Gov. Walker and WI's master plan

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Linflas

Lifer
Jan 30, 2001
15,395
78
91
And the Unions will live on so long as they are needed to keep their members from being exploited by those that find it so much easier to threaten, intimidate and bully individual workers rather than all of the workers at once in the form of a representative who speak for them collectively and who cannot be threatened, intimidated, bullied, coerced and compromised with being fired, held back from being promoted, blackballed etc. etc.

Even with Uinons in place, Management will always have the upper hand in how their companies are run via Management Rights.

I certainly agree that excesses can be found where Union involvement is concerned, yet the same can be said about Management also.

I see in these forums so much ignorant and baseless inflammatory talk about how unions are destroying the Nation, etc. What I never see is knowledgeable and reasoned commentary from most of the righties in this forum on this subject. None of the Union's detractors in this forum have shown any appreciable undertsanding or knowledge of the history of Unions and how, for example, they created and sustained the middle class as we know it.

So when I see these kinds of baseless rants that always seem to come directly from FOX talking heads, Limbaugh fanboi's and Rove's Ministry of Propaganda I automatically tune this noise out and look for substance from those critical of unions.....and never find it.

Ironic how, under Bush's leadership, the country took an an economic nose dive while the country's very rich got so much richer, and are still on the same greased track. And now that we're over two years into this mess that occurred under the repub's watch, they now use this debacle that they created to attack those that have suffered the most from their policies and are specifically keyng in on those entities whose purpose is to protect those who were most affected by the repub's favored treatment of the very rich.

Problem with all your text is that what we are talking about in Wisconsin are not companies and their employees rather it is public sector employees and their unions. If you can't see how that ends up being a road to fiscal disaster you are wearing a great set of blinders. The only thing a public sector union has in common with a run of the mill union like the UAW is the word union.
 

charrison

Lifer
Oct 13, 1999
17,033
1
81
Translations: Unions make it so expensive, time consuming and painful to fire a teacher that no one even tries.

And they would rather protect a bad teacher that produces a bad product. Teachers are not going to win this one.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
You are missing my point.

My question was about selective outrage. When say, Apple makes huge profits, we congratulate them on their business acumen. In reality those profits are coming considerably at our expense, because our costs as consumers are higher to line their pockets. Of course there's nothing wrong with that, that's the whole point of a market economy. I see a lot of people get angry at unions on the other hand for doing the exact same thing, and I find this odd.

I absolutely think that the government should get the services for us, the taxpayer, as cheaply as possible. Our interests and the interests of the public service unions are most certainly opposed. That doesn't make them evil or bad however, they are just getting the best value for their labor that they can, the same as anyone else would (and should).

We have a choice to purchase Apple products. Do we have a choice to not pay taxes to pay for overpaid govt union employee's? I think that is the big difference here. If apple is content on paying a union employee more than the market says they should be paid and pass that along to the consumer. The consumer has the choice to purchase their higher priced product.

I dont think Unions are evil. In the public sector my biggest issue is they donate large amounts of money to politicians who then negotiate or put pressure on the people who do to give into Union demands. The cycle is unsustainable.

My buddy works for a city in Wisc and his wife is a teacher. The benefits package they had was just insane. I dont see how it would ever work in the private sector. I am trying to be supportive of his cause but honestly it is hard hearing him whine about not having 12% of his income kicked into a pension plan without him having to drop a penny. Now he is going to be forced to kick in 6% of that 12%.
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
8
0
We have a choice to purchase Apple products. Do we have a choice to not pay taxes to pay for overpaid govt union employee's? I think that is the big difference here. If apple is content on paying a union employee more than the market says they should be paid and pass that along to the consumer. The consumer has the choice to purchase their higher priced product.

I dont think Unions are evil. In the public sector my biggest issue is they donate large amounts of money to politicians who then negotiate or put pressure on the people who do to give into Union demands. The cycle is unsustainable.

My buddy works for a city in Wisc and his wife is a teacher. The benefits package they had was just insane. I dont see how it would ever work in the private sector. I am trying to be supportive of his cause but honestly it is hard hearing him whine about not having 12% of his income kicked into a pension plan without him having to drop a penny. Now he is going to be forced to kick in 6% of that 12%.

Hahaha... so $25k a year is now "overpaid"?

Wisconsin Teacher Salary
Starting Salary: $25,222
Average Salary: $46,390

That and only 30% of education funds even make it to teachers. So not sure what "big" savings they expect. Seems this is a poltical stunt at best, and excluding police and firefighters I think proves that.


http://teacherportal.com/salary/Wisconsin-teacher-salary
 

*kjm

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
2,222
6
81
Last I checked it's a Republicans state. Republican Governor and many local elections all Republican so what you talkin about Willis?

For one month.... yep the Republicans are chasing them out:\

They have been talking about leaving because of the taxes in WI for about a year... I think Walker will be willing to work with them way more and keep the jobs in WI.
 

Homerboy

Lifer
Mar 1, 2000
30,859
4,976
126
Hahaha... so $25k a year is now "overpaid"?

Wisconsin Teacher Salary
Starting Salary: $25,222
Average Salary: $46,390

That and only 30% of education funds even make it to teachers. So not sure what "big" savings they expect. Seems this is a poltical stunt at best, and excluding police and firefighters I think proves that.


http://teacherportal.com/salary/Wisconsin-teacher-salary

The last paragraph he wrote is important too. Don't gloss over it.
NOBODY does a "political stunt" this big. NOBODY.
 

Jadow

Diamond Member
Feb 12, 2003
5,962
2
0
The silent majority in WI has spoken. :)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Poll:

State legislators get to cast their vote on Gov. Walker's budget repair bill today. How would you vote?

Approve it: 57%
Kill it: 43%
Total Responses: 4611
 

Vette73

Lifer
Jul 5, 2000
21,503
8
0
The silent majority in WI has spoken. :)

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel Poll:

State legislators get to cast their vote on Gov. Walker's budget repair bill today. How would you vote?

Approve it: 57%
Kill it: 43%
Total Responses: 4611


5000 people = majority in WI.

Damm that state must be smaller than the maps let on.
 

CitizenKain

Diamond Member
Jul 6, 2000
4,480
14
76
Government employees are not being abused or exploited by their employers (us), so therefore there is no need for a union.

Smash all the public employee unions. Fire all public employees who are in a union and reemploy with scabs. I bet the scabs will do a much better job more efficiently than union thugs.

So people are not able to choose who they freely associate with now? Man, if only there was some document in this country that allowed people to do that.

Those who can. They do. Those who can't. Teach.

Those who screw up in life, run cable.
 
Jul 10, 2007
12,041
3
0
I was hoping someone would post this, I was too lazy to do it myself.

I am with Walker on this.

Being in a union is NOT a right. I am sick of paying huge income taxes, ridiculous car taxes when I buy a car on Craigslist, and getting sucked dry by this state, so they could have 9 guys on the road crew fixing a light bulb. So teachers can work 175 days a year, have full healthcare paid for, and retire at 55 with a phat guarenteed pension.

When people in the private sector have to pay 40-50% of their health care costs or more and they are averaging far less than the 75k a year WI state employees average, I am ALL FOR kicking the unions in the nuts. They have sucked off the system for many many years.

I just wish he'd also included cops and firemen.

EDIT - Also, schools in Madison shut down so that teachers could protest at the capital! All the teachers called in sick...

In other places like Viroqua, EVERY SINGLE high school student walked out of school and marched in protest. Yeah, no indoctrination going on at that school.

Stupid Fing high school students, getting manipulated by the teachers like that. LOL

troof.
 

fskimospy

Elite Member
Mar 10, 2006
85,586
50,771
136
We have a choice to purchase Apple products. Do we have a choice to not pay taxes to pay for overpaid govt union employee's? I think that is the big difference here. If apple is content on paying a union employee more than the market says they should be paid and pass that along to the consumer. The consumer has the choice to purchase their higher priced product.

I dont think Unions are evil. In the public sector my biggest issue is they donate large amounts of money to politicians who then negotiate or put pressure on the people who do to give into Union demands. The cycle is unsustainable.

My buddy works for a city in Wisc and his wife is a teacher. The benefits package they had was just insane. I dont see how it would ever work in the private sector. I am trying to be supportive of his cause but honestly it is hard hearing him whine about not having 12% of his income kicked into a pension plan without him having to drop a penny. Now he is going to be forced to kick in 6% of that 12%.

We have a choice to elect people who will drive harder bargains with the unions, who will appropriate less funding for it. Corporations are now equally able (in reality, far more able) to donate large sums of money to people who will give in to their demands, are you against this as well?

I actually agree that there is something fundamentally different about state and public utility unions, and the government does have some limited ability to force them back to work or else, but the idea that they are not able to collectively bargain at all is absolutely absurd.
 

alphatarget1

Diamond Member
Dec 9, 2001
5,710
0
76
So people are not able to choose who they freely associate with now? Man, if only there was some document in this country that allowed people to do that.

You can form an association as you wish, but I as a taxpayer do not want to give them the power to negotiate salary collectively as a group.
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
2,276
0
0
The owners have every say in the matter in who they elect,

We don't have any direct involvement in day-to-day operations, or budgeting, except in direct elections, like CA.

The "Owners", in the sense of who determines how much the "workers" get paid, are in the SAME situation as the workers, in that they are all public employees.

furthermore workers and the business owner are not fighting over the share of the profits, if any. They are fighting over what they believe the value of their labor is.
Same thing. You can't fight for money that doesn't exist. In a private company, if the company is spending more on labor than it is making in revenue... a union isn't going to have shit for leverage to demand more money... it doesn't exist. In the public sector, they simply demand more money ("profit") be created essentially, since we all know that government funds are unlimited. They can make demands without regard for where the money comes from... compounded with the fact that being public employees, their daily duties are usually more affective on organized society than those of private sector employees, so they have the leverage to demand more even if it doesn't exist.

An extreme example would be firefighter unions demanding 2x the pay or they will strike. If a private sector union did that, and refused to work, the company would most likely suffer financially, and could possibly go bankrupt. Do that with a firefighter's union, and houses burn down, government activities are screwed up, lots of taxpayer money is lost, and people die.

Their **RIGHT** is to unionize and bargain however they wish for the value of their labor, same as how any contractor can bargain for the value of his contract. Now THAT's the end of the story. :)
I'm in the military... do I have the **RIGHT** to organize my unit and demand more money for our labor? I think we're underpaid... so what's the problem with that? Same as anything else, right?

Hope that clears things up for you, and I'm glad to see your air of civility has evaporated as soon as someone disagreed with you again, btw. And your ideas on how public union negotiations work are... curious to say the least.
I'm not being uncivil, but I don't fault you for disagreeing. I'm on a pretty hot streak of winning arguments though, so watch out.
 

Genx87

Lifer
Apr 8, 2002
41,091
513
126
We have a choice to elect people who will drive harder bargains with the unions, who will appropriate less funding for it. Corporations are now equally able (in reality, far more able) to donate large sums of money to people who will give in to their demands, are you against this as well?

I actually agree that there is something fundamentally different about state and public utility unions, and the government does have some limited ability to force them back to work or else, but the idea that they are not able to collectively bargain at all is absolutely absurd.

Sure we do but we both know money wins elections. Principles ect are out the door. A union paying for a politician who will then grant them more money at the bargaining table who will then recieve more donations is a sickening cycle. For the record I am not happy with the intertwining of big business and govt. But my solution isnt popular among most people. That is reduce the power and wealth in govt. But that is for another thread.
 

werepossum

Elite Member
Jul 10, 2006
29,873
463
126
Very well said.

I am regrettably a member of the TAA, the UW-Madison teaching assistants' union. I make $1,600/month plus full benefits and full tuition remission for working 6-15 hours/week. I am shocked at how so many of my TA colleagues are totally disconnected from reality. This type of job is essentially non-existent in the private sector.

Back in 2007/08 when I got here, I encouraged our union leaders to make reasonable concessions like pay freezes, small increases to healthcare withholding, etc. simply so we could get a contract signed - the economic writing on the wall was very clear back then. It was obvious the economy was going to get worse before it got better. Instead, they chose to pursue such issues as mandatory lactation rooms for breastfeeding mothers and same sex domestic partner benefits, and refused to agree to any minor decreases in our take home pay. Now, we're facing the loss of our union, pay cuts, benefit cuts, and most importantly, loss of tuition remission. Then again I shouldn't be too surprised at the union's lack of vision, given that most of our union leadership is in their late 30s and haven't managed to earn their PhD in 15+ years.

I am well aware of how fortunate I am to have this job. No one - no one - talks about sacrifice when we go out to drink. They're too busy using their $500 iPhones and $100/month data plans to facebook about how much they care about K-12 teachers (but sorry, they're too busy to actually engage in community outreach or teacher education). Quite frankly, even the graduate school is filled with deadweights who don't produce and parasitize UW. Maybe Walker will get rid of them.

Don't even get me started on teachers' unions...
Kudos to you for seeing the big picture and not simply assuming that anything to your immediate benefit is the "right" thing to do. Smart and principled people like yourself are too rare.

One thing that strikes me is that the blue collar trade unions (meaning electrical, HVAC, etc.) tend to function completely differently from labor and white collar unions. (Well, except when they are working directly for government.)

Another thing that strikes me is that the unions are getting a raw deal in one respect. Both with government and with large corporations, management had little reason to deny unions excessive benefits and pay, the former because of tax money seeming unlimited and the latter because their competitors faced the same unions. Now that tax money has proven to be very limited and international competition is the norm, it seems likely that some part of those benefits and pay are going to have to be returned. For government employees in particular, there is absolutely no moral justification for them to receive higher pay and better benefits than the average worker being taxed to support them.
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
2,276
0
0
Why not, they are tax payers as well, are you saying that you are more important?

In reality, they are paying taxes on money that was taxed from the private sector and given to them. So in reality, they don't add income tax dollars to the pot, they recycle it.
 

SammyJr

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2008
1,708
0
0
My buddy works for a city near Sheyboygan and was whining to me last night they would only match 1:1 upto 6% on his pension lmao. Poor govt employee's. They put in 6% and the taxpayers match it for them for a total of 12% of their income being put away for retirement. I had to inform him my current 401K has me putting in 6% for a 1.5% match in the private sector.

Glad to see you're supporting the race to the bottom. When the public sector has 1.5% match, you'll be whining because your employer doesn't even offer a 401k match at all.
 

SammyJr

Golden Member
Feb 27, 2008
1,708
0
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I am well aware of how fortunate I am to have this job. No one - no one - talks about sacrifice when we go out to drink. They're too busy using their $500 iPhones and $100/month data plans to facebook about how much they care about K-12 teachers (but sorry, they're too busy to actually engage in community outreach or teacher education). Quite frankly, even the graduate school is filled with deadweights who don't produce and parasitize UW. Maybe Walker will get rid of them.

Don't even get me started on teachers' unions...

I'll worry about sacrifice when the rich guy has to sacrifice something. Until then, I'm going to act like a rich guy and take all I can get.
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
2,276
0
0
Glad to see you're supporting the race to the bottom. When the public sector has 1.5% match, you'll be whining because your employer doesn't even offer a 401k match at all.

And when a State has no money left to pay its debts, much less provide basic governmental services at current levels, you'll be whining because your taxes have to increase exponentially while quality of services continues to decline.

That's the race to the bottom. Sounds like you are cheering it on.
 
Feb 17, 2011
14
0
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Teachers aren't getting paid much at all. How much do they make a year? 22K? And you want to cut their pay?

Yesterday, 40% of the teachers in Madison county called in sick. That's not to mention the students that joined in the protests. Anyone supporting tax cuts for teachers are the people responsible for quality of education our next generation gets, which will be abysmal.

I don't see how students can get a quality education in this environment.
 

PeshakJang

Platinum Member
Mar 17, 2010
2,276
0
0
Teachers aren't getting paid much at all. How much do they make a year? 22K? And you want to cut their pay?

Average salary for metro areas in WI is about $50k. That's good money for WI, especially once you add in the benefits. As good or better than most private sector jobs you could find.

Yesterday, 40% of the teachers in Madison county called in sick. That's not to mention the students that joined in the protests. Anyone supporting tax cuts for teachers are the people responsible for quality of education our next generation gets, which will be abysmal.

I don't see how students can get a quality education in this environment.

Show me a study that ties quality of education directly to teacher salaries. I can find more than a few that show they are not dependent variables.