Should Government/Public Unions Be Abolished?

[Harry Dresden]

When they hold Governments hostage,they hold Taxpayers hostage. And that's violating fellow Citizens' rights. I think the Wisconsin Governor had it right in trying to curtail their power. He was just trying to protect the Taxpayers and get the State's Budget under control. But he got vilified for doing this by the corrupt MSM who are always in bed with the Left/Democrats. Their collective bargaining rights should be curtailed. Walker had it right.

Oh.. I see. Negotiating Contracts is your equivalent of holding governments hostage? You're insane.

What do they do when they don't get what they want? And i'm not just talking about Teacher Unions.

my Union goes to binding Arbitration.....

 

[Harry Dresden]

Mhhm <clearing throat>
The PO is not self sustaining which is why the Fed Govt gives it $5B a year, to fund the unfunded liabilities and is facing a $13B loss this year. I'm not clear why Congress has to give it $5B a year, but I wouldn't doubt it was because the coffers were cleaned out.
The PO should make money, or at the very least, break even.

Mhhm <clearing throat>......Congress does not give the PO that money....the PO is mandated,by CONGRESS to pay that Amount every year....

 

[JoeB131]

I hate fuckers like that... They give good, honest, hard working employees a bad name. But you have to understand that for every one employee like that, there are probably 20 that bust their asses and care to make sure that the taxpayer is getting everything they paid for....after all... We are taxpayers too. We don't want our money wasted either.

And some day, I hope to meet them.
Although I'm nearly 50 and haven't yet.

It's really a mentality, when you get down to it.

 

[Harry Dresden]

What do they do when they don't get what they want? And i'm not just talking about Teacher Unions.

Oh... you mean strike? Let's see, the last time there was an AFSCME strike In Pennsylvania... I was 10 years old(1975). It lasted four days before they were court ordered to go back to work, and Administration was ordered back to the negotiation table.

So.... let's see. That's 36 years of good faith negotiations. How many times have Federal Employees gone on strike? Oh.. that's right, never. They aren't allowed to. You only see what you want to see.

if public employees are not allowed to strike, then what is the point of the public unions since they have no power to enforce their demands?

so all Unions have to be like the Teamsters?....

 

[paulitician]

Looks like booting Public Unions has a lot of support. Interesting.

 

[Bern80]

**** you... Profits have been going steadily up for Big Corps and wages have been damn near stagnant for 30years for their employees. Don't sit here and tell me how the poor little rich boys have it so fuckin' rough.

Where the **** was it written that your pay was supposed to go up for doing the same job and taking up space for another year? Just because your bosses income goes up doesn't mean yours is supposed to as well. Your income will increase when YOU increase your value to your employer or you find some other way of generating income like, I don't know, creating a company, instead of working for one. The simple fact is leeches like you want more, but don't want to have to give any more of yourselves. IT DOESN'T WORK THAT WAY. You are not compensated based on what you need, or how long you've taken up space. You are compensated based on your value. Can you make a decent argument to your boss that you're more valuable this year than you were last year? If so, ask for a raise. If he won't give you one find another employer who agrees that you're worth what you think you are. If you can't do either of those than you may want to consider that it isn't eveil bosses and employers that are the problem, it just might be that your skills aren't as valuable as you think they are.

Who said I was owed anything? Oh.. that's right... you, you asshole. But not being "owed" anything and doing our jobs well isn't enough for you dickheads, is it? No... you want to burn the fuckin' place down and put us in the unemployment line. Excuse me if I fight for my, and my co-workers' existence.

Now your're talking silly talk again. In who's objective interest is it to have high unemployment? That's not even in a greedy CEO's best interest. You libs just don't get it. You're the most illogical people on the face of the earth. All this crap you accuse big business of makes no sense to actually do from a businesses financial perspective. You can fight for your existence all you want. It isn't someone elses job to fight that fight for you. It's your job and for the love of god could you be a little smarter about it? Take some of the energy you spend pissing and moaning and divert that into cultivating skills that employers value and you'll get exactly what you want. This is your bluff being called. You and anyone else who wants better compensation, I just told you the most efficient way of getting that. Unfortunately for people like you it's going to require effort and personal accountability.

EDIT: Negotiating in good faith IS a level playing field, BTW.

And how is that not happening right now?

 

[Steelplate]

How is that not happening right now? It is...for the moment. But that's not the topic of the god damned Thread, is it?

 

[Bern80]

How is that not happening right now? It is...for the moment. But that's not the topic of the god damned Thread, is it?

So you're just going to avoid what I said? Well that certainly make you look credible. I asked you a question. Are you more valuable to your employer this year than you were last year? For most people that is the basis by which one argues that deserve a pay increase. Either you agree on that premise that compensation is based on your value or you think it should be based on something else. Ultiamtely your refusal to answer that question speaks volumes. You bemoan how tough things are financially for people. Again, I just told you the most efficient way to remedy that situation. The action plan for earning more money is pretty simple and easy to figure out. Unfortuantely all of those actions require effort on the part of the individual.

Saying somethig is so doesn't make it so. Give me specific examples of how there is a widespread problem of employers not negotiating compensation in good faith on a level playing field with non-unionized employees. That very much is what the thread title is about.

 

[Steelplate]

How is that not happening right now? It is...for the moment. But that's not the topic of the god damned Thread, is it?

So you're just going to avoid what I said? Well that certainly make you look credible. And saying it is doesn't make it so. Give me specific examples of how employers are not negotiating compensation in good faith on a level playing field with non-unionized employees. That very much is what the thread title is about.

They're not. If there was a "level playing field", then the private sector wages and benefits would be very close to what the Public Sector is. We have the unified power to negotiate and not be dictated to. Non unionized people either have to take what is offered or keep looking for a job.

Sure... if you have the skills(and the massive debt that goes along with those skills), you have a little more leeway. But for most people(High School Graduates), those options aren't there. They have been abandoned....many of whom have families to support and "going back to school" isn't an option.

 

[Bern80]

They're not. If there was a "level playing field", then the private sector wages and benefits would be very close to what the Public Sector is. We have the unified power to negotiate and not be dictated to. Non unionized people either have to take what is offered or keep looking for a job.

This could be the dumbest thing anyone has ever said. You must be a public sector employee. It's the public sector that doesn't play on the level playing field steel and the private that does. Not the other way around. Most public secotor jobs couldn't survive in the private sector. You are exhibit A of how uneducated the populace is about how business works. A private company has to produce something or provide some service to generate revenue. Enogh consumers have to value what they do in order to provide them with a revenue stream that allows them to pay people to produce that thing or provide that service. It's a cycle in the private sector. The worker produces what a consumer wants, which provides revenue and compensation to the worker, which allows them to continue producing what the consumer wants, which provides revenue and compensation to the worker, and so on.

The public sector is insulated from those basic realites. The public sector does not produce anything that the general public voluntarily consumes. The public employee's pay isn't tied to their productivity. The are not paid through the revenues generated from consumers buying their product or service. They are paid by taxpayers who INVOLUNTARILY provide their incomes through a government beauracract that arbitraily assigns them a salary and benefits package. They don't have deal with any of those 'trivial' things like supply and demand or expenses variables that change in the free market.

The short of it steel is you are dead wrong. You couldn't be more wrong if you wanted to be. You have concluded that since government employees make x amount of dollars and the same skill set in the private sector makes less, the private sector must be underpaid. Yet everyone else with a shred of economic sense, who understands things like supply and demand and business operations knows the problem is exactly the opposite. It is public secotor employee's that are OVER PAID. Their compensation is INFLATED over what it would be in the private sector not because they are unionized but because they don't have to operate on the level playing field you claim to want. Having a skill set with value, being turned down and finding someone else that will pay for that skill set, that IS the level playing field. A group of people holding an employer hostage is not.

Sure... if you have the skills(and the massive debt that goes along with those skills), you have a little more leeway. But for most people(High School Graduates), those options aren't there. They have been abandoned....many of whom have families to support and "going back to school" isn't an option.

That is something those people should have thought of. Why in god's name should an employer who took their own risks, worked hard and decided to make their own living be responsible for people that CHOSE not to be responsible for themselves? Yes going back to school is an option. You research what fields are in demand, find out what it will pay, take out some loans to get that education and pay them back when you start getting paid more as a result of that education. People like me do it all the time.

There are simple facts of life you apparently never grasped and your 16 years my senior which makes you pretty pathetic. You have zero personal accountability. Not having an education beyond high school isn't something that just happens to a person. That comes from making bad choices in life and sure as **** isn't my responsibility to pay for your or anyone elses bad life decisions. You say those people feel abandoned. CRY ME A ******* RIVER. They abandoned themselves first and I refuse to be forced to take care of them if they refuse to put forth the effort to take care of themselves first.

 

[Steelplate]

Ok... this has de-volved into bullshit.

Really? Cops don't perform needed services? Firemen? Prison guards? go **** youself... I'm done trying to reason with the unreasonable.

 

[Bern80]

Ok... this has de-volved into bullshit.

Really? Cops don't perform needed services? Firemen? Prison guards? go **** youself... I'm done trying to reason with the unreasonable.

I never said they weren't needed. I said the difference is their compensatin does not come from revenue they produce through the production of a good or providing that service. Since they don't have to deal wth the compensation constraints that a free market does they can get paid more in the public sector than someone with the same skill set in the private sector. It isn't that private sector labor is under valued. It's that compensation in the public sector is artificially inflated. And it isn't so much strictly in terms of salary for salary. It's the benefits above and beyond that like pensions that are a big part of the problem. They simply aren't financially feasible. Some gov't beauracract decided to institute them because hey, why not? It's not like they need to be responsible for generating the income to pay for these retirement plans. They'll just take the money from the tax payers. Their compensatin is not based on their merit or what they produce. As a result how they are compensated gets inflated because everyone gets paid the same thing regardless of how well they do their job and they can essentially vote themselves a raise because what they get paid isn't caused by what the produce or provide.

 

[kwc57]

Unions as a concept I don't have a problem with. As I said in another thread, people certainly have the right to organize and if you can get enough people together such that you can dictate to a particular employer better compensation, go for it.

Unfortunately that isn't how unions work at all today. You have people like Steelplate-in-the-head up here who don't want an even playing field when it comes to employers and employees negotiating compensation. He first incorrectly perceives that it is horribly skewed in the employers favor and wants to horribly skew in the employees favor. Like I said above, if you want to organize, go for it. But if you really want the playing field to be level you better make darn sure you have the leverage. You have the right to organize. You do NOT have the right to prevent that same employer from hiring people who are perfectly willing to work for less. You also better have enough business sense to now that whatever it is you demand needs to still allow the employer to be profitable otherwise your demands are going to be rather short lived. Of course it's too much to expect that parasites like steelplate here have the kind of foresight or integerity.

It's really ironic that steel complains about evil corporate america when that's the group that todays unions are a part of. A union is a business like any other business. They have middle managers and CEOs like any other business and those union heads are rolling in money, just like CEOs of other companies. Unions today exist to protect the lowest common denominators of the labor force. Those of us with skills that the labor market actually values have no need for unions. Our skills are valuable enough that we are compensated quite well for them. People like Steeleplate can't make that connection. He thinks he's owed something by the rest of society and shouldn't have to figure out how to earn a living wage like everyone else. People like YOU are the problem with society today Steel. Not us.

**** you... Profits have been going steadily up for Big Corps and wages have been damn near stagnant for 30years for their employees. Don't sit here and tell me how the poor little rich boys have it so fuckin' rough.

Who said I was owed anything? Oh.. that's right... you, you asshole. But not being "owed" anything and doing our jobs well isn't enough for you dickheads, is it? No... you want to burn the fuckin' place down and put us in the unemployment line. Excuse me if I fight for my, and my co-workers' existence.

EDIT: Negotiating in good faith IS a level playing field, BTW.

Really? I moved from part time to full time in 1980. I was pulling down $900 a month ($10,800 per year) and thought I was living like a king. 31 years down the road, I make 7 times that. My pay hasn't been stagnant. My dad worked in a union shop. By the time I turned 28 in 1985, I was making more that he was after 32 years with his company. As has been pointed out by Bern80, you are paid according to the value of your job skills, not your need.

 

[paulitician]

The Taxpayers are sick of being raped by Public Unions. Their time is just about up. This Poll here seems to indicate this so far.

 

[Bern80]

The Taxpayers are sick of being raped by Public Unions. Their time is just about up. This Poll here seems to indicate this so far.

Taking a step back you have to see the irony in the concept of unions for public employees and the even greater irony in who supports them. A union is supposed to protect employees from the employer right? In the case of public unions the employer is the government. So basically what is being said is that these employees needs to be protected from being mistreated by government And who supports the unions? Liberals. A group of people that seems to inordinate amount of trust and dependence on government. Again, ironic. Why exactly is it that a group of people need to be protected from the 'benevolent' government?

 

[paulitician]

Their time has passed. It's time to at least limit their power & control. They work for us after all. It's not the other way around.

 

[Harry Dresden]

The Taxpayers are sick of being raped by Public Unions. Their time is just about up. This Poll here seems to indicate this so far.

Taking a step back you have to see the irony in the concept of unions for public employees and the even greater irony in who supports them. A union is supposed to protect employees from the employer right? In the case of public unions the employer is the government. So basically what is being said is that these employees needs to be protected from being mistreated by government And who supports the unions? Liberals. A group of people that seems to inordinate amount of trust and dependence on government. Again, ironic. Why exactly is it that a group of people need to be protected from the 'benevolent' government?

work for the PO and you will see why.....

 

[gallantwarrior]

The Taxpayers are sick of being raped by Public Unions. Their time is just about up. This Poll here seems to indicate this so far.

Taking a step back you have to see the irony in the concept of unions for public employees and the even greater irony in who supports them. A union is supposed to protect employees from the employer right? In the case of public unions the employer is the government. So basically what is being said is that these employees needs to be protected from being mistreated by government And who supports the unions? Liberals. A group of people that seems to inordinate amount of trust and dependence on government. Again, ironic. Why exactly is it that a group of people need to be protected from the 'benevolent' government?

Maybe the taxpayers need to form their own union. To protect them from the government, you know.

 

[Amelia]

 

[theunbubba]

I know this is a very emotional and controversial subject but it think it does have to be confronted. I'm not talking about Private Unions,i'm just talking about Government/Public Unions. So what do you think?

Public service should be altruistic. Not covered by some damned union mentality. Even the concept of public unions obviates the attitude of overlordship and adversarial relationship with the public they supposedly willingly serve.
Don't like the pay? Too damned bad. Get a job in the private sector. Government service should never be a career.