From Talking Points Memo, center-lefty site, cooty protocols advised…
TL:DR There would be no crisis to fix if it hadn’t been for tax cuts the Republicans made when they took power.
From 'luci’s link:
If true, it certainly puts this situation in a new light. Can we corroborate the assertions made in that TPM article? (Sorry to have to ask but I’m still on show site with just my phone for internet access.)
Any comparison of public vs private sector jobs has to also include things like job security, vacation days, sick leave allowances, overtime rules, rules against requiring employees to work shifts or travel, etc.
One of the ways the public unions have gamed the system here in Canada is that they have traded salary increases for certain benefits that translate into salary but which don’t appear in the statistics.
For example, the nursing union here in Alberta has managed to set up the rules such that they can call in sick quite regularly. They also have bargained for shift differentials and changes in overtime rules. They also get more ‘personal leave’ days than they used to. So here’s what they do: They take as many personal leave and sick days as they can. If all the nurses on the unit do this, then there are always shortages, and the nurses who are off-shift get called in to work - and are paid time and a half or double time. The result is that they work the same full-time hours, but get paid a lot more money. There are nurses in this province pulling in $150K per year or more, when the nominal salary for their position is maybe $90K.
Another example: Many public sector unions have negotiated terms that allow them to accrue sick days if they aren’t actually sick, and to have them paid out at retirement. Accrued sick leave in the CALPERS agreement in California can push your retirement date back by two or three years. In New York, public workers are retiring and cashing out $100,000 - $200,000 in accrued sick leave if they never used sick time.
In my private sector job, sick leave works like this: If you’re sick, you can call in. If you’re sick for more than three days, you have to file for short-term leave, and it goes on your record. Call in sick too much, and it will affect your performance evaluation and hurt your career. Go for 40 years without a single sick day, and the only thing you’ll get at retirement is a, “Nice Job, Sam” along with your Swatch with the company logo displayed on it.
In my job, I can be told to get on a plane to travel to a customer site for a week. I have a company credit card that I put expenses on. I’m not paid overtime, I don’t get a per-diem or anything else. In the public sector, the unions have all kinds of rules that limit this or handsomely reimburse the employee for such ‘hardship’.
In my job, if there’s a crisis I can be asked to spend the next week working 12-16 hour days until it’s solved. I’m a professional on an annual salary, so there’s no overtime for this. It’s just expected of you. If I were a public sector union employee in the same role, a week of 16 hour days would put several thousand dollars in my pocket.
In my job, every performance review is a potential career ender if I don’t pull my weight. I can be laid off at any time. I can and will be fired if I continually under-produce compared to my peers. In the public sector, there are teachers on the payroll who have molested children and are sitting in ‘rubber rooms’ collecting a full paycheck. How much is job security worth when making these comparisons?
You most likely could have made a pretty good point without this sort of hysteria. Which either is, or ought to be, beneath you.
to start with you quoted something from a progressive think tank whose idea of neutrality is to launch stuff like the Agenda for Shared Prosperity. Your cite from them left out health and retirement benefits which tends to be more lucrative in state unions.
As I already mentioned I am not a fan of unions in part for the kind of stuff you just listed.
But the corporations will game the system too if they can.
I could make a lengthy list of the horrors companies were happy to inflict on their workers prior to them being able to organize. Child labor, labor safety, subsistence (or worse) pay or even pay where you managed to owe the company (company towns) and were not much better than slave labor to literally having uppity workers shot (to name a few).
This was not merely expecting a lot of workers. This was a horror show.
Think this is a thing of the past? Foxconn, which makes iPhones and such in China, installed nets on their buildings to catch people jumping out of windows trying to commit suicide. Yes, so many workers were killing themselves the company installed nets to stop them. That’s just one.
Unions these days, IMO, largely exist for their own benefit. Crap like not being able to fire teachers and paying them to sit in a rubber room (one such teacher was found sexually propositioning a student…the admin had e-mails and texts…he has sat in a room collecting a full paycheck for years because they cannot fire him). It is absurd.
But make no mistake companies can and will fuck over their workers if they can. It has happened (in the US) and still happens all over the world.
Unions/collective bargaining is the barrier to that. Without them it becomes a race to the bottom for companies. It would not happen all at once but it’ll be a progression and in time we’re back where we started.
Honestly I do not know a good answer to it. Striking a balance between worker’s rights and company necessity is hard if not impossible. One side or the other will have a bit more leverage and in time it’ll get used.
Given two bad choices though I side with the unions. The horrors companies will inflict on their workers are just that…horrors. Companies on the other hand are inconvenienced.
He pointed out how hard it is to get fired in the public sector which is true.
Admittedly I have not run through their numbers but they claim (bolding mine):
[W]hen we compare apples to apples, we find that Wisconsin public employees earn 4.8% less in total compensation than comparable private sector workers. The comparisons—controlling for education, experience, hours of work, organizational size, gender, race, ethnicity, citizenship, and disability—demonstrate that full-time state and local public employees earn lower wages and receive less in total compensation (including all benefits) than comparable private sector employees.
Now you may be right but that is a helluva bald-faced lie to make if it is easily apparent they did no such thing.
How is this germane to this discussion? Private sector unions are not affected by anything happening in Wisconsin today - only public sector unions are affected, and government employment typically carries stronger workplace protections through civil service laws.
If you’re going to bat the big brown innocent eyes, you have to bat them both, otherwise it looks like your winking or having a stroke.
The use of “child molesters” was deliberately provocative and inflammatory. You know it, I know it and Sam knows it. Be so kind as not to pee on my shoes and tell me its raining.
There is nothing in the chart regarding retirement benefits.
Fondling a special needs student. Impregnating a teenaged student. Sexually assaulting a child.
This is just New York City, which recently ended this disgusting practice. Rubber rooms still hang on in some school districts - I believe the LAUSD still has them.
It’s hard to be more provocative and inflammatory than the facts in this particular instance.
This very thread is about a case where a governor is trying to change the law to reduce the power/take protections away from government workers.
Can you promise me it will stop there and no other laws protecting workers will be diminished or removed? Ever?
The battle between labor and employers is a long one and employers will hammer and whittle away at it for years or decades. Indeed ceaselessly.
Reality sucks. Sam referred to a well publicized occurrence. It was a direct result of union protectionism. It’s nice that they agreed to eliminate it but it’s common for unions to protect incompetence to the detriment of all concerned.
All of this is academic to the reality that states are financially bankrupt. You can’t spend what you don’t have.
Or, you know, it could be true.
Child Molesting Teacher Can’t be Fired Thanks to Union
Why Unions are Dangerous in Education:
Child Molesting Teacher Can’t Be Fired Thanks to Union:
He’s been getting that salary for 13 years, doing absolutely nothing because he’s not safe to have around children.
So what’s the rule here? We’re not allowed to point out actual child abuse because doing so is ‘inflammatory’? Is there some special ‘truthiness’ we have to follow to avoid harming the delicate sensibilities of the people who support this system?
Well, bless your heart, of course you can! Did you see that war we had a little while ago? Did anyone point out to you that we put all of it on the credit card?
Wisconsin State Patrol officers are saying if they find any of the missing Senators they will not arrest them and bring them back to the Capitol. Wisconsin Capitol Police are not evicting protesters from the Capitol Building, nor are they interferring with protesters who have blocked access to the Senate chamber to prevent the Republican senators from convening to determine if a quorum is present.
True enough as far as it goes.
If they pay their teachers $7.25/hour (Wisconsin minimum wage) all will be peachy right? Certainly it will help the budget. Once the governor removes their rights the teachers can accept that or be unemployed. Probably lots of young people willing to do the job for that. At least I’d rather teach for $7.25/hour than flip burgers or have no job at all.