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On March 09 2011 05:43 DoubleReed wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, the Wisconsin issue is about public office unions. Firefighters, teachers, police officers, etc. etc. All this talk about better economics and private businesses doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in this context. Unions aren't that common in private enterprise, and where they are, they are often challenged (look at Directors Guild of America for instance).
This is about public unions specifically.
The Unions actually involved have said they will take massive pay cuts instead of giving up their union rights. This Republican Senators and Governor seem to be the only ones around who seems to think this is a good idea.
The Wisconsin Teachers Union (The union actually involved in the situation you're referencing) did "concede" and say they would pay a relatively small portion of their benefits. Right now, they don't pay any towards their benefits/pension which is absolutely ludicrous. The WI Governor is proposing that they ONLY be able to collectively bargain for their salary, and only up to the cost of living index. This has turned into an all-out flame war/pissing contest from both sides. And make no mistake, NEITHER side is willing to budge.
What you are dealing with in the Wisconsin teacher's union situation is a complete and utter spectacle drummed up by Democrats and the WI teacher's union. It's specifically designed to drum up this stupid argument about labor and corporate rights. That helps you to fit into one "side" so that you may in turn denounce the other "side".
It's all about WI teachers getting as much as they possibly can on the public dime. Teacher's unions are absolutely bad for the taxpayers that fund their salaries and for the students that get drug into these arguments and indoctrinated by their teachers. The Teacher's union protects good and bad teachers alike, and makes firing a teacher pretty damn hard. They're also in bed with the Democrat political organization, which capitulates to the union's wants because of the associated campaign donations.
The Democrats (or Liberals, choose your flavor) would love to have you believe that this is a Republican assault on unions (and by extension, the common man), and then they'll turn around and donate huge money to the next Democrat governor (and legislators). Next, those elected officials take part in the renegotiation of the union contracts and somehow "find it in the budget" to sweeten their deal a little bit. It's been going on in Wisconsin for YEARS... and the previous outgoing WI Governor Doyle actually rushed through passing SIX (6) separate public union contracts in December of 2010 before the current Gov. Walker could take office, despite requests from Gov. Walker to wait for him (this is why he's pissed and won't budge, right or wrong).
http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/11/22/state_democrats_rush.php
An applicable approach to the subject of Wisconsin teachers being "underpaid", a common misconception brandied by the Unions:
http://www.wpri.org/WIInterest/Vol11No3/Niederjohn11.3.pdf
It seems like we want to somehow link what we pay teachers, or what we spend on education, directly to how much achievement we get from students, while there are just too many other factors in play. Take a look at the census data from 2008 on how much we spend per pupil by state. ( http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/08f33pub.pdf ) [page 14] I can assure you that while, DC tends to spend an enormous amount on their public education systems, it's continually labeled as one of the worst school systems in the country.
Don't even get me started about the bullshit legislators that ran from the state to prevent the due course of lawmaking, how is that for some childish shit. In fact, they ALL deserve a giant FUCK YOU AND GROW UP from every last one of us.
Politics, you gotta laugh at it because it keeps you from crying.
By the way, I only think unions are appropriate for low-wage, low-skilled jobs. But there they serve a definite and beneficial purpose that is not fundamentally slanted against the public interest.
Sorry for the lengthy post, but all the uneducated crap I read today made me want to lay it all down on the table.
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also that asshole said NO to government money to build a monorail train connecting wisconsin, saying taxes would be too high to maintain it. guess he figured he didnt want MORE people in madison protesting. also he's not taking away bargaining rights to firefighters, local police, or state police because they backed him in his campaign, but now the firefighters are protesting because the writing is on the wall, he's going to get rid of everything.
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On March 09 2011 07:16 Danjoh wrote:+ Show Spoiler [LICD Comics] +As I said in my earlier reply... Unions over in america seem to be behaving alot worse than the unions in europe. And this seems to be a debate majorly dominated by Americans and Canadians, who I get the feeling sees the whole debate iether as black or white. Did something happen recently in the US to spark the debate?
It's probably because there are generally more labor laws in Europe. Negotiation between employer and employee isn't as relevant. I've heard it's exceedingly difficult to fire someone in France.
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On March 09 2011 07:08 Yergidy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 01:47 goiflin wrote:
Yes, they are necessary, I think. While I won't disagree that unions are abusing their power, if unions didn't exist, it probably wouldn't be long until employers got to "have their way" with their employees again, regardless of legislation. Governments make rules in favour of big companies all the time, I don't see why this would be any different.
If anything, I think unions shouldn't be allowed to abuse their powers in the ways that they do, rather than banning them outright or whatever. If employers would "have their way" with their employees then how come unions are paid more than their non-union counterparts? .
That's exactly his point. Without unions, workers would be paid even less.
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On March 09 2011 07:31 Antoine wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 07:08 Yergidy wrote:On March 09 2011 01:47 goiflin wrote:
Yes, they are necessary, I think. While I won't disagree that unions are abusing their power, if unions didn't exist, it probably wouldn't be long until employers got to "have their way" with their employees again, regardless of legislation. Governments make rules in favour of big companies all the time, I don't see why this would be any different.
If anything, I think unions shouldn't be allowed to abuse their powers in the ways that they do, rather than banning them outright or whatever. If employers would "have their way" with their employees then how come unions are paid more than their non-union counterparts? Union workers are paid way too much for their services imo and it is just driving costs up which we can't deal with in this economy. Public sector unions should not have the right to wage bargain because they are paid by the american people through taxes and the taxpayer does not get a say in the bargaining process. The person who is representing the government can easily agree on a wage higher than what they would have done if it was a legitimate company that has to make a profit to survive because they can just raise taxes or add to the debt. Anytime people complain they will get a wage increase. And the Wisconsin teachers are just so selfish. Complaining for more when the people who are paying for their already overpriced jobs are struggling economically and losing their jobs... PLEASE get your facts right. the Wisconsin teachers are NOT NOT NOT complaining for more. They have accepted cuts. They are protesting because the governor wants to take away all power the union has to collectively bargain.
Please get your facts right, the Wisconsin teachers ARE ARE ARE complaining for more. They have "accepted cuts" that are still more beneficial than most private companies offer. They just got done last December rushing through a renegotiation of their contract with the previous (already beaten) Governor Doyle after being specifically asked by the incoming Governor Walker to wait for the renegotiation.
Check these out if you don't believe me:
http://www.wpri.org/WIInterest/Vol11No3/Niederjohn11.3.pdf
http://badgerherald.com/news/2010/11/22/state_democrats_rush.php
To say they have accepted cuts is misleading, their renegotiated contracts that just passed when the outgoing Democrat Governor called a special session in December definitely were not cuts.
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Yes. Obviously 100% union-centralized power yields bad resulted but so does pure unmitigated capitalism. The motivations of capitalist entities doesn't shift simply because the centuries do. The point of economic regulation is to keep at bay the bubbles we've seen and hold off another Depression at all costs. If individual and more replaceable laborers have no negotiating power then the system is effectively treating them as valueless cogs.
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On March 09 2011 03:43 Tien wrote:
You guys don't get it.
The more you unionize, the less competitive your economy becomes, and the more corporations will outsource.
And you don't get it.
The reason those companies outsource in the first place is to get cheaper labor by abusing the naivete of the working class in third world countries. Unlike in most developed western countries, the working class in most asian countries work like dogs 7 days a week with very minimal pay. Why? Most of them don't have unions. In fact, most of them have this mentality that they should be thankful of their employers just for giving them a job and accept their suck ass low paying long hour jobs with gratitude and no complaints.
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On March 09 2011 07:58 staxringold wrote:
Yes. Obviously 100% union-centralized power yields bad resulted but so does pure unmitigated capitalism. The motivations of capitalist entities doesn't shift simply because the centuries do. The point of economic regulation is to keep at bay the bubbles we've seen and hold off another Depression at all costs. If individual and more replaceable laborers have no negotiating power then the system is effectively treating them as valueless cogs.
I would see the right to unionize as a part of pure unmitigated capitalism.
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The Wisconsin Teachers Union (The union actually involved in the situation you're referencing) did "concede" and say they would pay a relatively small portion of their benefits. Right now, they don't pay any towards their benefits/pension which is absolutely ludicrous. The WI Governor is proposing that they ONLY be able to collectively bargain for their salary, and only up to the cost of living index. This has turned into an all-out flame war/pissing contest from both sides. And make no mistake, NEITHER side is willing to budge.
Every single article on this has said that the Governor will budge on everything except collective bargaining rights. That's everything. He wants to make massive cuts that he can't make if he negotiates with unions. There is no way to compromise with that, because collective bargaining is essentially the power of the union. So saying "neither side is willing to budge" is a little silly, considering the republicans are holding the collective bargaining rights... which is the rights to compromise.
Your post had a lot misdirection in it, so it's a little difficult to argue with you. I don't care if "teachers are underpaid" or whatever. That doesn't have to do with this.
It seems like we want to somehow link what we pay teachers, or what we spend on education, directly to how much achievement we get from students, while there are just too many other factors in play. Take a look at the census data from 2008 on how much we spend per pupil by state. ( http://www2.census.gov/govs/school/08f33pub.pdf ) [page 14] I can assure you that while, DC tends to spend an enormous amount on their public education systems, it's continually labeled as one of the worst school systems in the country.
Okay... this is done with capita per student, so being as DC is way smaller than everything else by far, this is not a fair comparison by any means.
Don't even get me started about the bullshit legislators that ran from the state to prevent the due course of lawmaking, how is that for some childish shit. In fact, they ALL deserve a giant FUCK YOU AND GROW UP from every last one of us.
Politics, you gotta laugh at it because it keeps you from crying.
"Fuck you and grow up"? This is about people's livelihood, wages, and jobs. Leaving the state to prevent obliteration of unions is not really childish. It's just extreme. Saying "Fuck you and grow up" is childish.
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unions are a result of lack of competition.
unions arise because they need more power and leverage against the companies. But why did the companies get to hold all the cards to begin with?
lack of competition. companies lobby in government, to set up restrctive rules in order to errect barriers to entry. this results in a reduced number of competition for companies, and they get to boss around the workers more than they should.
if government was small and was precluded from meddling in business in such fashions, you'd have more competition, and as a result, more quality products, cheaper prices, and less worker "abuse".
Conversely, workers wouldn't get to be overbearing on companies either because there would be unhindered entry (and thus competition) into the labor force as well. supply and demand is a stabilizing force, if you don't go about creating huge waves, which have invariably always been the result of command economies going against natural market processes and price signals and curtailing voluntary transactions.
Hindrance to the natural market processes result in decreased productivity, decreased decreased wealth from what could potentially be.
Government's role is to protect and lay the foundation for the market process. Letting the market process work results in prosperity and deserved equality, whereas command economies, socialism, result in incomparably more stagnated economies, special rights and access and privileges for the few, based on connections and systematic large disparity in wealth. not only a large disparity in wealth, but poverty for the lowest level, whereas markets too result in disparity, but everyone is so much more well off and even the poorest are well off from an absolute scale.
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On March 09 2011 07:42 1Eris1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 07:21 Sephimos wrote:
The big issue in Wisconsin and elsewhere is Public unions. Public unions have only existed since 1960 or so, and were only created as a political ploy by Democrats. It has been incredibly successful. AFSCME, the biggest public union, spends tens of million of dollars in every election, and about 95% (seriously) of it goes to Democrats.
Walker and other Republican governors are not only morally right to go after Unions and their abuses in order to balance state budgets, but politically savvy, as elimination of public unions would be a major body blow to Democratic campaigns. Im sorry, do you have links to support this or are you just making up stuff? As someone who lives in Madison, this sounds like a ton of bullshit.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575566481761790288.html?mod=rss_Politics_And_Policy
It's pretty well known that public labor unions support Democratic politicians.
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On March 09 2011 07:59 Rashid wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 03:43 Tien wrote:
You guys don't get it.
The more you unionize, the less competitive your economy becomes, and the more corporations will outsource. And you don't get it. The reason those companies outsource in the first place is to get cheaper labor by abusing the naivete of the working class in third world countries. Unlike in most developed western countries, the working class in most asian countries work like dogs 7 days a week with very minimal pay. Why? Most of them don't have unions. In fact, most of them have this mentality that they should be thankful of their employers just for giving them a job and accept their suck ass low paying long hour jobs with gratitude and no complaints.
Yea, it's better than subsistence agriculture. The fact that they wan't the job means its better than the alternative. But really, a mutually agreed upon deal between free individuals is quite frankly none of your damn business. It's when people like you, saying they know whats best for the naive people, that tyrannies arise. If you impose a global minimum wage or something of this sort, then those people simply won't get the jobs, and they will not be grateful of your well intentions. They'll hate you for it.
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On March 09 2011 07:38 Glam wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 07:31 Antoine wrote:+ Show Spoiler +On March 09 2011 07:08 Yergidy wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 01:47 goiflin wrote:
Yes, they are necessary, I think. While I won't disagree that unions are abusing their power, if unions didn't exist, it probably wouldn't be long until employers got to "have their way" with their employees again, regardless of legislation. Governments make rules in favour of big companies all the time, I don't see why this would be any different.
If anything, I think unions shouldn't be allowed to abuse their powers in the ways that they do, rather than banning them outright or whatever. If employers would "have their way" with their employees then how come unions are paid more than their non-union counterparts? Union workers are paid way too much for their services imo and it is just driving costs up which we can't deal with in this economy. Public sector unions should not have the right to wage bargain because they are paid by the american people through taxes and the taxpayer does not get a say in the bargaining process. The person who is representing the government can easily agree on a wage higher than what they would have done if it was a legitimate company that has to make a profit to survive because they can just raise taxes or add to the debt. Anytime people complain they will get a wage increase. And the Wisconsin teachers are just so selfish. Complaining for more when the people who are paying for their already overpriced jobs are struggling economically and losing their jobs... PLEASE get your facts right. the Wisconsin teachers are NOT NOT NOT complaining for more. They have accepted cuts. They are protesting because the governor wants to take away all power the union has to collectively bargain. Really wanted to emphasize this point by Antoine. I've seen a few posts in the last couple of pages repeating the strawman that the teachers are demanding a pay raise.
I know they aren't demanding a pay raise they are crying over paying for part of some benefits which is a type of pay cut. They should be happy with keeping their jobs. Private sector workers are being laid off in times like this and their complaining about them PAYING part of some benefits that private sector jobs do already? Come on...
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Accountability is needed, therefore unions are needed.
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On March 09 2011 07:42 1Eris1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 07:21 Sephimos wrote:
The big issue in Wisconsin and elsewhere is Public unions. Public unions have only existed since 1960 or so, and were only created as a political ploy by Democrats. It has been incredibly successful. AFSCME, the biggest public union, spends tens of million of dollars in every election, and about 95% (seriously) of it goes to Democrats.
Walker and other Republican governors are not only morally right to go after Unions and their abuses in order to balance state budgets, but politically savvy, as elimination of public unions would be a major body blow to Democratic campaigns. Im sorry, do you have links to support this or are you just making up stuff? As someone who lives in Madison, this sounds like a ton of bullshit.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303339504575566481761790288.html
At least do a casual google search before you call someone else's claims bullshit.
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On March 09 2011 07:48 etherwar wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 05:43 DoubleReed wrote:
If I'm not mistaken, the Wisconsin issue is about public office unions. Firefighters, teachers, police officers, etc. etc. All this talk about better economics and private businesses doesn't seem to make a lot of sense in this context. Unions aren't that common in private enterprise, and where they are, they are often challenged (look at Directors Guild of America for instance).
This is about public unions specifically.
The Unions actually involved have said they will take massive pay cuts instead of giving up their union rights. This Republican Senators and Governor seem to be the only ones around who seems to think this is a good idea. The Wisconsin Teachers Union (The union actually involved in the situation you're referencing) did "concede" and say they would pay a relatively small portion of their benefits. Right now, they don't pay any towards their benefits/pension which is absolutely ludicrous.
Ugh. Did you think about this for a minute? 30 seconds?
They pay for it by going to work everyday. It is part of their compensation. You do not, "pay towards your compensation" that is ridiculous. That is like giving your employer money on top of working.
And their salaries ARE REGULATED by the QEO law.
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It's probably because there are generally more labor laws in Europe. Negotiation between employer and employee isn't as relevant. I've heard it's exceedingly difficult to fire someone in France.
It's much harder to fire someone anywhere in Europe compared to USA, but I have to say that also here public workers tend to have a better protection compared to the private ones, mainy cause they are a lot of votes in election time.
Anyway, you can't really compare EU and US, like I noticed in other political topics, in Europe we tend much more to socialism than US. We have totally different views, even the way of calculating the poverty line is very different between EU and US.
I don't think an European will ever start a discussion about closing the unions. (And I say this coming from probably the worse country in Europe from a social point of view).
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On March 09 2011 07:42 1Eris1 wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 07:21 Sephimos wrote:
The big issue in Wisconsin and elsewhere is Public unions. Public unions have only existed since 1960 or so, and were only created as a political ploy by Democrats. It has been incredibly successful. AFSCME, the biggest public union, spends tens of million of dollars in every election, and about 95% (seriously) of it goes to Democrats.
Walker and other Republican governors are not only morally right to go after Unions and their abuses in order to balance state budgets, but politically savvy, as elimination of public unions would be a major body blow to Democratic campaigns. Im sorry, do you have links to support this or are you just making up stuff? As someone who lives in Madison, this sounds like a ton of bullshit.
Most unions traditionally support democrat candidates. The WI teacher's union getting brought down would be a giant boon for the Koch backed governor. The teachers protests can be framed as a Dem vs Rep debate because it's literally an attack on democrat financiers.
It's like we don't even pretend politicians aren't bribed to carry out special interest's will via the government anymore.
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On March 09 2011 04:08 Milkis wrote:Show nested quote +On March 09 2011 04:02 Hawk wrote:On March 09 2011 03:31 xjoehammerx wrote:
Do you think that large businesses care about their employees enough so that unions aren't necessary? Do you really think that without unions typical human greed won't take over and lead to the freezing of worker wages despite increase in company profits (to an even greater extent than is happening already)? Exactly. It's like a necessary evil. They contribute very much to the problem, but flat outlawing unions would just lead to corporations fleecing workers left and right. You can't simply create legislatures to replace the positive things that unions do
If someone else is willing to do your job for cheaper and better, why shouldn't the firm hire that guy instead of keeping around someone who has proven to be ineffective?Unions give bargaining power to these replaceable people. Why should large businesses care about you if you are so easily replaceable? IMO, the only bargaining power you should have is from your own merits, not by this artificial union that effectively operates like a mob.
Let me rephrase this paragraph for you:
If a 13 year old girl in a remote Chinese province is willing to drop school and toil away for +60 hours a week in a factory for less than $1/hour with absolutely no benefits, no pension, no insurance, no nothing, then why shouldn't morally bankrupt firms hire her instead of keeping around an honest working man?
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Well Ive seen plenty of people treat each other badly without money being involved. People WILL get treated badly by people in a higher position. Especially if there is money on the line. Unions are a great channel for these people to get their voice heard.
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