Amelia
Rookie
- Banned
- #81
And how, exactly, is that different than the myriad of industries that largely exist because of government contracts?
Tons of unsustainable promises were made to private sector unions as well. It's interesting that conservatives are very much about "responsibility", unless responsibility requires people in positions of power, be they CEOs or politicians, actually following through. Then outright theft becomes okay, because, hey, those rubes in the union shouldn't really have expected the rules to apply to people in positions of power.
The MASSIVE difference is that the people that receive that service are LEGALLY bound to purchase it. Lets take schools as a good example. If the teachers want to strike, their customers (the people) have no options. The money that they pay the school cannot be taken back and used somewhere else. They cant take their business to another company. They cannot put that school out of business. In that regard, the customers are beholden to the service provider. There is no balancing power against that strike. If the teachers push to far, who cares? They will get their pay anyway and they are going to get a better contract. As I already pointed out, the politician who is representing the people never actually has to pay for that. The people dont even see the results until it is too late and the politician is likely sipping margaritas at his retirement home. OTOH, the fact that children are not able to go to school AND the people are still paying for that is VERY visible.
Now, compare that to a company. If the workers push to far, the company goes out of business or they replace the workers. That is simply not an option that is generally afforded to governmental agencies that use union employees. Companies have to balance this also with the real costs of doing business as a bad union deal can put them under where a bad deal with the government does well nothing at all to the parties involved.
So you ask how they are different. The easier question would be how are they the same? One does not resemble the other in any shape or form.
Ultimately, the public has the option of abolishing public schools if they find the process so outrageous. The fact that they don't means they don't place as high of a value on the question as you do.
Thank you for providing the symbol of the absurdity of your claim that public unions are not in a special class.
Public schools cannot be abolished. To suggest they could is the the height of disingenuity.