Yep. And that's why I have mixed feelings on the issue of public unions.
They do serve important roles. But there is something inherently messed up about how they operate.
I bet if a major corporation used political contributions to get got a law passed that said that everyone in the state that works in their industry must work for their company, and employees must pay mandatory 5% cut of their paycheck automatically deducted to be used for political contributions which 100% of went to republicans which passed those very laws, Democrats would be up in arms and calling for laws banning such a blatantly corrupt and unfair practice.
Yep. And that's why I have mixed feelings on the issue of public unions.
They do serve important roles. But there is something inherently messed up about how they operate.
Since when do higher wages without a commensurate increase in production lead to a better economy?
Was I supposed to be up in arms because when I worked in oil, a portion of my productivity, and money that could have gone to my wages, supported the GOP?
Was I supposed to be up in arms because when I worked in oil, a portion of my productivity, and money that could have gone to my wages, supported the GOP?
Yeah, but it shouldn't be with my money. I don't care how much a company wants to pay their bigwigs, it's the company's money to do with as it wants.Corporate bigwigs do this all the time.
mostly it's about the health benefits and fat pensions public union workers strap on the municipalities where they work,which they will bankrupt.Look at Detriot,Newark,N.J.and several kali cities.A Garbage man in the Bronx makes high 5 figures,low 6 figures , works for 30 yrs,retires at age 50,lives to 85,he gets a pension at or more than the amount when he worked,free health care for him and his spouse.Teachers are even more so,especially college teachers.
We can't afford this anymore.
I'm going to just paste here something I wrote on my blog (now forum) in February 2011 when the Wisconsin stuff blew up. I've since reconsidered some of what I wrote below -- mainly, I understand that public unions do play an important role, and I also understand why they got so pissed off at Walker's dishonest tactics -- but many of the core issues remain.
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I took a rather unpopular stance in siding with the Wisconsin governor against the teachers unions. Ive never been a big fan of unions at all, and especially do not like public sector unions. There are four main reasons for this.
I resent public servants having an entitlement attitude when it comes to my money. I resent people who have no health care being forced to pay for their health care plans. I resent people who have no pensions or 401ks having to pay for their ridiculously generous pension plans. I resent union bosses who are supported via forced contributions and then abuse their power.
- A union in a private company can make a fair argument that it is an organization that prevents the exploitation of the little guy by the power of the corporation. That argument falls flat in the public sector, because the employer here is us we are paying the salaries and benefits with our taxes. Theres no profit motive.
- We have no direct control over the bargaining process. A company CEO knows that if he does a lousy job of negotiating, hell get fired. That doesnt happen in the private sector; the president or governor or other leader knows there will be no consequences to caving in on union demands.
- Union negotiations in the private sector have an automatic balancing factor: if the union goes too far, the company becomes uncompetitive and goes out of business, and the union members are all out jobs. In the public sector this cant happen all that happens is that the taxpayers get soaked.
- There is a major conflict of interest. Imagine a situation where the CEO of a company got his job based on the votes of his employees how effective a negotiator would he be? Yet that is exactly the situation with public service unions. There is a built-in incentive to pander to the union for votes.
it's always seemed strange to me that there's no real drawback to public unions.
in a union in a private company, there's the risk of demanding too much and pulling your company under as it struggles to pay pensions and health care and salaries... in a public union, you get to just raise taxes on everyone. it's not as if a town is going to shutdown its school systems and force all the residents to pay for their own private schools instead.
it's always seemed strange to me that there's no real drawback to public unions.
in a union in a private company, there's the risk of demanding too much and pulling your company under as it struggles to pay pensions and health care and salaries... in a public union, you get to just raise taxes on everyone. it's not as if a town is going to shutdown its school systems and force all the residents to pay for their own private schools instead.
If I own a business and hire someone, then his pay is [sometimes literally] coming out of my pocket. This gives me a strong incentive to pay my employees as little as possible. In return, my employees have the right to form a collective where they can (for example) all stop working at exactly the same time. The threat of that happening causes me to pay them more than (and pay myself less than) I otherwise would.
If every public worker gets a raise, then that doesn't impact the politicians' salaries. So the reasons for which unions exist don't apply to public workers anyway.
http://www.usdebtclock.org/state-debt-clocks/state-of-california-debt-clock.html
Ah, now here we see necked envy and the concomitant resentment it breeds. Why don't you go get what they have instead of resenting the fact the did what it takes to have what you want.
I think that's a very reasonable summary Charles. Certainly there's a large contingent of mindless zombies who just repeat right win radio talking points: "Duurrrrrr, unions bad."
But your list are the reasons that more intelligent people have against public unions. I personally am highly in favor of unions. Capital has the ability to pool it's resources, that's the very definition of a corporation. Why shouldn't labor have the same right? But a private union is very different from a public union for the very reasons you laid out.
I'm too busy paying taxes to give them what they have.
I'm too busy not thinking to understand what you said.
lawmakers belong to unions?Why not? As soon as public union benefits outstrip those of the average citizen, we see the resentment I just posted in response to above. This opens the door for folk who are looking for a nice city official job the opportunity to run on the issue of lowering public pension benefits like good cannibals do, no?
Republicans are just a big unionized mafia ring that get themselves public sector jobs by promising they will cut taxes by lowering spending. They use the envy of the lower class to pray on the wealth of middle class democratic unions to get even higher paying public jobs for themselves. Cannibals, you see.
How is the public any different than a corporation boss? Neither want to pay workers, one for his own profit and the other to not pay taxes.
If I own a business and hire someone, then his pay is [sometimes literally] coming out of my pocket. This gives me a strong incentive to pay my employees as little as possible. In return, my employees have the right to form a collective where they can (for example) all stop working at exactly the same time. The threat of that happening causes me to pay them more than (and pay myself less than) I otherwise would.
If every public worker gets a raise, then that doesn't impact the politicians' salaries. So the reasons for which unions exist don't apply to public workers anyway.