Why the anti-union animosity?

@slkshock7,

slkshock7 wrote:

Cyclo...perhaps you are talking about state and local governments

Considering that ALL of the anti-union action these days is at the State level, that's probably a safe assumption for you to make.

Quote:

which I know little about, but you certainly don't understand the Fed Government pay process. Don't you remember the recent stink when Obama froze Government employee wages and the even more recent bugaboo about closing down the Govt this Friday? The President and Congress control how much and or even if Fed Government employees get paid, not so much their manager.

My wife works for the Federal Government. Her salary is defined by a rate table maintained by the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) and approved by Congress or the President. Why do you think the public unions are so intent on giving millions of dollars to the campaign coffers of Congressmen? Because they know that having members of Congress beholden to them is good leverage when that pay scale is going thru it's annual review. The only power my wife's manager has is to offer her a step increase (which incidentally is also controlled by the President and hence currently frozen) or promotion. And promotions, for your information, are always a competitive process, with requisite job advertisement for several days, she must apply, several boards must convene to select the top and eventually best candidate, with documented justification in each step on the process. The process is actually very much like hiring someone off the streets in private industry and never the unilateral decision of her boss.

I don't disagree with any of this. 'Management' in the case of public unions extends all the way up the ladder to the elected officials at the top....

Quote:

No...the power (and potential for exploitation) of the government manager over government employees is nothing like the power of a private manager over his employees.

Cyclo wrote:
I think everyone should be; that would be actual 'shared sacrifice.
I agree with you wholeheartedly here. That's where your progressive tax has gone awry. It's no longer progressive for everyone's income but rather only for the middle and upper class.

[/quote]

I have continually and for years advocating raising taxes on every single American in order to put our books in order, while modestly cutting spending. Though I will say that it's hard to attack the idea that Progressive taxation doesn't work, simply because we've reduced around 45% of our society to a level of poverty where they make practically nothing, own nothing, and even if they paid similar tax rates to what you did, would produce almost no revenue in taxes.

What you are describing is a result of economic policies which funnel ever-increasing amounts of money to the upper classes. It's a feature of your preferred economics. Not a bug.

Cycloptichorn

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

I've never (and never will be) in support of hiring someone to fight one's battles.

From a purely professional perspective, I hope yours is the minority position.

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@Cycloptichorn,

My pejorative view of unions reflects MY personal experience with them, as I detailed earlier in this thread.

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

Double bullshit. You don't know what "my" side of the fence is.

JPB, I've never once seen you write a post in favor of any truly left-wing position. But you write in favor of right-wing positions, or arguing from a position that accepts right-wing memes as fact, all the time.

I call 'em like I see 'em. If you want to claim that I'm wrong, fine; maybe you should examine the sorts of things you post here, if people are getting such a wrong opinion of you.

Quote:

I'm not against collective bargaining. I'm against professional middlemen who masquerade as caring father-figures to the masses. Let the teachers form collective bargaining groups all they want. I'm all for it. I've never (and never will be) in support of hiring someone to fight one's battles.

Is this serious? Bargaining with the State on the behalf of thousands of employees and their various issues is a full-time job. Do you expect teachers to work all damn day and then come home and work all night, for no pay?

Any group they create will have to have professionals working for them and they will have to be paid. Presto, you have a union just like we have right now!

You have internalized the right-wing bullshit line that Unions are somehow chock-full of thieves and thugs and don't represent their members. And then you turn around and say that 'I don't know what your side is.' Ridiculous. You are anti-union and anti-worker. You just want to have your cake and eat it too.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

That's what I said; "20/20 hindsight."

Quote:

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See full article from DailyFinance: http://srph.it/bsLG2n

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@JPB,

That's rather naïve. Our AFSCME local was effective because we retained attorneys and because some union employees, selected by union-wide ballot, were trained and put on salary to negotiate for us. I think you attitude suffers from a Hoffa/Teamsters view of what union leadership do, and where they come from. In the case of AFSCME, at least, the leadership were all former employees chosen by the membership on open ballots, and educated at union expense in labor law and negotiation, greivance and disciplinary procedures. Iwas trained in greivance and disciplinary procedure, while retaining my employment. I was trained in my own time. As a union steward, i was then available to accompany any other union member to a disciplinary or greivance hearing, and was empowered to stop the meeting and call in the unions full-time D & G specialist if i felt the situation warranted that. That never happened to me, because management knew they couldn't play the games they normally ran on unrepresented employees, and because they knew the local retained an attorney specializing in labor law and familiar with the local Federal court. Management only plays hardball when they think they're dealing with amateurs, not pros.

Making bogeymen of union leadership is little different than making bogeymen of union members, and is as poorly informed.

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@Setanta,

There's lots of data out there that demonstrates that - on average - public employees are better paid and have much better fringe benefits than their private sector counterparts. Certainly they have not yet had to face the job losses and layoffs that have so greviously affected folks in the private sector, though it appears that too is coming.

I'm not trying to lure you into thge acceptance of any premise. I do note that you rather broadly postulated that we are the lowest taxed and most economically served (by government) folks in the modern world - a premise I am not too keen to accept either.

I don't know all the details of the Wisconsin issue, but I do understand that the medical care trust fund in question serves a medical insurance scheme operated by the union itself. Some see this as a conflict of interst on their part. In addition the Governor has claimed that the state can get the same service at lower cost from competitors. That appears to be an element of the "looting" issue to which you referred. I haven't made any judgment on the matter, but am aware there are two sides to that story.

I don't know the details of the $150M "economic stimulus" plan in Wisconsin. However that state and the rest of the Rust belt does indeed face serious issues in reinvigorating a badly decayed manufacturing economy, itself partly destroyed by the previous follies of organized labor and an increasingly competitive world economy. The amount is small - certainly on a per capita basis trivial compared to the largely ineffective Federal stimulus we saw last year. I don't know how wisely or foolishly this one is planned, but believe this is a side issue compared to the central dispute with the public sector unions.

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@Cycloptichorn,

I guess you don't hang around the abortion, gay rights, socially liberal threads then. I've said many times that I'm a social liberal, fiscal conservative centrist. If you and I only interact on the fiscal side then that's the side you're going to see.

I've always figured I'm doing something right if the left thinks I'm a righty and the right thinks I'm a lib. That's exactly where I hope to be. I try to see all sides of an issue (there are usually more than two) before forming my own opinion. I'm a lifelong independent both politically and personally and do my best to stay in the center.

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@Setanta,

Quote:

and is as poorly informed.

Your mistake is assuming that everyone gets the same mileage that you do, that to know the union personally is to love the union. Your arrogance does you in for the thousandth time...

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@slkshock7,

slkshock7 wrote:

Quote:
At the same time, as Cyclo pointed out, he also wants to hand out $150,000,000 in "economic stimulus."

Could either you or Cyclo point me to where Walker proposed this? I did a quick google search but found nothing and find it very hard to believe that a good non-Keynsian like Walker would even come within ten miles of using the term "economic stimulus".

Oh, he didn't CALL it that.

Walker, as soon as he took office, went with $150 million in new spending: $25 million for an economic development fund, $48 million for private health savings accounts, and $67 million for a tax incentive plan that benefits employers.

He ran on cutting taxes for business, so it's not inconsistent with his personal ethos; but it is inconsistent with claiming that the state is in a 'fiscal crisis' and that the unions should take huge cuts. If they can't afford to pay employees what they've agreed to, how can they afford to create huge slush funds that Walker can use to bribe businesses?

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Setanta,

Again, I posted my experiences with unions earlier in the thread.

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@Cycloptichorn,

Quote:

to create huge slush funds that Walker can use to bribe businesses?

States have been doing that for decades, because they think that they have to. The states compete with each other to get business and in the process bargain down the value of those business to the citizens. Some of us were talking 20 years ago about how this is bad for America, it still is, but dont try to say that Walker is doing anything that the other Govs are not doing, he is simply trying to do what it is understood his job is.

1 Reply

@JPB,

JPB wrote:

I guess you don't hang around the abortion, gay rights, socially liberal threads then. I've said many times that I'm a social liberal, fiscal conservative centrist. If you and I only interact on the fiscal side then that's the side you're going to see.

I've always figured I'm doing something right if the left thinks I'm a righty and the right thinks I'm a lib. That's exactly where I hope to be. I try to see all sides of an issue (there are usually more than two) before forming my own opinion. I'm a lifelong independent both politically and personally and do my best to stay in the center.

Okay, so it turns out that you are EXACTLY on the side I originally accused you of being on. Why did you get pissy when I described your position accurately?

I don't agree with the use of the term 'fiscal conservative' to describe today's bunch, at all. The focus of the modern conservative movement, in fiscal terms, is to get taxes as low as possible and keep them there, cutting any social service necessary to do so. It's also to spend profligately when they are in office, to enrich their political and corporate allies. It has little to do with actually caring about a balanced budget or a healthy economy and a lot to do with greed and classism.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Because you don't get it. You see everyone in buckets of with you or against you. I'm a fiscal conservative but I don't (and wouldn't if I was in WI) support Walker's position. There's a middle way that he's refusing to accept - but that's the other thread. This one is about anti-union animosity. And, yes, from my personal experience in life I have an anti-union animosity.

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For those who are disputing Walker's version of economic stimulus (which, as Cyclo points out, he simply doesn't call economic stimulus), please note that i originally referred to Cyclo as the source, and, in this recent post, he provides details. I suspect that if you ask him for his sources, he'll be willing to provide them. I have already linked a Milwaukee radio source for Walker's plan to seize $28,000,000 from the medical plan trust fund.

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@JPB,

JPB wrote:

Because you don't get it. You see everyone in buckets of with you or against you.

Well, on this issue, I'm certainly against your position.

I read your earlier experience with unions but can't quite tell where your animosity comes from. I think you should have listened more to your pop. You're right that nobody gets pensions anymore - but that's a terrible thing, and a problem, not a 'fact of life.' It wasn't inevitable. This state came about because, with less and less unionization, the workers of America had no way to fight for them. You don't seem to have made the link between lower rates of unionization and higher rates of workers getting a worse and worse deal, all while profits for businesses continue to rise - to their highest rates ever, in fact. But the connection is clear.

Regarding the union you were in - did you go on strike? Did you have reductions in pay or hours, or fights with management, due to what the negotiators did? This is a really important question. You seem mostly pissed b/c they didn't keep you in the loop, or b/c you felt they were arguing in bad faith. But did it actually lead to bad things for you?

Quote:

I'm a fiscal conservative but I don't (and wouldn't if I was in WI) support Walker's position. There's a middle way that he's refusing to accept - but that's the other thread. This one is about anti-union animosity. And, yes, from my personal experience in life I have an anti-union animosity.

Well, that's because his position has everything to do with satisfying right-wing teabaggers and nothing to do with the actual financial situation.

Cycloptichorn

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@hawkeye10,

You can kiss my ass with that arrogance bullshit of yours. What i described is the classic route to union leadership in American labor unions. The leadership comes from the membership, is chosen by the membership, who signify their willingness to give these fellow employees the authority and the salary by voting for them. JPB is wrong to suggest that union leadership are venal, cynical hirelings. People like Jimmy Hoffa are the exceptions, not the rule.

It doesn't surprise me for a moment that you don't know any more than that about how unions are organized and managed. Yes, unions employ accountants and lawyers--that's because unions generally aren't made up of people who already have accounting or law degrees. For the rest of it, the stewards and the leadership are chosen from among the union ranks. I was a steward, and as is almost always the case, i volunteered my services, was educated in my own time, and the only "benefit" to being a steward was that my employer was obliged to provide me paid time to attend D & G meetings. That was something else which tended to make management get down to business.

These are matters of simply personal experience, it's how the unions work. If there are "fat cat" middlemen exploiting any union, it's the fault of the union members themselves, and i frankly don't consider that to be anything but conservative propaganda in 99 out of 100 cases.

Tell us again that you're a liberal, Bubba.

EDIT: By the way, i didn't "love" the union, i just understood which side my bread was buttered on . . .

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@hawkeye10,

hawkeye10 wrote:

Quote:
to create huge slush funds that Walker can use to bribe businesses?

States have been doing that for decades, because they think that they have to. The states compete with each other to get business and in the process bargain down the value of those business to the citizens. Some of us were talking 20 years ago about how this is bad for America, it still is, but dont try to say that Walker is doing anything that the other Govs are not doing, he is simply trying to do what it is understood his job is.

I agree that other gov's do it all the time, especially right-wing governors. But it's a major problem and, as you said, it is terrible for business in America. I don't fault Walker for doing it - he RAN on doing it! - even though I know it's a problem. I fault him for spending like a drunken sailor while inventing a crisis and trying to axe the unions based on it.

Cycloptichorn

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@Cycloptichorn,

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Regarding the union you were in - did you go on strike? Did you have reductions in pay or hours, or fights with management, due to what the negotiators did? This is a really important question. You seem mostly pissed b/c they didn't keep you in the loop, or b/c you felt they were arguing in bad faith. But did it actually lead to bad things for you?

Yes, there were strikes, although not while the earlier Mr B was in the union. He was in a salaried position by then - a first line supervisor where he got to deal with the bs from the union and management. It was a closed shop - there's no way in hell I would have worked there.

Does anyone know what the average union dues are for a public employee?

1 Reply

@JPB,

Do you disagree with the proposition that the lack of existence of Pensions today stems from a lack of representation on the part of the American worker?

Cycloptichorn

0 Replies

Why the anti-union animosity?

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