It must be only public employees who have some lazy workers . Private companies like all the people on this board have nothing but hard working extremely competent workers who never stop working.
There used to be an unwritten understanding in the workplace. You were part of a family and had the same interests as your employer. If they succeed, you would. Now employees are a nuisance. If the company makes a ton of money they owe the workers nothing. The management is spending lots of time finding ways to cut your wages and benefits or replace you with someone cheaper. They will offshore your job and do it gladly. But you should continue to work hard until the day they broom you. Loyalty is a one way street.
Oh, Please. You think these “loyal” workers of yours wouldn’t jump ship if there was a better gig in town they could get? No. Workers are loyal to themselves, as they should be. And companies are loyal to the company, as they should be. Now, if you have a particularly good worker or workers, you treat them well and make sure they stay, but not because of some loyalty to the worker, but because that their staying helps the company. If you’re in a position of management, THAT is your job. THAT is what you’re getting paid to do.
The beauty of this is that if you make yourself a valuable employee and do your job better than the people around you, your interests then align with the company’s. And that’s the position you want to be in. A system that recognizes this pushes the employee to be better and better and rewards those who perform well. It also culls out both the lazy and those ill-suited for a particular job. And those are both good things. The former is a slap on the side of the head to change, the latter helps you find a position more suited to your talents and sensibilities. One where you can shine.
No, it would happen over a generation as people became more desperate and willing to work for scab wages.
What do you think these union busters want to do next?
And once we get out of Iraq and Afghanistan, shold we disolve the military because we are no longer at war? Some union activity is necessary to maintain the status quo.
It is obvious that you would., Magellan. But most people do not want to move around. Many feel comfortable in a job and like the place or the work.
People work for lots of reasons if you are familiar with Mazlow. Money is not even the most important one. There are social aspects to work. There are creative reasons for work. There are lots of reasons. If you distill work down to money you are ignoring a hell of a lot. Many people do not quit when they are offered more money. Security is paramount for lots of people. But security is exactly what corporations threaten today.
It should not be a adversarial relationship. But corporations are making it that way.
We all get paid what we’re worth? Really?
Just in the area of college and university, PT profs get paid hourly, some work on multiple campuses, and at some colleges, the hourly pay is quite low–and they’ve got Master’s Degrees. But that doesn’t necessarily help. They can work their asses off, get great evaluations, keep getting rehired semester to semester with no long-term contract, and still not get a raise unless it is bargained for.
To be fair, part of the problem is that are too damn many PT profs. But then, that’s the adminstration saving money instead of hiring people FT. And then there are the various state budget crises that affect the ability of the unit to bargain at all, and so the wages are frozen.
“Work hard, be worth more, and you will get paid more” is not always the case.
Are union shops OK?
Nonsense. You know, in your post you’re sounding like Der Trihs does when discussing religion. You’re throwing out hyperbolic bullshit as if it’s reality. But it ain’t. It’s just hyperbolic bullshit.
See above. Worker safety laws are going nowhere.
Here’s a better analogy: once the military achieves it’s objectives in a particular country, should the military stay there? If so, for how long?
Point being, there is no objective way to determine the value of something. There have been countless attempts to centralize or “manage” that decision making process, and they didn’t work out very well.
I can never comprehend it when people say “If you don’t like it there, work somewhere else.” As if job-hopping were as easy as that, especially now; and as if mentioning workplace problems automatically makes the worker a whiner or a PITA.
I know Maslow. I was using money as the cleanest form of payment. I absolutely agree that there are reasons to stay on a job besides money, that is not in dispute. Hell, I once turned down a job at near triple my salary, and was glad to do it.
As far as it being an adversarial relationship, it is. There is nothing inherently wrong with that. ebay is filled with adversarial relationships. But it’s a great way to find where minds meet. The key is to make to make your goals align with your employees goals. Surely you’d agree that the most valued employees rarely get fired. Hardly, In fact, management will bend over backwards trying to find ways to keep them. Some might involve money, some not.
How does one calculate a living wage?
Does it vary by location?
Does it include taking care of a spouse?
A child?
Two kids?
Five kids?
Do you have to use coupons?
Will it support an internet connection?
What about a cell phone?
Maintaining a car?
It really seems to be a non-existent term thrown around.
On the other hand, funds to enforce those laws are being cut to shreds. You know, all those regulations that do nothing but add costs to doing business. Have you ever worked in an industrial setting?
That’s a terrible analogy. The union’s goal is to maintain equilibrium. Police is a more apt analogue.
In any competitive environment, you either keep up the pressure or you will get steamrolled. As pointed out elsewhere, you need a large organization to counter the concerted efforts of an opposing organization.
I was wondering about this too. Why did Assi get banned? I haven’t run across anything in ATMB nor have I seen him advocate for genocide or anything.
Its a little hyperbolic but do you seriously contend that we wouldn’t see the steady erosion of workers rights without unions?
No I think my analogy is more apt.
It’s only been used locally in the US, AFAIK. But it’s not “non-existent”. San Jose requires any contractor doing business with the city to pay its workers a “living wage”.
A dear friend of mine is a teacher. She is scheduled to retire at the ripe old age of 52, after which she will, if the current contract stands unchallenged, be paid 70% of the average of her highest three earning years, for the rest of her life. And her health care will be subsidized.
Last night over dinner, she asked us all to pray that SB 5 (Ohio’s equivalent of Wisconsin’s union buster) would fail.
When I gently asked her how she thought that this awesome pension was going to sustain itself once workers depleted the amount that they paid into it, given that the average life span of an American woman is something like 72, she said, “I paid 11% of every paycheck into the system. I’m only taking out what I paid into it.”
And she’s a teacher who teaches life skills to students with disabilities.
Sometimes there is no reasoning with people.
Oh, and me? Yes, I pay my mandatory SS/Medicare charges. But I also sock away the mandated maximum we can sock away tax-free each and every year. Because I don’t expect the taypayers to support me if I decide to retire at the age of 52.
It doesn’t matter who does the negotiating and striking. You cannot conjure up money from thin air. The benefits that these workers have built into their contracts are unsustainable. End of story. And it’s about time someone with some fiscal sense came along and told them that.
Oh my god, she’s a teacher??? The horror of horrors.. Of course, you are the salt of the earth, I’m sure, so wouldn’t dream of taking more out of SS/Medicare than you put into it, right?
And your tax free savings, thats a subsidy. Others are paying for what you don’t. But, it’s ok for your subsidy, not someone else’s right?
I get it, you don’t like that they have a decent plan and you don’t. So, rather than try and CHANGE your lot in life, you’ll bitch and moan that they have it and you don’t.
On the other hand, how did this contract come to be? As has been noted here by others, on many separate occasions in different districts, deals were struck that de-emphasized actual cash salary in favor of more desirable benefits. The negotiators who offered those deals presumably were not in cahoots with the tyrannical teacher’s unions. Though, of course, we should not underestimate their awesome power.
The deals were (very likely, don’t have the facts at my fingertips…) offered in good faith, and accepted in good faith. Were they “unsustainable” at the time they were offered? Or did present circumstances of dire disaster make them so?
Any number of corporations have negotiated very favorable contracts with state and local governments. See any of them rushing to sacrifice that money on the alter of fiscal responsibility? Are working people expected to be more self-sacrificing, more patriotic, than businessmen?
Generally when that happens, it means “sock” or “spammer”.
This.
The government doesn’t get to pay my company less per hour for our defense contracts that were negotiated and signed in good faith because they’ve made poor decisions with regard to cash flow. And frankly, the defense industry has exactly as much leverage over the government as unionized employees have over their employers–the ability to take their ball and go home.