End Public Sector Unions Period.

[Madeline]

We are behaving like frightened sheep. Terrified at the economy, because our homes are worthless, our 401(k) plans are worthless, our kids cannot get jobs. Some dufus on Fox suggests that all this is due to public employees and we are ready to lynch them.

It's like watching the mob scene in "Frankenstein" and it'll be just about as effective.

 

[Old Rocks]

Well, the last few weeks have surely shown what the Teabaggers are all about. Ol' Bucs is a prime example of that.

 

[California Girl]

I'm inclined to support ending unions for the public sector. The private sector can't be trusted to treat people properly with some kind of 'encouragement'. However, I am inclined to clip the wings of unions so they can't keep crapping on business to the extent that they can destroy a business. We need business, we do not 'need' unions. They would do well to remember that.

 

[Old Rocks]

You may not 'need' unions, but we who work on the factory floor know damned well that without the unions, we would be working for next to nothing. And in conditions that are unsafe. It took unions to create decent wages and working conditions. It takes unions to maintain them.

 

[PoliticalChic]

Yeah that sounds awesome. Pro Business yeah!! (end sarcasm)

The only reason anyone has a good paying job is thanks to unions who fought and some who died to fight for your rights as workers for a decent wage, clean and safe working conditions, and have the employer take some responsible for their actions.

You take away unions, you leave workers with nothing. High wages job will disappear faster than you can say "Republicans rule" because why pay someone that much when you don't have to. Meaning our economy goes to crap. Unions ensure a middle class that has the purcahsing power to have a house, get a car, put kids through college and spend on nice clothes and TVs. I mean has anyone really understood that when make less money, they spend less. Meaning stores like Best buy and Barnes and Noble go out of business which means millions of people are out of a job.

Well all I know if Republicans do that, they will have a Egypt style protest and revolution on their hands.

"The only reason anyone has a good paying job is thanks to unions who fought..."

Nonsense...and the workers concerned know it....

Results of a recent Rasmussen poll found that 9% of nonunion workers were interested in joining a union. For public school grads, that means that 91% have no such interest. In fact, maybe that means that 9% are public school grads who didn’t learn to read on their own. (Just 9% of Non-Union Workers Want to Join Union - Rasmussen Reports™

Rasmussen found that even workers in companies who were in danger of losing their jobs, it was still only 9%. What do the 91% know about union membership that the 9% don’t? One can only conjecture.

In the 1950s some 1/3 of all private-sector workers belonged to a union. Now only 7.6% of nongovernment workers belong to one. From 1997to 2004, private sector employment grew from 66.1 to 103.6 million, but union membership declined from 14.3 to 8.2 million. (AEAweb: Annual Meeting Papers)

At the same time, unionization of government jobs is five times higher (Union Members Summary) . Could it be that the concern of private companies for profits, and maximizing shareholder value, and workers choosing opportunity over job security explain the disparity? Or, in more loaded terminology, choosing capitalism over socialism.

So, what are the strategies of union organizers? First, they continue to talk like its still 1930, and the many laws that protect workers from management abuse don’t exist. You, and your union-thinkers, subscribe to victimology.


But...

contrary to the OP, I'm opposed to outlawing any association that free Americans choose...that would be as bad as passing a law that workers would be mandated to join a union.

Even public sector workers...as long as they realize that they cannot strike. We should hold excesssive contracts against the politicians who traded them for votes!

That means a fair and balanced media who reports same.

That's the difference between conservative thought and liberal what-passes-for-thinking.

 

[California Girl]

You may not 'need' unions, but we who work on the factory floor know damned well that without the unions, we would be working for next to nothing. And in conditions that are unsafe. It took unions to create decent wages and working conditions. It takes unions to maintain them.

Did you miss the part where I agreed that unions serve a purpose in the private sector?

 

[NYcarbineer]

This hostility towards unions is simply more proof that we are a nation in decline.

As our country declines further and further, economically, there becomes less and less prosperity available, and as a consequence,

people begin to fight over what's left.

Union people aren't overpaid. Union jobs, those that are left in this country, those that pay more and have better benefits than so many non-union jobs, are simply those jobs that haven't been brought down, yet,

by the decline. Union jobs today are just the natural progression of the union jobs of 40 years ago. 40 years ago union jobs, in industry, transportation, etc., were the good jobs that a guy could work and have a home and raise a family on, and could afford, if the family so chose, to allow the wife/mother to stay at home and raise the family.

Were those people overpaid 40 years ago? Was my family too rich because my dad had a union job and my mother didn't have to work also to make ends meet? Apparently conservatives think so.

As the country has declined, those jobs have disappeared. The unions that were associated with those jobs have proportionately declined. But who won?

Who wins when a country's working class gets poorer?

 

[Madeline]

To end the right to bargain collectively for any American, you'd have to amend the constitution....remember Freedom Of Association?

You people disgust me. Did none of you study history?

Yes, there are useless unions and yes, there are corrupt unions. But what about coal miners? Construction workers? Food and retail workers?

When you knee-jerk yank your fellow man's rights, what's to stop him yanking yours? Don't you ever get tired of being a puppet?

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzRNBSk348"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzRNBSk348[/ame]

 

[California Girl]

How true...

Protesting for your rights as a citizen is un-American

What right are we taking away?

The right to life? No. Liberty? No. The pursuit of happiness? No.

What could be seen as un-American..... demanding money from a state that's broke.

 

[grunt11b]

Yeah that sounds awesome. Pro Business yeah!! (end sarcasm)

The only reason anyone has a good paying job is thanks to unions who fought and some who died to fight for your rights as workers for a decent wage, clean and safe working conditions, and have the employer take some responsible for their actions.

You take away unions, you leave workers with nothing. High wages job will disappear faster than you can say "Republicans rule" because why pay someone that much when you don't have to. Meaning our economy goes to crap. Unions ensure a middle class that has the purcahsing power to have a house, get a car, put kids through college and spend on nice clothes and TVs. I mean has anyone really understood that when make less money, they spend less. Meaning stores like Best buy and Barnes and Noble go out of business which means millions of people are out of a job.

Well all I know if Republicans do that, they will have a Egypt style protest and revolution on their hands.

Let the protests begin then, as long as they are peaceful. When they are no longer peaceful well....that's why we have prisons.

 

[California Girl]

Just end the public sector. Everyone wants others to teach their kids for them put our their fires bring them water, Haul them to the hospital, etc. Where did personal responsibility go in America?

You're losing your somewhat tenuous grasp on reality, again, USC. Hold on tighter.

 

[Madeline]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5iAIM02kv0g[/ame]

 

[PoliticalChic]

To end the right to bargain collectively for any American, you'd have to amend the constitution....remember Freedom Of Association?

You people disgust me. Did none of you study history?

Yes, there are useless unions and yes, there are corrupt unions. But what about coal miners? Construction workers? Food and retail workers?

When you knee-jerk yank your fellow man's rights, what's to stop him yanking yours? Don't you ever get tired of being a puppet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzRNBSk348

"At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.

To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.

Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay."



Read more at the Washington Examiner: The power of unions: Average stagehand at Lincoln Center in NYC makes $290K a year | Mark Hemingway | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

 

[grunt11b]

To end the right to bargain collectively for any American, you'd have to amend the constitution....remember Freedom Of Association?

You people disgust me. Did none of you study history?

Yes, there are useless unions and yes, there are corrupt unions. But what about coal miners? Construction workers? Food and retail workers?

When you knee-jerk yank your fellow man's rights, what's to stop him yanking yours? Don't you ever get tired of being a puppet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzRNBSk348

Maybe you should read up on the constitution, because apparently you have been studying history books that have been rewritten recently to reflect the progressives point of how history happened.
Nowhere in the constitution do you have the freedom of association. The constitution only protects assembly, not association.
You might wanna read the document before you pretend you know what it says. Just a tip.
Oh, and you disgust us also, just so you know. The constitution should be amended to make it mandatory that every American born citizen read the Constitution for what it says, not what some dumbass college professor wants you to think it says.

 

[Old Rocks]

Sure, Grunt, we know that history very well. From Blair mountain to the mining camp in Colorado. The company goons fire on the union folk with machine guns, burn their children to death, and the union men go to jail for inciting a riot. That is why men like Governor Walker are regarded as scum by anyone with a brain.

 

[Madeline]

To end the right to bargain collectively for any American, you'd have to amend the constitution....remember Freedom Of Association?

You people disgust me. Did none of you study history?

Yes, there are useless unions and yes, there are corrupt unions. But what about coal miners? Construction workers? Food and retail workers?

When you knee-jerk yank your fellow man's rights, what's to stop him yanking yours? Don't you ever get tired of being a puppet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzRNBSk348

Maybe you should read up on the constitution, because apparently you have been studying history books that have been rewritten recently to reflect the progressives point of how history happened.
Nowhere in the constitution do you have the freedom of association. The constitution only protects assembly, not association.
You might wanna read the document before you pretend you know what it says. Just a tip.
Oh, and you disgust us also, just so you know. The constitution should be amended to make it mandatory that every American born citizen read the Constitution for what it says, not what some dumbass college professor wants you to think it says.

SCOTUS decisions on Freedom Of Association:

Whitney v. California 274 u.s. 357 (1927)

De Jonge v. Oregon 299 u.s. 353 (1937)

Hague v. Committee for Industrial Organization 307 u.s. 496 (1939)

American Communications Assn. v. Douds 339 u.s. 382 (1950)

Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York 342 u.s. 485 (1952)

Kent v. Dulles 357 u.s. 116 (1958)

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Patterson 357 u.s. 449 (1958)

Barenblatt v. United States 360 u.s. 109 (1959)

Shelton v. Tucker 364 u.s. 479 (1960)

Communist Party of the United States v. Subversive Activities Control Bd. No. 12 367 u.s. 1 (1961)

Scales v. United States 367 u.s. 203 (1961)

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Button 371 u.s. 415 (1963)

Edwards v. South Carolina 372 u.s. 229 (1963)

Aptheker v. Secretary of State 378 u.s. 500 (1964)

Cox v. Louisiana 379 u.s. 536 (1965)

Evans v. Newton 382 u.s. 296 (1966)

Keyishian v. Board of Regents 385 u.s. 589 (1967)

Moose Lodge No. 107 v. Irvis 407 u.s. 163 (1972)

Communist Party of Indiana v. Whitcomb 414 u.s. 441 (1974)

Buckley v. Valeo 424 u.s. 1 (1976)

Moore v. City of East Cleveland 431 u.s. 494 (1977)

Nixon v. Administrator of General Services 433 u.s. 425 (1977)

McDaniel v. Paty 435 u.s. 618 (1978)

In re Primus 436 u.s. 412 (1978)

National Association for the Advancement of Colored People v. Claiborne Hardware Co. 458 u.s. 886 (1982)

Hishon v. King & Spalding 467 u.s. 69 (1984)

Roberts v. United States Jaycees 468 u.s. 609 (1984)

Bowers v. Hardwick 478 u.s. 186 (1986)

Board of Directors, Rotary International v. Rotary Club of Duarte 481 u.s. 537 (1987)

Board of Education of Westside Community Schools v. Mergens By and Through Mergens 496 u.s. 226 (1990)

Rutan v. Republican Party of Illinois 497 u.s. 62 (1990)

Dawson v. Delaware 503 u.s. 159 (1992)

California Democratic Party v. Jones 530 u.s. 567 (2000)

Boy Scouts of America v. Dale 530 u.s. 640 (2000)

Read 'em and weep, genius.

 

[Madeline]

[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cehLiGxguQI"]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cehLiGxguQI[/ame]

 

[chanel]

I am trying to see both sides of this issue. But I am a pragmatist. Let's suppose for a second that all public employee unions were disbanded. What next? Who sets the compensation? Where is the starting point? How much are people willing to pay teachers, cops, and social workers? Many secretaries and teachers aides make LESS in salary than their health benefits. How much should they have to "sacrifice"?

I am very curious to hear some ideas.

 

[Old Rocks]

To end the right to bargain collectively for any American, you'd have to amend the constitution....remember Freedom Of Association?

You people disgust me. Did none of you study history?

Yes, there are useless unions and yes, there are corrupt unions. But what about coal miners? Construction workers? Food and retail workers?

When you knee-jerk yank your fellow man's rights, what's to stop him yanking yours? Don't you ever get tired of being a puppet?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bHzRNBSk348

"At Avery Fisher Hall and Alice Tully Hall in Lincoln Center, the average stagehand salary and benefits package is $290,000 a year.

To repeat, that is the average compensation of all the workers who move musicians' chairs into place and hang lights, not the pay of the top five.

Across the plaza at the Metropolitan Opera, a spokesman said stagehands rarely broke into the top-five category. But a couple of years ago, one did. The props master, James Blumenfeld, got $334,000 at that time, including some vacation back pay."



Read more at the Washington Examiner: The power of unions: Average stagehand at Lincoln Center in NYC makes $290K a year | Mark Hemingway | Beltway Confidential | Washington Examiner

OK. PC, what about the CEOs that crashed their companies, the got multimillion dollar golden parachutes? What about the financial people that damned near put us into the Second Great Republican Depression? And walked away with tens of millions of dollars, instead of prison terms.

The teachers and state workers in Wisconsin are not making six figure salaries. In fact, they make considerably less than I do. And the teachers have to have at least a four year college degree.

People like you piss and moan about the quality of the teachers, then do everything you can to make sure that the pay is such that the best people will not even think about applying for the job. Just as in private industry, you want quality, you pay for it.

 

[grunt11b]

Sure, Grunt, we know that history very well. From Blair mountain to the mining camp in Colorado. The company goons fire on the union folk with machine guns, burn their children to death, and the union men go to jail for inciting a riot. That is why men like Governor Walker are regarded as scum by anyone with a brain.

Don't let the facts get in the way of your opinion or anything.