What's wrong with Unions?

[Harry Dresden]

The thing with government unions is that government unions are a BS union with no real power. It's illegal for a government union to strike. That's the reason Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers.

with no real power?.....you sure?......i have worked in the PO for over 30 years and if 3 people got fired thats a lot.....i have seen a clerk pull a knife on a fellow worker....he got fired.....a year later he was back at work....with all his back pay....and benefits....i have seen people call in sick once a month for quite a while,usually Sat.....get suspended....get it rescinded....still call in sick....just not as much....the list goes on.....they have some power.....and it is real....

 

[Trajan]

Another gullible moron stupid enough to swallow the GOP think tank generated crapaganda.

If you compare the pay for THE SAME JOBS there is little difference. Some private sector jobs pay a little more and some pay a little less. The way the dishonest GOP think tanks generated that deliberately misleading stat was by comparing all jobs combined. In reality there is a very different mix of jobs in the government and private sectors.

Government jobs have more high paying white collar jobs and the private sector has more low paying blue collar jobs, so it is dishonest to compare total jobs between both sectors, which is exactly why CON$ use only that comparison. The only honest way to compare the two sectors is to compare the SAME JOB in one sector to the SAME JOB in the other sector, which dishonest CON$ will never do.

Er..Fed gov't employees are represented by a UNION, folks.

The thing with government unions is that government unions are a BS union with no real power. It's illegal for a government union to strike. That's the reason Reagan fired all those air traffic controllers.

no it is not illegal for them to strike as Madelines links will show.

Patco for instance violated a no strike clause they themselves agreed to in their contract. That's why they got bounced.

 

[The Rabbi]

Unions distort the market for labor by imposing artificial constraints, in this case an artificial floor on total wages.
When workers are productive they earn more money. Regardless of union affiliation they will do so. Less productive and they earn less. Except in a union shop, they cannot earn, less by agreement. The result is non-competitive industries that eventually either need government subsidies to survive (e.g. GM) or go out of business (e.g. Penn Central).

There is not an industry in the U.S. where unions have played a big role that that industry has not experienced numerous bankruptcies and obsolescence. Not one.
The only saving grace for unions (which were all but extinct 10 years ago) has been government jobs, because there is no profit motive. So whatever unions can strong arm from the gov't the gov't will have to pay them.

And while unions have artificially raised wages within industries, they have lowered wages outside their own industries. This is called the drawbridge effect. Workers not covered by union agreement get treated less well simply because there is less money available for labor costs once unions have taken their cut. Higher unemployment and lower wages are the result.

 

[edthecynic]

Another gullible moron stupid enough to swallow the GOP think tank generated crapaganda.

If you compare the pay for THE SAME JOBS there is little difference. Some private sector jobs pay a little more and some pay a little less. The way the dishonest GOP think tanks generated that deliberately misleading stat was by comparing all jobs combined. In reality there is a very different mix of jobs in the government and private sectors.

Government jobs have more high paying white collar jobs and the private sector has more low paying blue collar jobs, so it is dishonest to compare total jobs between both sectors, which is exactly why CON$ use only that comparison. The only honest way to compare the two sectors is to compare the SAME JOB in one sector to the SAME JOB in the other sector, which dishonest CON$ will never do.

i dont know where you got that bullshit from,but its not like that at contract time at the PO....oh and there are many Democrats in upper management here....im surprised Rush did not tell you this....

Are you drunk?

 

[Harry Dresden]

Are you drunk?

dont drink....you got a joint?.....that i am up for....either way Ed, drunk,high,blitzed.....it dont matter, that crap you passed out back in your post, was just that.....CRAP...

 

[boedicca]

What's wrong with unions? The valid issues they dealth with decades ago have been solved: working hours, safe working conditions, fair pay. At this point, they are no longer needed, and exist to serve themselves and their political patrons - resulting in distortions to the labor market. It's telling that the biggest increase in unions is for government jobs. Overpaid public employee unions contribute to career politicians, who then ensure unjustifiable levels of employment, pay, and benefits for the public employees.

That's what's wrong with unions - they are bleeding out our economy.

 

[edthecynic]

Another gullible moron stupid enough to swallow the GOP think tank generated crapaganda.

If you compare the pay for THE SAME JOBS there is little difference. Some private sector jobs pay a little more and some pay a little less. The way the dishonest GOP think tanks generated that deliberately misleading stat was by comparing all jobs combined. In reality there is a very different mix of jobs in the government and private sectors.

Government jobs have more high paying white collar jobs and the private sector has more low paying blue collar jobs, so it is dishonest to compare total jobs between both sectors, which is exactly why CON$ use only that comparison. The only honest way to compare the two sectors is to compare the SAME JOB in one sector to the SAME JOB in the other sector, which dishonest CON$ will never do.

i dont know where you got that bullshit from,but its not like that at contract time at the PO....oh and there are many Democrats in upper management here....im surprised Rush did not tell you this....

Are you drunk?

Are you drunk?

dont drink....you got a joint?.....that i am up for....either way Ed, drunk,high,blitzed.....it dont matter, that crap you passed out back in your post, was just that.....CRAP...

Since you say it is crap, that proves it is absolutely true.
Thank you.

Here is an example of the pay scale for a software engineer by employer. Obviously government jobs do not pay double private sector jobs when you compare the SAME JOB in each sector. If you notice some private sector SW engineers earn more and some earn less but nowhere do gov SW engineers earn double the private sector!!!!

You only say it's crap because your MessiahRushie told you and you are STUPID enough to believe him.

Federal Worker Compensation Doubles Private Sector Salaries
August 10, 2010
RUSH: The average compensation 2009, federal civilian, meaning non-uniform military, is $123,049."* Of that $81,000 is salary, $41,000 is benefits.* Benefits are health care, pension, whatever the hell else the benefits are.* In the private sector, the amount is $61,000: $50,000 of it in salary and 10,000 in benefits.

 

[boedicca]

Excerpt from a relevant article:

The wave is propelled by government spending and crested with unfunded pension obligations. The Pew Center on the States wrote in The Trillion Dollar Gap (February 2010), “A $1 trillion gap exists between the $3.35 trillion in pension, health care and other retirement benefits states have promised their current and retired workers as of fiscal year 2008 and the $2.35 trillion they have on hand to pay for them.”

Like any tsunami, the wave began long ago and very far out to sea. Thirty years ago the vast majority of union workers were in the private sector. Public employees in unions reached parity with private sector members by 2009. This was aided in part by campaign contributions from the unions to elect Democratic Party candidates and generous pay packages and retirement plans passed by those same politicians in return.

A Tsunami Approaches: The Beginning of the Great Deconstruction | Newgeography.com


During our dinner party on Saturday night, our group discussed what is happening in California. My theory is that during the flush years of the dotcom bubble, greedy politicians and their public employee union cronies viewed the income being earned by tech workers with Pea Green Envy. As the state built a surplus, pols paid off their union cohorts with forecasts assuming the surpluses would last forever. The passage of the 2002 pension bill, long after the bubble burst and the unemployment rater had skyrocketed, was corruption in the extreme. That bill should be reversed and the pension system reformed; it was based on fraud.

 

[saveliberty]

The purpose of a union is to:

Promote a safe working environment - How is that working out for coal miners?

Keep jobs - Total fail there.

Make the workers voice heard in politics - The union seems to represent their own agenda over the workers.

It isn't working any more. Dump unions.

 

[Toro]

There is nothing wrong with unions per se any more than there is anything wrong with corporations. Unionization provides legal protection to labor whereas corporations provide legal protection to capital. Why should capital have greater protection than labor? Any econ 101 student knows that you need both to create wealth.

The structural problems with unions, however, is that they are often inflexible. Rules and laws that make the labor market more inflexible raises the cost of employment and discourages hiring and capital investment, which is bad long-term for the economy.

 

[boedicca]

There is absolutely no valid reason for public employees to be unionized.

 

[syrenn]

Graft, corruption, intimidation, lazy workers...the list is endless.

Good grief, syrenn. You have a very crappy opinion of the average union worker.

I have a very clear view of the average union worker.

 

[syrenn]

Unions do not earn, save and fund the capital going into a business. Their workers retire quicker and faster than management and have better benefit packages than mid and lower level management. Union workers receive overtime pay. Management works off a salary.
If they could receive higher dues from a Republican candidate then they would change loyalties in a second.
Unions are for people that are not confident and intelligent enough to negotiate their pay with the individual skills they have.

Gadawg, this is unfair. You cannot "negotiate with your individual skills" for job security or safe working conditions, etc., if your work is unskilled or semi-skilled. There are unions other than the UAW, yanno.

And they are all the same. They do not care about the workers they unions care about dues and lining their own pockets.

 

[The T]

Unions do not earn, save and fund the capital going into a business. Their workers retire quicker and faster than management and have better benefit packages than mid and lower level management. Union workers receive overtime pay. Management works off a salary.
If they could receive higher dues from a Republican candidate then they would change loyalties in a second.
Unions are for people that are not confident and intelligent enough to negotiate their pay with the individual skills they have.

Gadawg, this is unfair. You cannot "negotiate with your individual skills" for job security or safe working conditions, etc., if your work is unskilled or semi-skilled. There are unions other than the UAW, yanno.

And they are all the same. They do not care about the workers they unions care about dues and lining their own pockets.

The Union Leadership are no better than Politicians that are in it for their power over others.

 

[Trajan]

There is absolutely no valid reason for public employees to be unionized.

nope...thx JFK.

 

[Madeline]

I'm no fan of unions for public employees. Civil service should be enough to shield them from nepotism, and I'm not buying that cops, teachers, or firefighters have "special needs" for job protection other public employees do not.

 

[shintao]

Graft, corruption, intimidation, lazy workers...the list is endless.

Yet, these are myths with no basis in reality and no evidence to back the statements up. It is easy to imagine and make statements, and quite another to back those statements up. Are you prepared to back them up? I bet you are not.

 

[The Rabbi]

Graft, corruption, intimidation, lazy workers...the list is endless.

Yet, these are myths with no basis in reality and no evidence to back the statements up. It is easy to imagine and make statements, and quite another to back those statements up. Are you prepared to back them up? I bet you are not.

They are not myths. They are well proven. Go Google some articles and studies ad come back and disprove it.

 

[shintao]

Unions are for people that are not confident and intelligent enough to negotiate their pay with the individual skills they have.

Apparently the method they use seems to work just fine, as they are paid more than the rest of America's non-confident & unintelligent people who use employment agencies to find them jobs.

 

[shintao]

I am not sure why conservatives fear and dislike unions. It seems they operate in a conservative fashion, and continue building America and making it a better place. What's wrong with Unions?

SHITao, Originally, unions were necessary. Even today some legit, clean unions are a good thing.

As for the present day unions .....in general, NO EXPLANATIONS ARE NECESSARY !!!

If you can't figure it out, you're a bigger Obamarrhoidal LIEberrhoid idiot than I thought you were.

Translation: I see nothing wrong with unions either.