I am a union man, born and bred and I'll die a union man.
 

Funny I should say that, at first blush, as I am a self employed sole proprietor with 0 employees.
We've been discussing unions pros & cons and I wanted to narrow the focus a little so I felt that a thread devoted to that subject might be something worthwhile.
So, my question for y'all is why do some think public sector unions are a bad thing? I'm curious as all get out about this subject because to this nail pounding construction puke everyone should have the right to organize and dicker with their employer whether it's private or public sector. That's from the city, state or federal level standpoint IMO. So coming from the less than sharpest tool in the shed, why are public sector employees any different from UAW, Teamsters etc employees? What underpins the philosophy that there is a difference? Edumacate me and let's try to save the brickbats for other threads.

To edit my earlier post to one sentence...jealously of private employees because of the decline of wages and pensions they no longer see and are upset that their tax dollars pay for government employees who have unions along with pension benefits. A decline in the economy of the United States in the private sector.

So instead of thinking or saying "Why is it my employer will not give me those benefits?" They say, "If I can't have them then they shouldn't either!"


Kinda selfish........

I for one know that you can not trust the company to do the right thing unless there are consequences.



Barney

1. Unions exist to give labor the bargaining power to keep from being screwed.
2. They do NOT exist to give labor the bargaining power to control industry.

I don't know how you balance the two.

Not selfish. Hopeless. Jealous. Resentful. They don't believe they'll ever be in the same position and feel the only way they can ever be on an equal basis with union workers is to bring them down to their level. Very sad.

John

Your right selfish was the wrong word to use in that situation. Envious would of been a better choice along with jealous and the others you stated.



Barney

1. Agreed
2. I don't see how unions really control the industry, the board of directors and their counterparts in the public sector are at the helm. That said, management and labor are parts of a whole with differing responsibillities and expertise brought to bear on the successful (hopefully) endeavors of the organization.

Being simplistic myself, I see it like a beehive. You have queens, princesses (when needed), worker bees, guards at the doors and nursery workers all working toward a common goal of survival. Survival entails every member being well fed and housed, everything else is opinions/bickering and jockeying for the best job that they're capable of. Which I think is a positive force. If you work harder or better then there should be rewards associated with the extra effort.
It sucks being a drone, tho.

You guys have pretty much said it all. I could add a few things. But naw, Maybe later.

Someone will be around soon to explain that public sector unions only exist to serve a political purpose. That the public employee basically works for the politician, who, in turn allows them to have a union and gives them whatever they want in exchange for their votes and political support. You don't have that in the private sector.

I understand what this means, but still don't care. The aggregate effect is that everyone who works for someone else is dragged down. And that, to my mind is the underlying purpose of the whole stinking movement----to keep people turned against each other, accellerating the race to the bottom, while those at the top rake in all of the cash.

Sooner or later, the whole process of fighting to regain a financially and politically empowered working class will have to start anew. In the meanwhile, the short-sighted imbeciles among us continue to march dutifully into peasanthood.

Dave

Excellent post Dave! Your last line is how I'm seeing it going these days. Well put!

Private sector unions have to bargain with employers with the knowledge that they cannot make demands that will render the employer unprofitable. The employers obviously have to consider this as well. There is a natural (and desirable) tension between company profitability and employee pay/benefits.

With public sector unions, they're negotiating without this tension to balance profitability with employee compensation. Sitting on the other side of the table are politicians (and their surrogates) who are more than willing to buy votes. In many cases, they buy these votes with generous future benefits that are not paid out on their watch. They balance their budgets (and brag about it) while passing the costs for these concessions to future administrations.

Here's a good article on the subject from Fareed Zakaria, a very intelligent guy and hardly a conservative.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...117244,00.html