Public Sector Unions

[Region Rat]

i think its fair to suggest that if workers feel that they are treated fairly and appropriately, they will not feel the need to join a union.

True. The manufacturing company I work at has been in business for right at 30 years now. 1000 employees, of which about 800 are hourly. We are in a right to work state. Unions have taken runs at the work force every few years. Mostly the UAW and United Steel Workers. No small potatoes there. They are run off every time.

We are a much more productive and lower cost producer than sister plants in union states.

Profit sharing checks are going to be deposited tomorrow. It's going to be a record haul this year, thanks to the dedicated workforce.

 

[Thunder]

Profit sharing checks are going to be deposited tomorrow. It's going to be a record haul this year, thanks to the dedicated workforce.

its great to hear about employers who respect and value their workers. sounds like a success story.

if more companies were like this now, and especially in the past, Union would have never existed.

Unhappy employees make Unions viable & attractive. its that simple.

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

Unhappy employees make Unions viable & attractive. its that simple.

Why then do we make them mandatory in the public sector? Wouldn't they show up on their own if people were unhappy enough?

 

[Howie Felterbush]

Until they make it illegal for bosses to be bullies, insulting, and abusive and able to fire you at a whim, I think there will still be a need for unions.

I'm still not sure where this idea comes from. I think it must have come from the same incorrect idea generator that produced the "if Unions are gone taxes will go down" idea.

At my job, firing someone is a long, tedious process that involves more paperwork than anything else. All misdeeds have to be documented, write-ups have to be written up, warning have to be handed out, etc. I have seen it take months to fire someone that should have been fired before they were even hired, due to chronic uselessness. (This doesn't include firings for things like theft or shooting people in the lunchroom while you're on break, of course.)

 

[geni]

Why then do we make them mandatory in the public sector? Wouldn't they show up on their own if people were unhappy enough?

Closed shops? Well apart from anything else goverments don't like doing contract negotations more than once.

It can be somewhat annoying if say the ATL accept a deal the NASUWT stall the the NUT outright reject it. Of course that is exactly how teaching unions can work in the UK (in reality it can be more complicated due to various other unions such as NAHT).

 

[Thunder]

Why then do we make them mandatory in the public sector? Wouldn't they show up on their own if people were unhappy enough?

you speak as though there is some massive conspiracy among all municipalities throughout the United States to have Unionized workers.

for some reason, most if not all municipal workers throughout the USA have demanded the right to be unionized, and for some reason, most if not all munipalities agreed with the idea.

how many municipalities are there in the USA? hundreds of thousands?

 

[Region Rat]

I'm still not sure where this idea comes from. I think it must have come from the same incorrect idea generator that produced the "if Unions are gone taxes will go down" idea.

At my job, firing someone is a long, tedious process that involves more paperwork than anything else. All misdeeds have to be documented, write-ups have to be written up, warning have to be handed out, etc. I have seen it take months to fire someone that should have been fired before they were even hired, due to chronic uselessness. (This doesn't include firings for things like theft or shooting people in the lunchroom while you're on break, of course.)

Same at my company. It is very hard to build a case to fire someone, unless it is a very obvious safety or policy violation (fail drug test, falsify timesheets, etc).

 

[deepatrax]

AFL-CIO President talks to the White House every day...goes to the White House a couple of times a week:

 

[WildCat]

From a Chicago Tribune editorial today:

The providers, whom Illinois chronically stiffs by paying them late, think Quinn's stirring call for "sacrifices" is at odds with deep cuts to human services in his proposed budget for the fiscal year that starts July 1. But those cuts — and word last Friday from Quinn's office that some severe funding reductions actually will begin March 15 — are only symptoms of the real problem here: Quinn defines "Everybody in, nobody left out" in a way that excludes the labor union allies whose money and muscle arguably got him elected Nov. 2.

It's as if the governor is determined to keep proving, and proving, a point we made Oct. 10: Pat Quinn is relentlessly starving clout-poor social services so he can protect the jobs and benefits of his union supporters. Shame on Quinn, and on all of us in whose name he perpetrates this raw injustice.

...Notice the pattern here? Taxpayers send more money to Quinn's administration. Service providers don't get paid on time and now, it appears, will have to make do with less. Yet one crucial group all but escapes any sacrifice at all.

We say "all but escapes" because AFSCME did agree to delays in some of the many raises its members are receiving during their current contract with the state. The union and the governor, whose office provided the numbers below, have been congratulating themselves for temporarily delaying raises. Delayed raises? That's a "sacrifice" for which hordes of private-sector Illinoisans would stampede to volunteer.

These AFSCME raises compound to total pay hikes north of 17 percent during the same years when many Illinois taxpayers — that is, the lucky ones who still have jobs — are seeing their own wages and benefits frozen or starkly curtailed

We're cutting services to the poor, elderly, and sick while public unions get raises and job guarantees. Once again, this cartoon hits it on the head...

 

[Malerin]

I had a management professor in college whose mantra was "bad management creates labor unions".

I think in private industry management is greatly improved, and many of the practices that encouraged formation of labor unions are illegal now. Thus, it's no surprise that union membership in the private sector has declined.

But as Carlitos has pointed out, a whole different dynamic is at play in the public sector.

Spot on.

 

[Malerin]

From a Chicago Tribune editorial today:


We're cutting services to the poor, elderly, and sick while public unions get raises and job guarantees. Once again, this cartoon hits it on the head...

[qimg]http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/union_pig.gif[/qimg]

And now you lost me. I've run a small teacher's union for the last two years. We lost 20% of our teachers in 08-09. We haven't seen a raise or COLA in three years, and don't expect to see one for quite awhile. This year our health care costs went up 12%. I still have people who were laid off in 2008 that are hurting bad and are substitute teaching to make ends meet.

Peace officers, however, are a bunch of greedy ******** who make $100K+ and can retire with 90% pensions when they turn 55. At least in California.

 

[WildCat]

And now you lost me. I've run a small teacher's union for the last two years. We lost 20% of our teachers in 08-09. We haven't seen a raise or COLA in three years, and don't expect to see one for quite awhile. This year our health care costs went up 12%. I still have people who were laid off in 2008 that are hurting bad and are substitute teaching to make ends meet.

But teachers work for the municipality/township/whatever you have there, not the state.

Peace officers, however, are a bunch of greedy ******** who make $100K+ and can retire with 90% pensions when they turn 55. At least in California.

Tell me abouit it... Drew Peterson is still collecting a $60,000 pension even though he's in jail awaiting murder charges. Chicago police torturer Jon Burge still collects over $3,000/month despite finally being convicted and sentenced to 4 years in prison for lying about the torture to a grand jury. The police board ruled that the conviction was unrelated to his job...

 

[Emperor_Gestahl]

for some reason, most if not all municipal workers throughout the USA have demanded the right to be unionized, and for some reason, most if not all munipalities agreed with the idea.

For the state to run it's bureaucracies as closed shops for openly political organizations just doesn't sit well. Amounts to government sponsorship of a political party and opens up interest conflicts. Now if you could opt out of paying the PACs with no loss of other benefits that would be another matter..

 

[pipelineaudio]

I never had a problem in right to work states, but here you MUST be in the union to have many of the public sector jobs. Simply having a democrat in power doesnt mean that the police and firemen in the unions dont get the shaft when the teachers unions wield the big stick as we just found out

 

[Leif Roar]

[*]Unions are far over-represented in public sector (37% of all members).

Are you sure that's an over-representation and not just an effect of unions being more important in areas where there is limited competition for the same workforce?

 

[C_Felix]

I see the right to collectively negotiate as part of the Freedom of Association, specified in the 1st Amendment. But ofcourse, that would also mean workers have the right to NOT associate, meaning not be forced to pay Union dues. I got no problem with that.

But if you don't pay Union dues you should not get any Union benefits, including negotiated raises, vacation time, sick leave, grievance rights, etc. You would have to negotiate your own individual contract with your employer.

....I wonder how many workers would be willing to give up ALL of their negotiated Union rights, just for a few extra bucks in their pay check.

What about "petition the government for a redress of grievances"?

Can an argument be made for that?
"We're getting screwed over b/c of this, that and possibly this other thing that is/are related to our employment. Since we are gov't employees, we'd like to envoke our 1st amendment rights..."

 

[Kestrel]

From a Chicago Tribune editorial today:


We're cutting services to the poor, elderly, and sick while public unions get raises and job guarantees. Once again, this cartoon hits it on the head...

[qimg]http://home.mindspring.com/~a.lo/union_pig.gif[/qimg]

Portraying middle class union workers as "greedy pigs" just shows how disconnected the American right wing is from reality.

 

[stokes234]

Portraying middle class union workers as "greedy pigs" just shows how disconnected the American right wing is from reality.

Glenn Beck earns apparently around $20 million a year. I wonder how many union workers and executives are earning that.

 

[Kestrel]

And now you lost me. I've run a small teacher's union for the last two years. We lost 20% of our teachers in 08-09. We haven't seen a raise or COLA in three years, and don't expect to see one for quite awhile. This year our health care costs went up 12%. I still have people who were laid off in 2008 that are hurting bad and are substitute teaching to make ends meet.

I hear lots of people bitch about how the greedy teachers unions have ruined the public schools in their town. Many of them live in towns that don't have a teachers union.

The rants are not based on reality. It's just people repeating the propaganda from Rush Limbaugh and other right wing pundits.

 

[carlitos]

Portraying middle class union workers as "greedy pigs" just shows how disconnected the American right wing is from reality.

Glenn Beck earns apparently around $20 million a year. I wonder how many union workers and executives are earning that.

Thanks for thoughtful responses.

Are you sure that's an over-representation and not just an effect of unions being more important in areas where there is limited competition for the same workforce?

As I noted above, it's over-representation in the sense that they are around 6 times as likely to be unionized as the public sector.

The limited competition thing is interesting though. In major urban areas, there are residency requirements for law enforcement and fire jobs. The only 'competition' is from the suburbs, but that's pretty significant competition. Those suburban jobs might be desirable, even if they don't pay what the big city does.

Is your logic that there is a pool of qualified employees - let's say teachers. There is limited competition among schools for this pool of teachers, thus no need to over-compensate them. Therefore, the teachers unionize to negotiate collectively? I think that I follow, but even so, each deal is only with one school district. Seems that the other districts would eventually compete for the teaching resources, driving up demand? Not sure.