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Unions in the private sector is OK, all they have been doing there is closing all the businesses they get into. They are in fact like a cancer.
You can't have collective bargaining in government areas, the unions pay off politicians every time to give them grand benefits and pay in exchange for hundreds of millions a year if not billions for election.
Obama gets a half billion from one government union for his election, he then does things like create a stimulus that gives 95% of it to government unions, we also see how he gives an opt-out for government unions with Obama-care.
It's exactly like the mafia and has to stop.
What? Unions like organized crime with involvement in rackateering, extortion, intimidation and money laundering? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you!
A right to Collective bargaining is a right to someone else's property which contradicts with the Constitution because it protects property rights.
Read what I said above....I don't believe that collective bargaining is a right. I am very liberal on most political and social issues...but I am not a huge union supporter.
I'm about as conservative as they get, but lets be honest.. the pay isnt really that outrageous. The problem is the other expenses, often mandated by the federal government without funding is limiting states abilities to provide for their citizens. Since they cant cut back on expenses mandated by the federal government, they need to look at those items not mandated in tough times, which often times includes employees pay.
If by "other expenses" you are including benefits to which they contribute little compared to the private sector and outrageously high retirement pension packages again with little comparative investment on the part of the union member, then I might agree.
However, collective bargaining by public sector employees goes well beyond that of just the economic cost via pay/benefits/pension. With the teacher's unions, for example, it makes it impossible to fire a poor performing teacher with seniority/tenure.
If by "other expenses" you are including benefits to which they contribute little compared to the private sector and outrageously high retirement pension packages again with little comparative investment on the part of the union member, then I might agree.
By other expenses, I mean the federal governments non stop writing of new laws putting expenses on the states that the states cant afford.
Here is a quick list of some added in the last 2 years
List of unfunded mandates as of April '09 (http://yourarlington.com/school-news/2653-unfunded-mandates-april09 - broken link)
These things need paid for by someone.. Where is the money supposed to come from? You cant cut back on things required by law. I might ask if the federal government is creating financial problems for the states..
This is probably best to create a new thread though.
Read what I said above....I don't believe that collective bargaining is a right. I am very liberal on most political and social issues...but I am not a huge union supporter.
By other expenses, I mean the federal governments non stop writing of new laws putting expenses on the states that the states cant afford.
Here is a quick list of some added in the last 2 years
List of unfunded mandates as of April '09 (http://yourarlington.com/school-news/2653-unfunded-mandates-april09 - broken link)
These things need paid for by someone.. Where is the money supposed to come from? You cant cut back on things required by law. I might ask if the federal government is creating financial problems for the states..
This is probably best to create a new thread though.
Absolutely unfunded federal mandates are a huge part of the problem. However, no public employee union should be able to hold taxpayers (a.k.a. their employers) hostage to poor employee performance, shutting down of schools, or "blue flu". It is the equivilance to an illegal strike while under contract, IMO. Collective bargaining and unionism allows them to impose economic hardship and substandard performance, without the ability to redress individual union members or contracts, upon the public at large.
Collective bargaining is NOT a right of public employees, or even a possibility, because they and the people they are bargaining with (Town Officials), are ON THE SAME SIDE. They are both public (taxpayer) employees, and the more the Town Officials grant to the public unions, the higher their own compensation. The only people NOT represented in these fake-negotiations are the taxpayers--who must pay the bill, whatever it may be, and no matter how many people lose their homes as their property taxes skyrocket to ridiculous levels.
Private unions make sense, as workers and business owners negotiate over a fair distribution of profits (though in America, with the Free Trade fiasco, this just results in entire industries going overseas). Consider the cost of living if private union negotiations functioned like public union fake-negotiations: a loaf of bread would cost $1,000 so that every single employee in the bread supply chain (including stock boys) could retire after 20 years with a pension and full benefits exceeding to those of most full-time private sector jobs. Multiply that by every item you buy, and if you don't make $5 million a year, you're going to be Great for the public workers, but close to starvation-level poverty for everyone else.
Public unions only make sense in a bizarro-world where we accept that 90% of the homeowners in town will be forced to sell their paid-for homes at a major loss when they retire, or if one of the two family wage-earners gets laid off in the ongoing Recession/Depression. The other 10%, of course, will be the public employees with their fat pensions.
Public servants? Not anymore. The current crop of government employees think of themselves more as the "New Aristocracy" that the public must serve.
Collective bargaining is NOT a right of public employees, or even a possibility, because they and the people they are bargaining with (Town Officials), are ON THE SAME SIDE.
I'm about as conservative as they get, but lets be honest.. the pay isnt really that outrageous. The problem is the other expenses, often mandated by the federal government without funding is limiting states abilities to provide for their citizens. Since they cant cut back on expenses mandated by the federal government, they need to look at those items not mandated in tough times, which often times includes employees pay.
Wrong, they do get higher pay in government work when historically they used to get half pay and a tiny 10% pension in exchange for steady work.
We need to fire IMO at least half of all the government workers.
We need to give only 6 months in assistance to people unless they are permanently disabled.
You have to look at it all; Medicare, SS, pensions, benefits and cut as needed.
We are getting to the point that draconian cuts will be all that allows us to survive.
IMO we've already spent the next 30 years away.
"Collective bargaining is a right. It's not the problem. The problem is politicians who give away too much at the bargaining table," McKenna said.
Of course he could be trying to sway Democrats and other union supporters to vote for him if he does get elected.
Nothing about your post or cited article reflects reality in any way. Collective bargaining is their right (there would be no union if they were compensated fairly in the first place). If you want to kid yourself that a thousand employees lining up for the bosses office asking for a raise is the way to go, do that in your non union employment (which is, was, and will ever be the lions share of employment).
Secondly, there has been nothing but loss at the behest of well heeled installed politicians. A tilted crony market that favors plutocrats alone, America be damned. There would be zero need for a union lobby if there were not a plutocrat lobby going on all along. Laissez faire market is as farcical as trickle down (pee on you) economics. There's one economy for plutocrats, and another for the rest of America (and the globe). That isn't sustainable and continuing to deny it's existence is only going to dig your own hole deeper.
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