Public-sector unions: why must they exist?

[senseamp]

The profanity and name calling really drove the point home for me. Thanks.

 

[CitizenKain]

I really think you morons who promote public unions are fucking idiots. You put even more layers between everyone, you push the bottom further from the top. Bullshit. We do not need extra groups inside of our government. Retarded ass motherfuckers.

More intelligent insight from the teenage anarchist.

 

[zsdersw]

Like I said. Your theory is refuted by reality.

No it's not. The potential and the will to force the hand of public-sector employers is there... and won't go away until taxpayers are no longer held hostage to union demanded pay/benefit packages.

 

[micrometers]

What if there is only one hospital in a town? Should they be barred from negotiating prices as a group of physicians, and each doctor required to negotiate their own rate?

The issue is really the permanence of the hospital IMO. As in the hospital is providing services to the community through its physicians. The physicians ARE the hospital. They are not separate from it.

So any increase in wages to the physicians will show up in higher bills to the people that it services.

In the private sector, there is the counter-weight that if the hospital pays its workers too much money it will go out of business. But government has the ability to tax and it is a lot harder to choose a different government (basically you have to move) than choosing say, a different car.

 

[Throckmorton]

actually, there are multiple governments in municipalities that government workers can play off each other.

blah blah blah, pro-union rhetoric is often downright Soviet in how it depicts the evils of supply and demand. They really are no different from the cartels of old, and IMO far LESS justified than economic cartels.

That's a free market utopian dream. People are lucky to have a job in this economy, and even when there are labor shortages... government can't adjust salaries to attract workers. Salaries are fixed in the public sector.


There's a job in Killeen, TX that I could do, and I wouldn't mind living there. But it pays $14/hr. They've been posting and reposting it for months now, because no one qualified is desperate enough to even apply for it. All that means is that it will stay unfilled... until someone comes along who is desperate enough.

 

[Londo_Jowo]

There's a job in Killeen, TX that I could do, and I wouldn't mind living there. But it pays $14/hr. They've been posting and reposting it for months now, because no one qualified is desperate enough to even apply for it. All that means is that it will stay unfilled... until someone comes along who is desperate enough.

I guess it's not a critical job, we pay our maintenance staff and junior mechanics from $16/hr - $20/hr.

 

[DCal430]

The federal government might pay good wages.

Local governments do not have the luxury of endless taxation to pay good wages.

Over 90 percent of federal employees have no collective barganing rights.

 

[senseamp]

The issue is really the permanence of the hospital IMO. As in the hospital is providing services to the community through its physicians. The physicians ARE the hospital. They are not separate from it.

So any increase in wages to the physicians will show up in higher bills to the people that it services.

In the private sector, there is the counter-weight that if the hospital pays its workers too much money it will go out of business. But government has the ability to tax and it is a lot harder to choose a different government (basically you have to move) than choosing say, a different car.

There is still a counterweight though. You can vote the politicians who raise your taxes out. They can privatize government services, etc.

 

[halik]

More intelligent insight from the teenage anarchist.

I LOLd

Up there with the TexasHiker fallacies and nonsense.

 

[Infohawk]

Actually, I think it does matter. Private businesses and companies are not funded by taxpayers.

That is key along with the fact that government isn't a for-profit enterprise. Most of what the US government does is in the public interest, they don't have the same incentive to fuck workers over. There's no reason any group of people needs to bargain with "we the people."

 

[Throckmorton]

That is key along with the fact that government isn't a for-profit enterprise. Most of what the US government does is in the public interest, they don't have the same incentive to fuck workers over. There's no reason any group of people needs to bargain with "we the people."

Of course there's an incentive to fuck workers over... To "reduce government spending" and "save taxpayer money".

 

[Sinsear]

One of my co-workers recently wrote one of the majority party representatives in our jurisdiction a traffic summons. There was an attempt made to have him removed from patrol duties and transferred. Luckily there was a union to quash that nonsense. The union also keeps work rules intact. The same majority party thinks that there should be no night differential, overtime should be paid as straight time, and no required minimum number of officers on the street (which endangers everyone).

They keep the politicians from running the work place according to whichever talking point is the hot topic for the day. Politicians can vote on a contract, not arbitrarily make shit up as they go along because that is what you would have.

 

[Ausm]

I already did... and it refutes nothing. Unions remain more of an obstacle than an aid to the financial health of public-sector employers (federal and state/local). What they concede during one contract negotiation they'll just ask for (and likely get) the next time around, whether or not the employer has the funds or whether or not it requires the employer to raise additional revenues.

Then you obviously didn't read it then...color me surprised.

 

[Ausm]

No it's not. The potential and the will to force the hand of public-sector employers is there... and won't go away until taxpayers are no longer held hostage to union demanded pay/benefit packages.

Held hostage and you call me a shill????? LMAO

 

[zsdersw]

Then you obviously didn't read it then...color me surprised.

You've presented nothing that eliminates any need for concern.

 

[zsdersw]

Held hostage and you call me a shill????? LMAO

Yes. You're a Democratic shill. You've rarely, if ever, been critical of Democrats or the Democratic party and their decisions. Every thread you make bashes or is critical of conservatives in general and Republicans in particular.

If that's not being a shill, nothing is.

 

[notposting]

I am a union member in the private sector, and I don't entirely endorse public-sector unions either. We have to compete our balls off and make ourselves far more worthwhile than the non-union sector. Not really sure that exists in the public-sector. Government is a service of the state, and should be run efficiently (ahahahaha!). Then again my mom is a union member at a university and even with a union backing her she is going through ridiculous twists and turns right now with her loony boss.

Slightly OT: "right-to-work" is a bunch of horseshit as well. May as well be honest and call it "right-to-freeload". Then again with America going the way it is that would pass in a heartbeat.