyone during that time.
Chicago sent the goon squad to trash your beautiful State - and the WI Dem representatives ran away from their elected duties to the 'sanctity' of the complete fiscal disaster that is Illinois. Well, until they realized that Illinois is a lost cause, and they slithered back to reality.
hard to argue with results of 0% unfunded liabilities. I wonder what the full amount of unfunded liabilities is for the federal government? I've heard anywhere from $100 trillion to $500 trillion - anyone know?
Seeing that UW Madison is one of the most liberal places on the planet.....yeah, the view is generally always likely to be different from there.
"but some state employees have had to get second jobs are adjust their lifestyle. That's never easy".
The fact they could find second jobs bodes well for Wisconsin, I still have many friends laid off in the 2008-9 funfest in my state that still have not found 'first' jobs to replace theirs.
I have worked for union b4, IT SUCKS its basically designed to employ BUMS.
They take 50% of your pay, and there is no incentive to work hard, if you work hard for a union all the other workers are gona sit there and slack and do nothing, for me im a hard worker I can't sit there and work like these bums.
When I go to work, I go there and get the job done, but you can't do that in a union because everyone wants to just fucking sit there doing nothing.
well, atleast thats how it is in the construction industry.
As for teachers unions and the like, i assume its much the same.
Its like the communist system.
Work hard
or
dont work at all
doesn't matter you still get the same pay.
So eventually everyone gets lazy.
Unions in concept are good, but really all the unions are is a handful of financial managers raping and pillaging the workers.
The workers in unions are idiots and don't see whats going on because the ones doing the hiring pretty much screen out anyone who would know what the fuck is going on (they look for morons to hire).
Its a bum club.
RIP APART ALL UNIONS.
Costs are out of control.
Costs are pushed up by greed.
Greed by corporations, unions, politicians, lawyers, and the indolent.
This is just another symptom of the systemic collapse of the U.S. economic infrastructure brought about by greed from the top down.
Greed that hastened the influx of illegal immigrant slave labor and outsourcing of productive career employment.
The water in the Titanic flooded the Third Class cabins and passengers first; this is the Second Class cabins and passengers feeling the chill of the briny Atlantic waters.
The First Class passengers are above drinking mimosa's telling the wastrels below to be quiet, nothing is wrong.
Yes the lavish retirement packages at age 50yo coupled with record no show jobs has nothing to do with anything.
Nothing new with either imported labor or outsourcing. The concept that your neighbor should be paid more just because completely independent of unique or valuable skills is not new either .
One thing new, the unions blamed middle management in Detroit for decades,
meanwhile the alien car makers took same supposedly nitwit middle management according to the unions propaganda of course and are making money elsewhere,
Earth to mars, there is no egregious capitalist in government.
I hear you, but this is just a symptom of the disease.
You and I could probably both list Congress, Corporation, Government, Banker, and other opportunists milking of the system.
It all boils down to greed; a desire to not live within your means but live using others means gained surreptitiously: with graft, with skullduggery, with usury, with legerdemain, and any unwholesome means to take that which they don't need but lust after.
I don't need a union. Just bend me over and FUCK me, I'm loving it.
Govt. unions should be illegal. It's a govt. job... it pays $xx,xxx.xx per year... take it or leave it. That's the way pay for any govt. job should be structured.
Govt. unions are supported by the dues of their members... who are paid with our tax dollars - remember, they don't "produce" anything, they don't create their own revenue - then they use our money to lobby and bully congress for more pay - WHICH HAS TO BE PAID WITH OUR TAX DOLLARS!
It's a huge racket.
Zymurguy...exactly. Please explain to me how collective bargaining works in that situation....they collective bargain with themselves, which is us, the taxpayer....right,? Thats not exactly 'collective bargaining'.
No it's worse. They collectively bargain with the people (mostly Democrats) they helped elect with union dues, The people they elect know the unions are their largest contributors, so they give them sweetheart deals and more money to agencies and shcools to hire more government workers. That createsa larger base from which to extract even more dues to elect more Democrats to get better deals. I have nothing against electing Democrats but not in a scheme where the party and union workers are in collusion to flece the tax payer to expand each others power base.
Two pages of incredibly sweeping statements and over-generalizations. Of course, this site has a lot of self-employed on it, so of course there's a lot of venom for unions. Do they go too far? For sure, no question, and it's always a balancing act. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater is just plain idiotic.
BUT having worked both sides of the street, plus a lot of post-secondary history and economics behind me, I'll tell you this without question: once the right to collective bargaining is gone, it's everyone for themselves and we'll be back to child labour, company stores and completely deregulated health & safety and environmental regulations faster than you can say 'running dog lackey of the industrial bourgeoisie'. Don't doubt it...'Right to Work' legislation is 'Right to Fuck the Most Vulnerable'...and since the US political system is chock 'o block with corrupt politicans who'll sell a million voters out for a corporate-paid blowjob in a heartbeat, you bettter think twice about what you wish for. Kinda hard to run a consumer-spending driven economy when workers don't make enough to be consumers...or invest.
What a fear-mongerer;
We have child labor laws and a bazaar of other laws protecting workers. Don't stroll up and start implying once collective bargaining is gone children will be getting whipped with sticks dragging boulders behind them.
It would take about ten minutes to eliminate those labour regulations...hasn't the same been done with environmental regs already? Stop being so obtuse and read a little history. Toss the seals a couple of tax cut fish and you'd be amazed at what legislation you could ram through...that's a fact.
Child labor at the Department of Education? Company stores at the Department of Defense? Deregulated Health and Safety for the paper-pushers at the DOE and EPA?
Good thing those years of post-secondary history and economics allowed you to segregate between public and private sector unions.
Thin end of the wedge, pickles. And that's 'differentiate', not segregate.
Foul!
I work for a large manufacturer, there are no unions involved. Everyone is paid very well, working conditions are incredibly safe - people are happy.
Now, I don't have any problem with trade unions. You want to form a union, and collectively bargain, no problem. Just don't lobby for laws that required EVERYONE to join your club who works in that trade. If there is an incentive to work within a union, people will join.
Just out of college before I could land a salary job I took work at a large grocery chain working overnights doing floor maintenance. I kept dodging the union - they were furious that I was avoiding them. They got to the point where they were going to file a civil suit against me and I had the store manager all panicked that the police were going to come in and arrest me. That's bullshit. No law should require anyoen to join a union if they don't want to. So glad I got a job within a couple months and quit that place.
My wife is an accountant that works for a few unions in the area. If you knew how much money was being siphoned off of the avg. worker and going into the salaries of these do-nothing executives of the unions you'd shit your pants. Unions in general need an overhaul - that's another topic though.
Many of those things being attributed to unions are just wrong. For example, the five day work week is an invention of Henry Ford. Private sector cometition for workers has done as much or more to improve the plight of workers than unions have.
Maybe I'm nieve, but I believe that people are compasionate and won't let things go back to those times. I don't think unions are a necessary to having reasonable labor regulation. Right to work is simply letting people be free to choose whether they should belong to the union or not. Current regulation fiorces them to belong to unions against their will. That's wrong. How can so many people be so against simply letting people be free to make their own choices. Let the labor unions provide value for the dues and they won't have to worry about Right to Work.
The city of Chicago is requesting information from officials for all four city pension funds about how they interpret state law regarding union officials' city pensions and what they know about potential abuses of the pension system, as the Emanuel administration steps into the firestorm surrounding labor leaders' lucrative retirement deals.
The joint investigation highlighted labor leaders who retired from city jobs and landed six-figure city pensions — and in some cases received credit toward a second or even third pension from their unions.
The joint investigation discovered that some city pension fund officials were using a charitable interpretation of state law to allow union leaders to participate in both city pension plans and union pension plans, despite a state law aimed at preventing double dipping.
A 2010 report commissioned by former Mayor Richard Daley found that some city pension funds are in danger of going insolvent in less than a decade. Last December, the Tribune reported that for years, City Hall and union officials cut backroom deals that drained billion of dollars from the funds by increasing benefits and decreasing contributions.
One union leader who is receiving a $158,000 city pension had been on a leave of absence for a quarter-century when he retired from the city.
Twenty years later, 23 retired union officials from Chicago stand to collect about $56 million from two ailing city pension funds
'Do they go too far? For sure..' You should have stopped right there.
Wake up - you are 'that' guy at the poker table.
PEORIA, Ill. (AP) --- Caterpillar Inc. has ruled Illinois out of plans to relocate a factory and 1,400 jobs from Japan. The Peoria-based heavy-equipment maker cited both logistical problems and ongoing concerns about the state's business climate.
Caterpillar laid out its decision Tuesday in an email to leaders in Peoria County. The county was one of fewer than a dozen Illinois locations trying to win the new plant.
In the email, the company says it considered factors including port access and labor markets in deciding Illinois won't work. The email also says a key factor was proximity to Caterpillar's division headquarters in Cary, N.C.
Caterpillar spokesman Jim Dugan would only say Wednesday that a location will be announced by April 1.
Gov. Pat Quinn's office didn't immediately respond to a request for comment.
Unions...are the problem...
"even if these are ever diminishing paychecks"
You better believe it, Tyler. I'm no union groupie, but I happen to be a member of a state employee's union. Our union has just agreed to 4 years with 0% pay increase, on top of forced furlough without pay for a number of days.
I suppose I should be thankful to even have a job. But for the record, I am in the healthcare IT field, at my county's only tertiary care facility. No fluff here.
So let's see, real inflation is at least 3% per year and I will be accruing 0% for the foreseeable future. When things were "good", we NEVER were given an increase of more than 3 to 3.5% in any given year. 3% was more the norm.
Any way you look at it, I am back-peddling.
So I guess what I am saying is that, go ahead and attack public unions if you will. If I could rewind history, there would be none. But the current priority should be to attack the Fed and it's inflationary policies first, so to limit the collateral damage to our essential and productive public employees (State employees especially - I think mostly Federal employees are overpaid), trying to eek out a living REALLY doing "God's work".
...threatening elected officials with...work slowdowns...
Is that even possible?
reverse
I realize this is a government union thread but it's bleeding into private unions too so:
In the 70's and 80's I watched as the local lumber mills shut down as a result of unions refusing to compromise with management. They wouldn't give an inch and they all lost their jobs. Area towns still haven't recovered. Working in the mills and the woods were terribly dangerous jobs but at some point they were only worth so much. Then later, I watched as huge ships left the harbors of western Washington with intact logs, heading for the Far East. It was cheaper to ship them overseas than to process them here.
In the mid-80s my brother-in-law was put in charge of one of the last remaining group of mills in western Oregon in the 80s. He was charged with reducing costs so it could remain competitive and stay open. He modernized, made it safer and brought costs down. But he coudn't get any consessions from the workers.
So those mills finally closed, too. #winning
'Sometimes A Great Notion' wasn't just fiction. Just a little before my time.
There was a piece about the Sand Hogs Local 147 on recently, to make it clear I am against unions in practice but for them in principle, and they exemplify what a union should be if there must be one.
I don't know enough to speak with certainty about them but from the program they mentioned that from top to bottom, new hire to administrator, they get the same pay. The reason they were created was because of the deadly working conditions (digging tunnels through bedrock beneath NYC especially for aqueducts to provide water) and not just for pay raises (which of course they got).
I use this as an illustration of a true brotherhood looking out for one another (they also had major internal fraud committed against them - see Melissa King).
Now, however, there are more lawyers/ambulance chasers for individual workers than necessary (and more daily) for people to seek justice which they didn't have at the inception of most/many of these unions. That doesn't mean unions should be eradicated but that they don't necessarily need the collectivist framework they adhere to.
There are things I think unions do provide and can be good for but they've turned into a all consuming monstrosity in many cases and here is an example of the great lengths to which some will go, destroying capitalism in the process (I think it's been shared here before):
Obama Isn't Working: Laborhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yj6yFmOnlXw
In particular the teachers that I know think the teacher's union is a disgrace. When someone can't be fired even if they are convicted of a sex crime it's gone too far.
Between the internet providing ease of unifying, alerting the media of injustice and fraud, lawyers, etc., unions are increasingly obsolete but if they didn't have the name, the power, and the reprehensible practices they are valid in my eyes (basically if they are neutered they're justifiable).
I just can't throw a blanket statement out that all unions are bad any more than all banks are bad or all politicians are bad.
Ah, that 44% figure is so debunked it's pointless even citing it. If you still believe it, you're not thinking.
Let's just say, this isn't an non-partisan piece of propaganda:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goldwater_Institute
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darcy_A._Olsen
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/26/us/goldwater-institute-an-aggressive-c...
http://www.yeson100.com/article/goldwater-institute-again-twists-facts-d...
Oh, and let's do some irony, shall we?
He had personal and financial relationships with two racketeers – Willie Bioff and Gus Greenbaum – both of whom were later murdered in gangland executions. Bioff gained control of Hollywood labor unions in the 1930s. In 1941, Bioff was indicted for violating the federal anti-racketeering statutes, and was later convicted of extortion in connection with his management of those unions. Bioff turned state’s witness and assisted in the prosecution of nine Chicago Mafia partners. Greenbaum was a Las Vegas casino operator for various Mafia interests. When Goldwater began his relationship with Bioff, Bioff was already a convicted labor extortionist. Goldwater said of Bioff at various times that he either did not know of Bioff’s criminal history, or that he was associating with Bioff in order to learn more about labor racketeering. In 1952, Goldwater convinced a local newspaper not to publish a story about Bioff’s criminal history. Goldwater promptly received a $5,000 contribution from Bioff.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Goldwater
And lastly:
The Goldwater Institute has played a major role in making Arizona a national leader in the charter school movement. (Charter schools are publicly- financed schools, exempted from state statutes in order to develop innovative teaching methods.) These schools have boosted student achievement in Arizona and other states.
In 1994, the Arizona legislature debated a broad-based education reform bill including charter schools and vouchers that would have allowed low-income children to use tax dollars for private schools. The vouchers proved so controversial, though, that the Goldwater Institute shifted the debate to charter schools. As a result, the legislature approved a reform bill that had the least restrictive charter-school measure in the nation.
Charter schools rapidly proliferated in Arizona. By 1998, there were more than 250 charter schools, the most of any state in the nation. That year, the Goldwater Institute convened a series of focus groups for charter parents to gauge their needs. The Institute found that parents wanted access to information, both good and bad, about charter schools so they could make informed decisions.
http://activistcash.com/organization_overview.cfm/o/504-goldwater-instit...
In spring 2010, the company that administers the AIMS test, Pearson Education, flagged Carpe Diem's sophomore AIMS reading test for having a higher-than-average number of erasure marks. Flagging means the state gets an alert. Pearson's report said a group of 27 Carpe Diem students who took the AIMS reading test had a total number of wrong-to-right erasure marks seven times as high as the state average. The state has no plans to step up monitoring during the spring tests.
http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2011/03/06/201103...
http://www.blogforarizona.com/blog/2011/06/fools-gold-carpe-diem-should-...
For the record: Americans need to remember why Unions were important.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Railroad_Strike_of_1877
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pullman_Strike
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Workers_of_the_World
Whatever happened to that quaint and stabalising idea of the "tri-partite nature of the state"? Business - Labour - Government... checks & balances and all that Jazz.
"Whatever happened to that quaint and stabalising idea of the "tri-partite nature of the state"? Business - Labour - Government" What happened is that they are all in bed together and the regular small businesses are hurt the most. It's not just labor, govt or business it is the power that each wields and abuses.
Oh, I'm aware of the issue of power here.
My post was designed to present a snap-shot of the complexity lying behind the slick graphics ~ I expect a multitude of junks, but sometimes you have to provide the churn.
That is a very well contructed reply.
You have obviously never lived in Chicago, Illinois.
The problem is labor unions are a protected monopoly. That gives them disproportionate power. In the public sector it gives them protected power to compel people to pay dues to elect the people who they negotiate with for salaries and benefits. Only two things are necessary to balance that power: allow people to exercise their free will to decide whether they want to be in a union or not, and bar public sector unions from contributing to the election of the public officials that emploiy them. Neither of these should be particularly contreversial. Nobody should be compelled to belong to an organization as a precondition of a job, Let the unions work for the dues they extract and provide value to the workers and they won't need government to protect them.
I declare this thread to be retarded.
I second that.
super retarded
http://www.google.com/imgres?q=pictures+of+retarded+people&hl=en&sa=X&biw=1366&bih=667&tbm=isch&prmd=imvns&tbnid=qstBLfRWJq84HM:&imgrefurl=http://germanaus.blogspot.com/2009/07/retarded-people-kick-ass.html&docid=BEhu9zI6t7vuPM&imgurl=http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_N7jfhn5C5jQ/Sli0LjHw21I/AAAAAAAAAFw/ZWRmLP1tXFM/s400/super-retard.jpg&w=400&h=302&ei=jhwzT8SfNsjZgAezrOmXBQ&zoom=1&iact=hc&vpx=400&vpy=153&dur=3400&hovh=195&hovw=258&tx=136&ty=107&sig=118390435899373235567&page=1&tbnh=142&tbnw=192&start=0&ndsp=20&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0
Another, "divide and conquer" scheme of pitting one group against another
Better recognize who the Hero's are! The Hero's are the .gov goons wearing state sactioned costumes protecting you and the children. Whether they be judges, soldiers, police, firemen, public school teachers, mailman, or any .gov employee from dog catcher on up. They do it for the children, bullshit! They protect and serve you, bullshit! They're the reason this country runs like butter, bullshit! And it's only a penny to keep their jobs from being cut, bullshit!
So don't be a greedy prick, and pay up over and over again. Do it for the safety of the community and education of the children.
Screw all unions, public or private. I don't need your lazy ass. All union workers that I have ever seen are the most slothful lazy worthless pieces of shit. I'm sick of seeing pro union dumbasses tell me I'm ignorant because I don't recognize what unions have done for me. FUCK YOU dipshits! Keep believing the propaganda put out by your union bosses about how fucking wonderful and needed your union is. If you don't like working somewhere QUIT! Go start your own fucking business. Unions are collectivist piles of shit. You aren't the only problem but you sure are a big part of the problem economically. You're all a fucking drain on any economy. And unions will band together to have .gov extort (by voting) more and more money from the people. If you have to extort money for your job to exist then your job probably isn't needed.
My fat fuck x father in law works for the USPS in Salt Lake. But he doesn't even work for the USPS. All he does is "investigate" union grievances. And the worthless bastard has OVER a years worth of sick leave saved up. When he retires he'll collect on that on top of his retirement. How broke is the USPS again? But hell, he did work for 20 years. He deserves it for sure.
Another thing. I watched a house burn down in a near by neighbor hood. There must of been $3,000,000 worth of fire trucks to put out the fire on a $100,000 dollar house that was going to be a complete loss. Fucking insanity. .GOV at it's best. We definitely need our .gov and the unions to go along with it. Pure incompetence.
What ever would we do without the Hero's?
Going after the unions right now is absolutely insane. You should all be ashamed for your lack of forsight, since its the people here who have some of the greatest insight into the coming economic crisis(es). Do we really want to destroy unions right before the government prepares to march toward full blown fascism? This is insane. They are our natural allies.
The economy will be shrinking like nothing anyone living today has ever seen and you want to save what amounts to a few bucks by gutting our defenses?! Its ridiculous. (EDIT: Just to clarify, I'm talking about the defenses the middle class will need to fight off the elites who will use the financial crisis to clamp down on our rights and our wages. Not military defenses.) The BLS says the amount of money the Federal Government spends on health care will double by 2019 -- from about 850 billion today to over 1.6 trillion. The fiscal crisis is coming and with it austerity like we've never seen. The attacks will be constant and relentless. South American Shock Doctrine taken to extremes right here in the first world.
Resist the urge to cut the unions apart. It will not forstall the collapse to save a few bucks, it will only make you more vulerable when shit hits the fan!
Yeah. It sort of smacks of a desperate attempt to increase readership by pandering to the Fox News crowd. Very sad turn of events at the site. Abandonment of intellectual rigor. I guess advertising revenue wasn't growing fast enough.
How are unions our "natural allies"? Maybe in your case they are, but count me out. Most of the major U.S. unions supported the financial bailouts. Unions were key architects of the Detroit auto-company bailouts. Most of the key union leaders in the U.S. support Bush/Obama's foreign policy. Most of the unions are xenophobic and constantly attack Chinese workers and others around the world for problems that are the product of their own greed and lack of foresight. Unions are major fundraisers for Obama and they provide his "get out the vote" foot soldiers.
Expecting unions to fight against the American financier elite is the equivalent of expecting the SS to overthrow Nazi party rule. It's not just that unions are on "their side," it's that the unions (especially public sector ones) are "their side's" spearhead.
An acquaintance has 15 yrs with the Federal government. As I've talked with her through the yrs, it has become obvious her biggest problem is finding something to do. I've listened to tales of taking on line courses, surfing the net and endless hours of boredome. As she says, the pay and benefits are excellent.
Some administrations have claimed they didn't increase government employment. Her explanation, they hired contractors. In her present position, making over 100K a yr (at a GS 14 which she says would be a GS 9 in any other dept), a contract co worker makes over 250K a yr doing exactly the same work. Her dept has 4 Federal workers vs 9 contract workers.
I have over 20 yrs working in or around government agencies from county to Federal. In a county position, 30 yrs ago, I saw the memo stating people could no longer knit at work. Informal walk arounds found less than half were working at any given time. The practice was to hire local businessmen's wifes. I could go on for a long time with personal examples. \
I totally support doing away with public employee unions.
As an employer I don't like the unions, they make companies less compititive, but as a realist I see that Union employees are the only ones that have even come close to keeping up with inflation since the 70's.
If you make good money you spend that money into the economy.
Bingo. The unions aren't perfect, but its wrong to say they make too much. They are in fact making what the rest of us should be making. I get frustrated when people (like my parents) say that teachers for example make too much at 60 or 70 grand a year. With inflation, thats less than they were making 20 years ago! They still make a consistant 50K a year and my Dads in a union... but they're baby boomers so of course they still have a decent life.
Also, none of the people who complain about teachers making 60 or 70 or even 100k a year ever say a word about executive compensation which has skyrocketted in recent years. I don't know who to blame for this so I'll just do the normal knee jerk reaction and blame Fox news. Seems plausible enough.
>>With inflation, thats less than they were making 20 years ago!
The U.S. economy is far less competitive than it was 20 years ago. Blame 30 years of wrong-headed economic policy that prioritized finance and gutted manufacturing. If you believe a nation should live within its means then, yes, by definition teachers today should be making less than they were 20 years ago. Then there is the question of quality. It's a subjective call, sure, but I for one believe the quality of public education in the area I live in has gone CONSIDERABLY down over the past 20 years. 20 years ago the schools in my area had a drop out rate of somewhere around 10%. Today it's close to 50% (I am not making that up). Why should teachers be making the same amount of money (or more)?
You have a huge sense of entitlement. Just because someone is an American doesn't mean they deserve any particular wage or any particular standard-of-living. Just because we are America doesn't mean that the standard-of-living MUST go up for every subsequent generation. As much as we would like to pretend otherwise, we still live in reality and reality doesn't work that way. In fact, it's that dogma about never-ending growth and a never-ending upward trajectory for the American standard-of-living that is one of the primary culprits for the situation our nation finds itself in. Instead of confronting reality, which is that American economic competitiveness has been severely eroded, we papered over it with cheap credit and easy money so people could continue to live the "decent lives" that you think everyone deserves.
but as a realist I see that Union employees are the ones that have contributed greatly to the inflation that has made everyone else pay increased taxes from a diminished real earnings. repaired that for ya
"a loaf of bread? for you...that will 5 billion dollars."
Is the Pope Catholic?
Governments by their laws create and protect all of them. Both corporations and unions. Thank you very much. And enjoy your "freedom."
And remember to keep paying the lease on the land you "own" because you're not a serf and this is not feudalism. It is much more evolved. It's now called democracy!
Non union workers are not so pure either. Over the last 25 years I can count on one hand the number of employees who would voluntarily take on extra work or pay cuts when times were lean, or even really gave a shit whether the company survived or not. Like their union brethern, most employees want to share in company profits, but will not take corresponding cutbacks when the company is losing money. Kinda of reminds you of the Banks.
Arizona is the reason there's no wealthy left to tax in California. "Head east young man"
And the more-money-than-sense crowd fucked AZ up as well.
The elites have taken everything else, so why not simply destroy all unions altogether? It's difficult to believe that this issue is even up for discussion. I wouldn't care if collective bargaining cost $100 billion - that figure is still a fraction of what the elites have stolen from us. Pretty soon it's going to cost a family $5 to take a walk in their previously city or state owned park and I just can't wait for the next elite sponsored war so they can take our children and try to kill them so they can enlarge their fortunes. The reality is the elites never have enough and they will keep taking until we have nothing left. Fight them now just to fight them. They more than deserve it! They want it all and will do ANYTHING to get it - get it?
Federal employees can not bargin collectivly for wages....WORD...they bargin for work rules and conditions...Federal "contract" labor can bargin collectively for wages, and when they do, that is the wage for the "area"...wage rates under Federal law are set by labor contracts...Federal pay scales in states with-out signifigant union contracts are "low" wage in "right to work" states...I'm glad I can bargin collectively for my labor...Drink all the cool-aid you want regarding Government labor union..most of the noise is a cover-up for broken contract compensation and funding of benifits...Poster child Wisconsin, a good example...dig down to find out who is screwing who, where ever the cool-aid is being served the most and you find the dum-asses drinking and dieing as wage slaves to the "masta"...and union members cleaning up the mess...
True, a unionized public sector is a conflict of interest. They hold the taxpayers hostage, guaranteeing property taxes will go up, up and away indefinately. Taxpayers indirectly support a certain political party they may not want to. This should have never been allowed in the first place. It is bad enough that the private sector has to deal with these back room gangsters, but it is completely against traditional american principals to have unionized public employees. There is no better example of this than a teacher's union. A profession that was once dedicated to educating our young so that they can be ready to compete in adulthood, is now all about the teacher's "welfare "{pun intended}.
If we get rid of unions, who's going to take over their extortion rackets? Banks can only do so much.
I don't have a lot of experience with workers in government unions, however, as an citizen of illinois I can tell you my experience with the Teacher's union. The teacher's union retirement package is so agregiously lucrative that the top 100 school administrators pensions in the state has added 1 billion to the states unfunded liabilities. Thats right, the top administrators are raking in on average 10,000,000 pensions. If you think I am making this up, just take a look for yourself: http://www.theneweditor.com/index.php?/archives/11438-You-Thought-California-State-Pensions-Were-Out-Of-Control-Wait-Until-You-See-This-Top-100-List-of-School-Administration-Pensions-From-Illinois....html.
This does not include lifetime healthcare ?
and they get Social Security ?
As a former citizen of Illinois, you have my condolences.
im an anti-union guy but this is one of the worst infographics ive ever seen
my phone dont work on this sit....but construction and government. and the construction is so slow to progress.
Foxconn: the anti-union Mecca.