And what’s wrong with being able to not join the union or to join another union and keeping your current job, exactly?
Seriously this argument sounds like “love it or leave it”. Maybe you can resign from your current job and/or decline an offered job without it being an issue, but there are many people for whom it will be a serious one.
Doesn’t that sound to you like someone saying no public schools? There are certainly cities that can’t afford schools on their own.
What would happen to universal public education then?
I’m just trying to turn nonsense Republican rhetoric against them. Obviously in the real world not everyone has the choice to choose where to work.
But as for unions, making them voluntary destroys their power. If the union bargains for compensation, then all workers get the benefit. If all workers get the benefit then those that don’t join the union are getting a free ride.
People, especially people in an economic recovery, are going to save union dues for short term benefit. But in the long term they will suffer.
As I said, I was trying to tailor it to the ideological conservative I was talking to.
No, it sounds like you don’t have a cite, and your claims about Santorum were false.
Of course, no one was ever in any doubt of that.
Regards,
Shodan
I had a cite in my initial comment.
Here’s another. PM me your address and I’ll read it to you whilst you sit on my lap.
You still don’t address the point at all. There’s far more than just “mindless slash-and-cut taxes” that can lead to massive budget shortfalls. States can have their population get older a lot faster than they expected (when young people leave disproportionately), states can have major employers leave, can have major industries collapse.
One major factory or mine going bust can significantly impact the taxes the State pulls in year to year. Instead of us being empowered to periodically adjust how we compensate our employees, you’re advocating for a system in which a small group of public servants can hold the entire government hostage. To make us unable to respond to changes in economic client and instead be forced to continue providing things like pensions with only a 1% employee contribution (I know a few State government retirement plans, and the ones in Virginia, Ohio, and WV all had higher contribution rates. I believe Ohio’s is actually 10%.)
Governments aren’t just really big corporations. They fund and provide services to the benefit of all of society, and if government is hit with cash shortfalls (which can happen even to Democrats who aren’t just willy nilly “slashing taxes”) then if you insist government be beholden to public sector unions you’re basically mandating that no matter what happens we never change employee benefits but instead just raise taxes higher and higher.
That’s the government equivalent of crony capitalism–it’s kleptocracy.
That’s what is so embarrassing about your arguments. None of the conservatives here are making the points you are trying to “turn around” on us.
I don’t know of any conservatives on this forums who feels employers should have unlimited power and if you don’t like it, you should leave it. I tend to support pretty much all workplace laws that currently exist, for example.
That’s actually bullshit. You do realize that Europe has tons of unions and they are mostly all voluntary and mostly all very powerful.
Making them voluntary makes them accountable. Making them involuntary makes them unaccountable to their members and thus provides no means to stop them from just becoming vehicles to enrich union leadership or to act out on political issues to support the wider labor movement with no concern about the members they themselves are supposed to represent.
Clairobscur was dead on when he said mandatory membership in a single union is akin to mandatory membership in a single political party. No one denies that it’s good for the union, but it’s very debatable as to whether or not it’s good for the workers.
It’s certainly not “here,” given the errors and misperceptions you make in this post.
Cite that this is a goal with any significant Republican backing.
Now you have more freedom. You can work for a school district and not be a part of the union, or work for a school district and be a part of the union, or not work for them at all! Lots of choices.
He never explicitly is quoted as saying he wants to abolish public schools.
And this is from a candidate who received very little support in the primary.
I’m still waiting along with Shodan for a cite to back up your preposterous claims.
That’s a reference to the same story, and it still doesn’t say what you claim.
Look, you were wrong, and your position is not based on facts. Just admit it and move on.
Regards,
Shodan
Depends on what you think is significant, I suppose. There are PACs that are pushing for it: http://thinkprogress.org/education/2011/07/11/265663/voucher-tea-party-go-away/
Why not repeal the driving laws? FREEDOM!!!11111gibson
So, this means you won’t let me read it to you?
He’s talking about homeschooling there.
No govt or state money. Which means small towns will have to put their own schools together, right? Which means there won’t be small town schools in many places.
So he’s against public schools. Or factories. If only I could understand what he’s getting at here… if only.
The race to the bottom isn’t just in salaries, it’s in working conditions also. To give a concrete, real-world example:
My mom worked as a public-school teacher until her retirement. In the event of a bomb threat called in to a school, it was the district’s policy that the teachers would escort their students outside, and then all of the teachers were to go back into the building to look for the bomb. Without, of course, any of the training or safety equipment that professional bomb squads have. The school district literally regarded the teachers as expendable bomb-fodder. Even the military doesn’t do that any more.
This is the way teachers get treated when unions are working as hard as they can on their behalf. You can’t just say “well unions have served their purpose, they need to go away now”, because they’re still dealing with insanity like this. Don’t tell me that employers will just play nice if the unions are neutered, because they won’t play nice even with the unions.
You’re stuck on your paradigm. If vouchers exist for everyone, everyone has the choice. Bad schools should shut down and good schools flourish.
But the questions is can the good schools reject students they don’t want? If they can be rejected, then they don’t really have a choice.
And will the vouchers actually cover the price of tuition? If not, a school can still reject the kids from poorer families,
You need to find a cite where Santorum says there should be no government money going to schools. Because he says exactly the opposite in the snippet you posted - he says explicitly that the public schools can be helped by the government.
Regards,
Shodan
In other words, then, your assertion had fuck-all to do with the topic under discussion?If you wish to take part in the conversation, do try to make it the same conversation everybody else is having.
Because unions support Democrats. Might as well cut to the chase.
He said the government can help. I take that as him saying that he can take government money to home-school his kids. Which he actually did in the past.
It had everything to do with the post I was responding to, someone makes the claim that de-unionization results in a downward spiral of wages. I simply pointed out that that is not universally true. If you don’t think that has “fuck-all” to do with the conversation then I posit you don’t understand the conversation, were ignorant as to its flow and rhythm and were unable to follow along from the cheap seats.
If you’d like me to support my original assertion: that non-union labor is not always less compensated than union labor, I’m all for it.
But I will not dance through various hoops you set up just to appease you. I make the claim, I back it up, but I don’t back up claims I don’t make.