Union Busting or Sound Financial Management?

[SeattlePioneer]

For forty years or so labor unions have been making monkeys out of the taxpayers by negotiating deals with politicans that created long term unfunded pension liabilities.

 

Now that the chickens are coming home to roost with those liabilities, the unions are piously saying, "Well, you made the promise. Now pay up!"

 

 

But ---- wait a minute. Unions are big advocates of collective bargaining, but now they don't want to bargain about paying those promised benefits? They seem to want to negotiate INCREASES in pensions but say that negotiating CUTS in pensions isn't allowed.

 

How is that fair?

 

Why shouldn't collective bargaining work both ways?

 

Unions have negotiated the promise of those pensions, but they also need to be able to get political support to increase taxes or cut programs to fund those promises.

 

If they aren't doing that, it's the unions that aren't doing collective bargaining.

[Lisabob]

This reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of collective bargaining. In most states where public unions exist, by law, wages, working conditions, etc. are mandatory issues for bargaining. This means that changes cannot simply be imposed without discussion. Of course unions will do what they can to protect their members' interests - that's a major point of having unions - so you can't expect to see unions roll over and say 'take whatever you want from us!'. They are going to bargain the best they can, but bargain, they will. If you don't like the results, at least half of the blame rests with management, not just the unions.

 

Now as to getting wealthy on the backs of taxpayers, HA! I say. Very few union members that I know are looking to buy beachfront property in Miami with their extravagant union paychecks. In fact, in a lot of places and sectors, union members are just barely hanging on to the middle class status that they've fought long and hard to achieve.

 

Here's a good example: article in today's NY Times on public sector jobs in Gallipolis, OH where people are making a princely sum of $9/hour working for the state. If you work at $9/hour in a public sector job and, let's say you work 40/week for 50 weeks/year. That means your gross pay annually is $18,000. These are the people we are going to accuse of getting wealthy on the public dime? Really? Now new laws passed in OH will make these folks pay more for their health insurance and reduce their pay (give backs). Great, ok. I admit, that rubs my sense of fairness pretty raw.

 

 

[packsaddle]

OK, playing the advocate for a mythical being that has dominion of a mythical hot place:

Oh how I long for those halcyon days of the Reagan administration - back when we were privatizing all those government functions. I remember those contractors well. They competed for contracts to perform certain duties. I monitored their work and paid the bills. They replaced competent government employees who took pride in their work and looked at things from a long view. The contractors were there for the money. They got paid more, did the absolute minimum that was required, and didn't give a care for anything about the people they served once the contract was done. I watched as the overall costs for projects increased as more and more of the work went to contractors.

 

Soon some of the government workers 'saw the light' and realized they too could help raid the treasury. So they left service, formed companies with a wife or female co-worker or member of a minority as the titular head (woman-owned, minority-owned) and took over the SAME functions they had done in the past...at much-increased cost to the taxpayer. They made out like...well, you know what.

 

Who could blame them? The assumption was (and IS) that private business is the better way. So private it became. Yes, there were exceptions in which people like me had to be retained in order to keep that 'corporate' knowledge of the field. But I watched as the contractors came and went and the money, lots of it, mostly went...with much less effective work done than before.

In one sense, this was a good thing. Now, more and more, I didn't have to worry about a sense of camaraderie in the lab. I didn't have to worry about bringing in funding because Janice the contractor could just go away at the end of the contract. There was always some other Janice to hire if the funding returned. Afterward, I never had to think about her or her family again. Nice. The ability to view others as just objects or tools is exactly what we need to hold society together, don't you think?

Just advocating for that mythical being....

[jrush]

CP, the answer to your question is: "the market value for a public service is what the public wishes to pay for it through taxation levied upon themselves"

 

So, if the public wishes to pay their city snowplow operators the same thing the 7-11 guy gets paid, that's fair market value. If the public isn't satisfied with the quality of the service, they can raise the pay rate until they are happy. The point is, it should be up to the taxpayer, not the public employee. The problem for the public employee union is why they even need collective bargaining, when they can't prove that paying them more than non-union teachers/cops/etc yields better results. Do these union employees provide lower crime rates, faster fire response time, or better educated students than lower-paid non-union counterparts? If not, why do they "deserve" to collectively bargain for higher wages and benefits?

 

(This message has been edited by jrush)

[jrush]

SA, the coutnerargument regarding what the investment banker gets paid is that his pay rate is determined by the owner(s) of that company...whether an individual, a board, or the stockholders.

 

The problem with the investment bank isn't what he gets paid, it's that we have begun to socialize risk. The bank doesn't have to worry about making bad bets, because they have the perfect hedge...the taxpayer.

 

My problem isn't even with socializing risk with the taxpayer, if the taxpayer is the one authorizing such action via the ballot box. My problem is that we have made the franchise a right, rather than an earned priviledge. Quite frankly, if the only people authorized to vote were those that purchased it through paying federal taxes or earned it through federal service, we'd have quite different results...but that's another discussion.

 

[CalicoPenn]

"But ---- wait a minute. Unions are big advocates of collective bargaining, but now they don't want to bargain about paying those promised benefits? They seem to want to negotiate INCREASES in pensions but say that negotiating CUTS in pensions isn't allowed.

 

How is that fair?

 

Why shouldn't collective bargaining work both ways?

 

Unions have negotiated the promise of those pensions, but they also need to be able to get political support to increase taxes or cut programs to fund those promises.

 

If they aren't doing that, it's the unions that aren't doing collective bargaining."

 

Except that's not what is happening in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana and other states. The government isn't going to the unions and saying we want to open up the bargaining process to negotiate cuts in pensions. The government is simply taking the collective bargaining rights away and saying "we're going to cut your pensions, AND we're going to eliminate your ability to collectively bargain with us in order to get to those pension cuts". It isn't the unions that are not acting in good faith here, it's the government.

 

 

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

Hello Calico,

 

 

Public Employee unions have been used to being winners for forty years and can hardly imagine that they would wind up being losers. Being losers would mean thwey were the victim of something illegitimate.

 

The Wisconsin Republicans have stirred up a hornet's nest, and that may be a political mistake.

 

But that doesn't mean Republicans have been acting in bad faith byrevising certain laws. They are entitled to do that, if they can.

 

Actually, it's rather obnoxious for unions to say "Look, we will be GLAD to cut the pay and benefits of our members, just don't take away our ability to charge them union dues whether they want to pay or not!"

 

Wisconsin government is free to cut unions out of the loop if they can. They would not be acting in bad faith if they did.

 

 

"Bad faith" bargaining is a concept from the National Labor Relations Act which has no application to this kind of discussion.

 

 

 

 

 

[jrush]

CP, the government isn't acting in bad faith; it's simply that the political reality has changed.

 

The government isn't obligated to protect a union's collective bargaining priviledges. Note I said "priviledges". There is no right to collective bargaining in State or Federal Constitution. The government is able to grant that priviledge to public and private unions, if it is the will of the voter. Any priviledge the voter can grant, the voter can take away.

 

Furthermore, far from acting in "bad faith", those governments are fullfilling the wills of the voters who elected them. Nobody should be surprised when GOP legislative and executive bodies strip collective bargaining from public employee unions. Yes, it upset liberals and union members, but they didn't put republicans in the statehouses and governors' offices. Well, they did, through acting like using collective bargaining to artificially raise the cost of government services far above what voters were willing to support with taxes was some sort of inalienable right.

 

CP, when you boil it down, we're talking about whether the voter or the union should have control over their State and local budgets. "Fair" has nothing to do with it. We are talking about what is Constitutionally correct.

 

I am aware that these corrections in the balances of power between voters and the unions are going to be painful, but the public employee unions had to know that sooner or later, the jig was going to be up. They haven't been providing services commensurate with the benefits they were able to demand via collective bargaining, and once times got tough, the voter stopped tolerating it.

[sherminator505]

"CP, the government isn't acting in bad faith; it's simply that the political reality has changed."

 

The latter does not negate the former. In Wisconsin's case this is particularly true. To get collective bargaining passed, the Wisconsin Republicans took out all of the "budgetary" items. By this action, they in fact ADMITTED that this has NOTHING to do with budgets and EVERYTHING to do with union busting, and thus conclusively answered the OP's original question.

[scoutingagain]

"The Wisconsin Republicans have stirred up a hornet's nest, and that may be a political mistake."

 

You can say that again, Scott Brown in Massachusetts was largely elected because of white, blue collar, predominantly union guys voting for him instead of the classic Massachusetts "elite" liberal. Without those votes he doesn't get re-elected. Prior to this, he'd be a shoe-in for re-election. This definately tips the scales a bit and put's that senate seat back up for grabs, depending on who the Dems would nominate. Saw the same thing happen back when Reagan fired all the air traffic controllers. Had union guys tell me they'd never vote Republican again. Until the Dems ran a black guy from Harvard.

 

SA

 

 

[sherminator505]

"Until the Dems ran a black guy from Harvard."

 

What?! No commentaries on Socialism or bloated government bureaucracy?! No rants about how health care reform was rammed through?! No thoughts about deficit spending?! No commentary about how the government stimulus didn't work?!

 

*catching my breath*

 

Well, this is refreshingly honest indeed. I guess it IS true when they say "the truth will out."

[scoutingagain]

Sherm,

 

I chew the fat with a lot of the construction trades in my business. Many of them grew up in Southie. (See "The Departed" ) They're generally good hardworking guys, but they would feel right at home with Pack's neighbor in SC that flies the Star and Bars in his front yard.

 

To paraphrase GWB, they don't do nuance.

 

Reminds me. Happy St. Pat's Day All. Off to the pub for a pint.

 

SA

 

 

[jrush]

Sherm, the latter *does* negate the former. The job of government is to act, within the applicable Constitutions, to enact the political will of the majority of the electorate. It doesn't matter what the electorate wanted 20 years ago in regards to the power of public employee unions, it matters what they want now.

 

Next, if you are a big fan of unions, you don't vote republican. Period. All of these folks protesting and whining about the vote didn't vote GOP anyways...the GOP-led government has no duty to represent their wishes...it only has a duty to respect their Constitutional rights.

 

Further, stripping the budgetary items and voting to end most of the public unions' collective bargaining priviledges was an act made necessary by the actions of democratic senators. It wasn't "sneaky political manuevering", it was the government doing what it had to in order to fullfill the political will of the majority of the electorate.

 

Finally, it has everything to do with budgets. Collective bargaining is all about who controls the current and future tax dollar. That's what is so inherently malicious about public employee collective bargaining. It allows a current generation to write a check the next generation has to cash, because States don't have the option of bankruptcy court. Futher, by the collection of involuntary dues, the unions are allowed to take tax dollars from me and funnel them to politicians whom I don't support. Quite frankly, that practice should be outright unconstitutional nationwide.

 

This law was about taking control of tax dollars away from the unions and handing it back to the voter. If the majority of the electorate decides that they want to give control of their money back to the unions, they can vote accordingly in the next election. The GOP lost control of that message in all the hubub, but I expect it will start making it onto the airwaves by the time recall initiatives make it onto the ballot, and well before the 2012 election cycle.

[CalicoPenn]

A couple of things:

 

"For forty years or so labor unions have been making monkeys out of the taxpayers by negotiating deals with politicans that created long term unfunded pension liabilities."

 

Unions aren't responsible for creating long term unfunded pension liabilities. The politicians are. It is the politicians that used money that should have been sent to the pension funds all along on other things - essentially borrowing from Peter to pay Paul. Now, because the politicians failed to live up to their end of the bargain, some are trying to blame the unions for the financial mismanagement of the politicians. Shame on anyone who buys those politician's deflection of their own ineptness. The union members, all of whom also contribute to their pension funds, didn't have the option of deciding that they were going to spend their pension contribution on a new car - the politicians should never have been allowed to do so either.

 

 

"Futher, by the collection of involuntary dues, the unions are allowed to take tax dollars from me and funnel them to politicians whom I don't support"

 

This is a nonsensical argument that frankly deserves nothing but scorn. Tax dollars may be paying public employees, but once those employees are paid, you, as a taxpayer, have no say, and should never have a say, in how those employees spend their money. Let me emphasize - THEIR money. Union dues are paid by the members of the union, with THEIR money. If you really want to play the "taxpayer dollars" game when it comes to employee's salaries, then you better be prepared to apply that principle to everything a public employee uses their money for, and not just a select something. Are you ready to tell a public school teacher she can't buy a Nissan because you don't want taxpayer dollars being used to buy anything but US brand autos? Are you ready to tell a firefighter he can't buy a Playboy because you don't want taxpayer dollars being used to buy smut? Are you ready to tell a police officer he can't buy toys made in China for his children because you don't want taxpayer dollars being used to support China? Of course not - and you probably think that's silly. And that's exactly the point - it's just as silly to tell a public employee he can't pay union dues as it is to tell a public employee he can't donate to the Boy Scouts.

 

As to whose that argue that State employees shouldn't have collective bargaining rights (and I do consider it a right, not a privilege, protected under the 9th Amendment to the US Constitution ("The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.") as an unenumerated right) because Federal employees don't have collective bargaining rights, I say that just because the Federal government has it wrong, doesn't mean the State's should be allowed to get it wrong too. Federal government union employees should have the same collective bargaining rights as every other union protected by Federal laws have. To do that, we should be demanding that there be an amendment to the US Constitution that bans the US Government, including the legislature, from exempting itself from the laws of the United States.

 

 

[sherminator505]

jrush,

 

I'll stand by what I said, but please don't put words into my mouth! I never suggested that this was "sneaky political manuevering" as stated in your post. I would assert just the opposite.

 

The Republicans in Wisconsin have pushed through as naked and straightforward an attack on labor as has been seen in many years. They have now taken steps to freeze the Democrats in Wisconsin out of the deliberative process for future legislation. Truly, they are acting about as un-democratically as any elective body in recent American history, and I can't help but wonder if the activation of this kind of regime is what the citizens of Wisconsin had in mind.

 

Still, you will undoubtedly defend this as "enact(ing) the political will of the majority of the electorate", and you have shown that you will defend it to the point of ascribing quotes to me that I NEVER said!!! I can't wait to see your next argument, so I will get to see the next of my "quotes" to fly out of your head!