The end of public employee unions? Let's hope so

Ya, it's just not Detroit. These pension deficits are taking place across the country.

 

Very well said. I was a police officer for 30 years. I worked 365/24/7, and I took tremendous risks at times. I loved my job, but no way would I have done it for peanuts. No chance.

 

Yes, but it's not really the court's role under the constitution to decide "what's really the best policy for public sector workers in our opinion." We can have such a constitution if you want: 9 elderly and unelected lawyers, with life terms and no accountability, all coming from essentially two law schools, making such policy decisions for you. Or you can have them butt out and let free associations of workers (unions with no compulsory dues) and management work it out.

I think the posters in this thread are falling into two groups: one that doesn't mind being told what is best for him by someone with more power, and another that does.

 

im actually ok with that.

1) people get to choose to join a union

2) if you dont join a union you have to negotiate your own contract. If its better than your union counterpart then great if not then its your fault for not joining. If you join a union to get access to their better contract then your locked into them as long as your work contract is effective.

At least people get a choice.

were against gerrymandering because it breeds complacancey since your party is almost guaranteed the slot. Being forced to pay a union is the exact same thing.

 

Thank god that corporations and their puppets in congress have not gotten corrupted and greedy. LOL

 

What you say is fair.

What I can't stand, is the politically motivated 'mantra' that says (in a practically rote fashion):

"Unions are bad." or "Unions are no longer needed/purposeful."

That's just BS.

 

Exactly.

The VAST majority of those (corrupt) POLITICIANS against unions, reside within the Republican Party. In truth, they simply don't want the 'political' competition and influence which the 'collective' voice of workers naturally brings to the arena. That is mainly WHY "conservatives" been attacking unions for (literally) 'decades'. (Just Google for the info, if anyone wants to know.)

All this anti-union talk out here, is as POLITICAL as anything else going on. Unions aren't perfect or problem-free... but they are generally good for working Americans.

 

Amazing how many small govt states right loving conservatives support unelected judges deciding for the states. States can and have banned collective bargaining by public employee unions.

 

Civil Service protections only go so far. Because they are union, they bargain contracts that have job protection in them. Your accusation that they don't have to work as hard as you do is nothing more then poppycock. Many of these workers (Fire, Police, EMS, etc) put their lives on the line for you and you want to nickle and dime them? Well Merry Christmas to you too!

While you may not enjoy a lot of the benefits they have or have to work twice as hard and more hours for less pay in your job is your own fault for organizing into a union and bargaining for your terms and conditions of employment; instead you whine about it without taking any action to correct it.

I have a pension in addition to a 401.k plan as well. My union negotiated these two plans for myself and workers along with a viable medical plan which is comparable if not superior to what public sector employees enjoy. Perhaps if you organized, you might just get the same thing.

Knock off the strawman crap; you said that because you know i'm right and you have no valid answer other then condemn people who worked by the rules and earned their pay and benefits; many people who retire in their fifties usually go out at 55 years of age or older unless they develop medical issues and retire prior to. Why are the health benefits so ridiculous??? Is it because you failed to try to improve yourself in the workplace by staying non-union?? REall

You can make whatever claim you want but all unions are fundamentally the same; they bargain collectively for their terms and conditions of employment.

Then you must be in your 80's or 90's; I've walked the walk, have you??

 

Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: “Meticulous attention,” the president insisted in 1937, “should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” The reason? F.D.R. believed that “[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.”

http://washingtonexaminer.com/blogs...calling-fdr-was-no-fan-public-employee-unions

 

Oh really? Why not elaborate on the "pension bomb" and tell us how this will happen.

100% false. Fire, Police, EMS, Sanitation, Parks Department all received raises with contracts bargained by the Giuliani administration. The federal government is required to bargain with unions; only membership is not a requirement. Get your facts right before posting.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Federation_of_Government_Employees

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_Service_Reform_Act_of_1978

https://www.afge.org/

http://www.nytimes.com/2001/07/28/nyregion/contract-deal-for-workers-in-uniform.html

http://www.nytimes.com/1994/09/18/n...k-up-more-or-have-pay-cut.html?pagewanted=all

You are wrong. Working in the public sector is a career, just like working in the private sector is a career; all working people deserve rights in the workplace and a living wage. Maybe you'd like to see them live like pheasants but somehow I don't think they'd agree with you. Sounds like if you want wages and benefits similar to the public sector, its high time to find a union job in the private sector or organize your shop.

Sorry, but I would never support cutting wages, benefits nor job security just so you could make the public sector workers your "equals" because you are too afraid to improve your working condition and terms of employment. I will do everything within my power to make sure our public sector workers are among the highest paid in the country.

Sounds to me like the workers need to get off their collective butts and organize. Otherwise don't sit there and whine about how bad things are when you can change them.

 

Can you elaborate more on this claim??

 

Le sigh,
This happening all across the country.
Chiraq
http://chicago.suntimes.com/the-wat...ous-benefits-one-part-state-city-pension-mess

San Bernardino
http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern...-dumps-calpers-as-pension-death-spiral-looms/
http://www.sbsun.com/government-and...bernardino-on-bleeding-edge-of-pension-crisis

Illinois
http://www.chicagobusiness.com/arti...-crisis-was-created-and-fueled-by-politicians

Alabama
http://www.al.com/news/index.ssf/2014/12/lawmakers_working_to_avert_pen.html

Arizona-Kansas-New York
http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/30/Outrageous-Public-Pensions-Could-Bankrupt-These-States

 

How and where do you see that?

I simply see the exact opposite, most people hate unions.

 

Public sector unions are probably the worst semi-hidden (by design) problem in our country. It's not just that the benefits and pay have become outsized compared to the private sector for people who do little real work, it's that they take taxpayer funds and create the many tributaries of the gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-MSM Complex sewer pipe with all its lie narratives... visible daily on this forum. That's right, many of the garbage LW "headline mills" out there? Funded by public sector unions. Most of the bogus government produced liestats out there? Created by public unions PR departments.

Thread is amusing in several ways. 1. The refusal to acknowledge the radical differences between private and public sector unions among the sheep.
2. The constant "police and fire dept public safety risks" canard whenever public unions are brought up. Hint, it's mostly the board of education, hordes of social workers doing 2 hours of work a day, and an endlessly layered sea of overpaid, underworked, deskbound bureaucrats who bust states' and cities' coffers, not beat cops and firemen, nice try at subterfuge, though.

Finally, it's not the straw man that public employees shouldn't be paid a living wage and reasonable benefits that opponents of public unions advocate, but rather that in any entity entirely outside the forces of competition, limited in growth only by its ability to extort more and more from the private sector, people should not be paid a full day's wage for .25 a day's work. Unions, with their signature ability to entrench lazy incompetents into jobs for life, just exacerbate the "free lunch" aspect of much public employment and contracting to the nth degree. You have to practically STEAL to get fired from a government job, and anyone who doesn't realize that is woefully unaware. How does the private sector deal with incompetence? "You're fired." How does the public sector deal with incompetence? hire more people to do the incompetents' work while they sit on their asses awaiting their jackpot pension. Finally (promise this time), for the most part, government employment has become discriminatory welfare for women and minorities, with the emphasis on "discriminatory." Disgusting.

Walk in the DMV, most any courthouse, any govt bureaucratic office watch how much time is obviously wasted because the employees have decided they only need to handle 1 taxpayer every 15 minutes regardless of it taking only 1 minute to do what they need. It's a total illicit honeypot that is draining this country dry and abolishing their unions is a great first step.

 

They need to just file bankruptcy and let the jerks who bilked the city for outrageous pensions and Cadillac benefits go suck eggs. Yep, their Union got 'em a good deal.....at the time. But, that was then and this is now.

 

Here is the problem, if a Union is the official bargaining agent for a class of employee (ie teachers, firemen, etc) then that contract applies to all members of that class, by law. That means they get the same negotiated salary or wage, they get the same contract provisions on things like grievance procedures, working conditions, hours, and the Union is required to assist all members of that class if they provide legal assistance in the case of and employee filing a grievance, at the unions expense. This creates a free rider problem (or better a free loader problem). I would be fine with eliminating agency fees for non members if the law were changed so that only union members were covered by the negotiated contract and did not have to provide other services to the free loaders. Why should union members be required to provide any services for non members?

 

Unions becoming Democratic organizations has been a disaster for union members and working people. Most notable is unions shifting from a pro-union stance of opposing mass immigration of low and semi-skilled labor to the Democratic position of promoting mass numbers of immigrates that take American jobs because they and their prodigy will ultimately vote Democratic - and the unemployed American workers as a result will vote Democrat because now are dependent upon food stamps, unemployment payments and welfare to survive.

 

Why should non members be required to pay for services they don't want or need?

 

I agree with that. No one should have to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of employment, particularly since unions are political organizations using those dues for political agendas and to support specific candidates the person may oppose. However, if not paying union dues they are not entitled to union benefits.

 

You HOPE it will, but there are no guarantees.

This is like the movie "A Few Good Men," where there is reality, and then there is the idealist/dreamer.

Can there be a worldwide movement to form a union organized around the globe to defend workers? Sure, Marx thought so.

The problem is that $5 an hour is a decent wage in China, but in the US it is poverty-level wages. As long as you have such massive differences in earning power/cost of living between nations, companies will simply move to a lower cost place. Solve that problem while retaining democratic and legal means, and you might be on to something.

 

Why is that?

NONE of the 18 million federal workers bargain collectively for wages, yet enjoy very high salaries in many cases.

Ever been to DMV? How about the local courthouse, or many other government offices?

They can be paid well without having to incur six-figure salaries, and six-figure pensions. There are cops in NYC making over $250K per year, what is enough?

As I stated multiple times in this thread, if I and my colleagues were to try to form a union, the company would simply move to another state or country. You cannot move the local police force, subway or EMT service to Brazil, so they have a built-in job security you refuse to acknowledge.

Private and public sector unions are not on the same planet, in any way, shape or form.

I am 632 years old. Can we now move the topic/focus back to the inevitable termination of public employee unions?

 

Sure:

http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/nyc-coming-pension-crisis-article-1.1552188

"Right now, our country appears to be in the early stages of a growing fiscal crisis that, if nothing is done, will extract a terrible toll on the next generation. Here in New York City, over the past 12 years our pension costs have gone from $1.5 billion to $8.2 billion. That’s almost a 500 percent increase — when inflation totaled only 35 percent."

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/04/n...system-is-strained-by-costs-and-politics.html

In 2001, pension costs were $1 BB of the NYC budget, ten years later it was $8 BB, and the city is now paying more in salaries and benefits for retirees than current employees. With people living well into the 80s and 90s, do you actually think after having worked 25 years, then collecting 35-40 years of pensions/health benefits is even remotely sustainable?

Not for wages or health benefits. Get YOUR facts straight next time.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Labor_Relations_Act

"federal employees can collectively bargain with respect to personnel practices only. Thus, federal employees may not negotiate the following working conditions through their exclusive bargaining representative: Wages, Hours, Employee benefits,and Classifications of Jobs.

The government is NOT a job bank, I do not know how many times this needs to be repeated; teachers are there to teach the children, road workers to fix the roads and bridges, etc. These people exist to serve a function that the government has promised to provide its citizens. You can try to glamorize these jobs any which way you want and you are entitled to do so, but the reality is far, far different.

The taxpayer is paying for a service/function, he is not a charitable source for which civil servants are to obtain cushy, secure jobs with fat salaries, pensions and benefits with early retirements.

Your appalling understanding of economics is pathetic, the middle class private sector workers in this country DO NOT HAVE THE LEVERAGE in 2016 to form a union; most companies will simply move to another state or country if they are threatened with unionization. Your refusal to accept this fact is turning this conversation into didactic, boring nonsense.

Sounds to me like you need an economics course at your local college.

At this point, I hope you have savings in your retirement other than that pension, because that is unlikely to be sustained for much longer.

 

Tough question? Anyone else?

 

http://www.economist.com/news/unite...kle-its-public-pension-crisis-americas-greece

http://www.pensiontsunami.com