As Mubarak just found out you have problems as a leader if the people with guns won’t listen to you. 
How about if we just stipulate than any union supporters in Wisconsin who are directly responsible for child molestation in New York…no, wait…anywhere whatsoever!..shall be deemed unworthy of serious consideration. There. Happy now?
(Sam, this Warner Todd Houston fellow? Is he your new brother in law? You seem at great pains to advance his career, has he borrowed a bunch of money from you? And is there something especially worthy of the venues he appears in? From here, they look like dimestore World Net Dailys, tell ya the truth.)
No, but it’s disingenuous to label Wisconsin public sector employees and their unions in the same boat with another state and infer every public union is bad.
Yes. The number of calls and police hours spent in impoverished neighborhoods far outweighs those to middle and upper class areas.
No, there I’d say the calculus is a bit more complex, but the short answer is that roads benefit the owner of the shipping company more.
Of course, given the fees assessed against that owner for permits, etc., I’d say he’s paying much more than the guy on the bicycle.
I was thinking we could grind up the teachers and serve them for school lunch or possibly reduce their wages by a small percentage as part of statewide budget cuts.
Note to Doper Noobs: He’s kidding. Don’t worry about it, he’s on our “Mostly Harmless” list.
The Governor is putting the cart before the horse then isn’t he?
There are plenty of examples of union workers making concessions due to fiscal realities (and examples of them not making concessions too).
But seems the first thing you do is produce a budget which spreads the pain. Everyone has to take a little bite of the shit sandwich. Who else is being asked to take one for the team here?
Instead, this seems an attempt to remove any negotiating power from one side and then you’ll do the budget (which IIRC usually takes them till the summer to negotiate).
Wow, Sam, your employer makes you travel with no advance notice and won’t even pay you overtime for it? It sounds like you need a better union.
Gosh, Dr. Lecter, maybe you should read these pamphlets on the vegan lifestyle.
I agree with the across the board cuts.
The grossly overpaid should be grossly overtaxed. You take money from a poor man, you take what he needs, take it from a rich man, you take what he doesn’t need.
Dunno about in Montana but in Illinois there are Exempt and Non-Exempt workers (not sure if this is a federal or state thing).
Exempt employees are your salary workers. E.g. You get $50,000/year salary. You can work 40 hours a week or 80 hours. You get $50,000 in compensation.
Non-exempt are your hourly wage workers. They get paid overtime for anything beyond 40 hours/week (I think but this is the basic idea).
There are advantages and disadvantages to both and which you are is not really the whim of your employer. State (or Federal?) law pretty much determines which category an employee falls into (there can be gray areas and when that happens a company usually asks the state to tell them what a given job falls under).
Salaried employees may get a per diem or other things to keep them happy when made to travel but such things are not required by law. I had one job that although I was salaried worked a system of “overtime” since we were frequently called to do insane hours (36 in one stretch with no sleep). They did not have to though but kept us willing to do the job and they made lots of money as well so worked out.
I wouldn’t have it any other way. I get paid good money, and that’s just part of the deal. I won’t work in a union. Ever. I believe in merit, even when I’m the guy that doesn’t get the promotion because the other guy worked harder than I did. Good for him.
Besides, I have the ultimate power - if I don’t like the situation I can quit and go somewhere else. Or I can lay down the law and refuse to do something I think is unfair, outrageous, or immoral, and my employer then gets to decide if I’m worth enough to them to allow me to buck the system. In any event, the decision is about me and the value I bring to the company, and not whether my union is holding a gun to the heads of management with the help of the government.
And in addition, when you’re willing to go to the mat for the employer and thereby make yourself more valuable to them, they generally find a way to reward you, if for no other reason to ensure that you keep going to the mat for them or that you don’t look for other employment. I’ve received awards and bonuses that make up for the lack of overtime, and that’s just fine with me.
Now, I recognize that this kind of system can’t work in every job. I think unions serve a valuable role for employees that are basically automatons - assembly line workers, farm laborers, whatever. If your job duties are exactly the same as the guy next to you and there’s no room for innovation, creative thinking, or going the extra mile to get the job done, then it makes sense to have a seniority pay system and it can make sense to have union protection, because if you can’t bring extra value to the employer, then you have no way to ensure job security other than through collective bargaining. So long as its voluntary all around, I’ve got no problem with that.
But unionization for knowledge workers and professionals is absolutely ridiculous. As I said in another thread, there is clear evidence that in professional jobs the difference in productivity between the best workers and the worst is huge. It’s horribly inefficient to create a working environment for such people that doesn’t reward better performance or punish the slackers. And if you can’t reward the best or punish the worst, the incentive system favors the worst and punishes the best, because the best wind up carrying the load for the worst and working harder for the same pay.
That’s the real injustice in such systems - The teachers who are up until midnight grading papers and staying after hours to help the problem kids are carrying their load - plus the loads of the teachers who called in sick, or who didn’t deal with behavioral problems because they were incompetent or lazy, or who didn’t teach kids properly in the previous grade but passed them on anyway, or who are sitting in a rubber room playing cards for full pay. It’s the good teachers who get punished in the public teacher’s unions. Or, they get trapped there by seniority and can’t afford to start their careers over again, so they get beaten down and become cynical and part of the problem.
My last job I was laid off.
I met ALL targets I was given for years. Believe me they were not easy targets to hit. Each year they grew and each year when I saw them I thought, “How the fuck is that even possible?”
EVERY year I made those targets.
EVERY year I got awards (sitting on my shelf…I’ll take pics and post if you want) for 100% of goal (and some other awards too).
They laid me off.
When I first started there were about 20 of us in my department.
When I was laid off there were three left.
The next year those three went.
We were profitable the whole time. We were also well paid but easily generated way more money than we cost. They figured someone half our price could do the same thing and still command our rather substantial rates.
They were wrong.
I have paid minor attention to them since and it was clearly a short term solution.
Like a snake eating its tail the next guys on the chopping block were the guys who chose to axe us.
I recently got a spam message from the former head of my department. No longer with that company he is reduced to literal spam. Was a day he was the shit.
Serves him right. He caused a lot of damage getting there.
Regarding parity between public and private employees, I see no reason why it should exist. They serve different markets for different purposes. And pay and benefits to public service workers should probably be more than private employers for equivalent positions.
First, those expenditures are an investment in the community. The multiplier effects will be greater since the majority of those dollars will be re-spent in that community, while private sector expenditures are more likely to be siphoned off. Public expenditures are the base on which all private sector spending occurs. If private employers and ordinary citizens want the infrastructure necessary for our economy and our society - a healthy and educated workforce, strong courts to protect property and civil rights, transportation and communication networks, power, water and so forth, then they need to pay the professionals to create and maintain that infrastructure.
While there is a continual argument over what services are best provided by what sector, we have reached a general consensus on the provision of most. And while private firms may have a place in providing parts of the above infrastructure, the public has decided that the majority of those parts need to be provided by the public sector. Decisions that were made mostly after the failure of the private markets to provide a sufficient level of those services.
Second, a major incentive for government is also to diminish turnover and create an experienced workforce - which would be better: a school district with higher salaries and experienced teachers and staff who are also likely to be homeowners and active members of the community, or a district of lower salaries and higher turnover where as soon as the teachers gain sufficient experience they leave for greener pastures. They are numerous studies showing the quality differences between high pay suburban districts and low pay rural or inner-city districts. The goal should not be to lower quality, but raise it, and that is only possible through higher expenditures.
And this is true not just for schools, but all segments of the public sector. Police officers, medical professionals, even lowly bureaucrats. The public sector needs additional incentives to attract workers from equivalent private sector positions which allow greater mobility and freedom to pursue career advancement. Defined benefits and stronger job protection are part of those incentives.
And taxes are not punishments inflicted by a cruel totalitarian regime - they are the membership fees for a democratic society. I would rather have membership in a society with high fees which can provide high quality services, than one with low fees that may not even provide basic services.
And quite honestly, I have yet to see a study that indicates that we are paying sufficient taxes to support the infrastructure we have built, let alone build the one we need for this century. We need higher taxes, not across the board spending cuts. Certain programs can definitely be cut or eliminated, but those savings need to be redirected to higher priorities - particularly debt reduction, not put back in the pockets of the public.
And if unions policies have idiot consequences such as rubber rooms, then change the damn policies. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater. The main reason we have public unions and a civil service is not just to protect the workers, but also the public from political influence. Destroy the unions and the civil service will be next, and I guarantee we will back to a patronage system within a decade, and your state ID card won’t determine which services you qualify for, but your party ID will.
From each according to his needs…
And yeah…I have a good dose of Schadenfreude over this.
Of course the company did not falter just because they fired me (however much I dream that was the case). They failed because they fired me and dozens like me to show each quarter they were doing great.
Shit caught up with them.
Short terms results can only be maintained so long. Eventually it catches up with you.
I have a better job than my section boss now but he caused me a LOT of harm to keep his ship afloat.
But who’s deciding on what the needs are
Are you really trying to claim the unions don’t actively try to strong arm political influence???
Please tell me I read that wrong before my eyes go on permanent roll