France allows unions to hold its economy and government hostage.

[poweRob]

This is public sector, so if you're saying democratically-elected government leaders are "****ty management," then the way that changes is the people democratically elect new leaders that operate things differently.

The city, the county, the state the fed... There are very few elected officials compared to unelected management and unelected workers. You didnt vote for the entire structure of your local public works department. You didnt elect every cop or any other department's working infrastructure. Laying it on elected officials as being the only management in government is very ignorant of any government's real structure.

 

[Craig234]

If I say hospital employees should not be able to cut off access to hospitals over their labor demands, does that mean I am ****ting on unions?

Can you show us where you have expressed concern for the workers to get decent wages, recognized the need for them to have power to get them, and suggested how they should be able to have leverage for better wages? If ALL you do is talk about the need to prevent strikes, then yes, that's kind of just crapping on unions, even if the point you're making is agreed to.

 

[poweRob]

If I say hospital employees should not be able to cut off access to hospitals over their labor demands, does that mean I am ****ting on unions?

Would you support police unions being able to refuse to enforce the law until their labor desires are met? If not, then do you admit you are ****ting on them?

You are basically in here saying there should be no public sector unions if not saying there should be no unions at all.

Local government is often a cesspool of nepotism where unqualified and incompetent cousins, nieces, sons, and daughters land high paying, powerful positions. Unions fight that **** from within. Because the managerial authority can often turn out to be family protecting one another at everyone else's expense.

 

[Deuce]

wonderful

what have they done in the last 60 so odd years other than destroy most of the american manufacturing base?

they were great and needed in the early 1900's thru maybe the 1940-50's

after that, they have become a blight...a cancer...problems

take a look at the California public employees union and the issues it has caused....

300k a year sherriffs? 250k town bookkeepers? the fraud and abuse is so rampant it is ludicrious

if i still lived out there, i would petition the governor to have every one of those contracts voided and renegotiated

and fire everyone who wont do it.....the schools arent much better....utter thievery

Greatest trick the owner class ever pulled was convincing you people that the unions are against you and that the "job creators" are for you.

 

[poweRob]

wonderful

what have they done in the last 60 so odd years other than destroy most of the american manufacturing base?

they were great and needed in the early 1900's thru maybe the 1940-50's

after that, they have become a blight...a cancer...problems

take a look at the California public employees union and the issues it has caused....

300k a year sherriffs? 250k town bookkeepers? the fraud and abuse is so rampant it is ludicrious

if i still lived out there, i would petition the governor to have every one of those contracts voided and renegotiated

and fire everyone who wont do it.....the schools arent much better....utter thievery

And all of those angry unsourced examples are directly Union's fault huh?

 

[SenorXm/Sirius]

Greatest trick the owner class ever pulled was convincing you people that the unions are against you and that the "job creators" are for you.

Up and down the line the Republican base has constantly voted against their own interests.

This is just another example of it. The rich, the owner class not only votes for their own interests, they spend millions 'buying' through lobbying their interests. But the 'poorly educated' Republican middle class cares more about gays marrying than they do their wallets and kids future.

And the rich just keep laughing their asses off all the way to their banks.

 

[gdgyva]

And all of those angry unsourced examples are directly Union's fault huh?

very easy to find the ABUSES in the system

Number of pensioned public retirees in California’s $100K Club skyrockets – Chico Enterprise-Record

SACRAMENTO — Back in 2005 — when Disneyland turned 50, George W. Bush began his second term in the White House and Microsoft released the Xbox 360 — a mere 1,841 people collected pensions exceeding $100,000 a year in the massive California Public Employees Retirement System.

By 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated and Chesley Sullenberger landed an airliner on the Hudson River, this so-called $100K Club had more than tripled, to 6,133 retired workers.

In 2013, when Nelson Mandela died and Prince George was born, membership had nearly tripled again, to 16,838.

And in 2018, the number of public retirees collecting pensions of at least $100,000 a year skyrocketed to more than 26,000, according to an analysis of CalPERS data by the Southern California News Group.

Heading the group was a Santa Clara County attorney who received $935,028 in 2018 thanks to lump-sum payouts, CalPERS said.

Big pension payouts are a function of generous retirement formulas approved by city councils, school boards, county boards of supervisors and the state in the halcyon days after 1999, when retirement systems were “super-funded,” governments halted payments, and actuaries said sweetened benefits would cost next to nothing because earnings on investments would essentially pay for them.

Former Democratic Assemblyman Joe Nation, now a professor at Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, examined 14 public agencies and found that their average annual pension payments grew a stunning 400 percent from 2003 to 2018, while their operating expenditures grew only 46 percent.

and is any union offering to renegotiate these?

Under official, optimistic return assumptions, total public pension debt in California stands at $285 billion, or $21,846 per household. When Nation assumes far lower returns, that debt surges beyond $1 trillion, or $78,334 per household.

did they cause it all? no....should they help clean it up?

 

[poweRob]

very easy to find the ABUSES in the system

Number of pensioned public retirees in California’s $100K Club skyrockets – Chico Enterprise-Record

SACRAMENTO — Back in 2005 — when Disneyland turned 50, George W. Bush began his second term in the White House and Microsoft released the Xbox 360 — a mere 1,841 people collected pensions exceeding $100,000 a year in the massive California Public Employees Retirement System.

By 2009, when Barack Obama was inaugurated and Chesley Sullenberger landed an airliner on the Hudson River, this so-called $100K Club had more than tripled, to 6,133 retired workers.

In 2013, when Nelson Mandela died and Prince George was born, membership had nearly tripled again, to 16,838.

And in 2018, the number of public retirees collecting pensions of at least $100,000 a year skyrocketed to more than 26,000, according to an analysis of CalPERS data by the Southern California News Group.

Heading the group was a Santa Clara County attorney who received $935,028 in 2018 thanks to lump-sum payouts, CalPERS said.

Big pension payouts are a function of generous retirement formulas approved by city councils, school boards, county boards of supervisors and the state in the halcyon days after 1999, when retirement systems were “super-funded,” governments halted payments, and actuaries said sweetened benefits would cost next to nothing because earnings on investments would essentially pay for them.

Former Democratic Assemblyman Joe Nation, now a professor at Stanford University’s Institute for Economic Policy Research, examined 14 public agencies and found that their average annual pension payments grew a stunning 400 percent from 2003 to 2018, while their operating expenditures grew only 46 percent.

and is any union offering to renegotiate these?

Under official, optimistic return assumptions, total public pension debt in California stands at $285 billion, or $21,846 per household. When Nation assumes far lower returns, that debt surges beyond $1 trillion, or $78,334 per household.

did they cause it all? no....should they help clean it up?

That's nice. Where in there are unions responsible for any of that? I did see where non-union elected officials approved these things.

California state law...

The lawsuit is a test of the legal precedent known as the California Rule, which bars government agencies from reducing promised retirement benefits without offering some kind of new compensation.​

Link

Its not a matter of renegotiating a contract. Its a matter of the law.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Can you show us where you have expressed concern for the workers to get decent wages, recognized the need for them to have power to get them, and suggested how they should be able to have leverage for better wages?

There are oodles of employees who are not in unions who make decent wages. How do they do it? 94% of private sector workers aren't in unions. Not all of them make slave wages. Plenty make okay money. How do they do it? How is it possible?

I was accused of ****ting on unions. Do you think unions should be able to cut off the public's access to hospital when they have a labor dispute? I've asked the question repeatedly and it's been completely avoided, by both you and powerob.

 

[Neomalthusian]

Up and down the line the Republican base has constantly voted against their own interests.

This is just another example of it. The rich, the owner class not only votes for their own interests, they spend millions 'buying' through lobbying their interests. But the 'poorly educated' Republican middle class cares more about gays marrying than they do their wallets and kids future.

And the rich just keep laughing their asses off all the way to their banks.

Greatest trick the owner class ever pulled was convincing you people that the unions are against you and that the "job creators" are for you.

More prattling on about "the rich" and "owner class" and all that tripe. This topic concerns PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS. Do you guys not know what that means?

 

[Neomalthusian]

Ultimately, there is a tension even between the workers and the voters, where the voters would like to pay as little as possible, and to have a functioning system with some fairness for workers, more is needed than simply 'give all power to voters and zero to workers'. That results in either slave labor or the lack of an adequate workforce.

Now you're trying to seamlessly substitute the voting public for those greedy billionaire CEOs who want to enslave and abuse and torment all workers. You're part of the voting public and you don't want slave-wage-paid inadequate public sector workers. I don't want the people teaching my children paid slave wages. I don't want people fixing public utility infrastructure in my city to be incompetent minimum wage earners. It's not remotely convincing to allege voters want to abuse public employees and cut their pay to the bone.

But even if they did, they'd soon become frustrated with their inadequate public employees and would vote in new leaders who propose better operating strategies. And that's exactly what happens in non-union private sector places of employment. Depending on skill and expertise, private sector pay is plenty often adequate. Not always, but plenty often. How is this possible? Because customers demand adequate work at a minimum, sometimes they demand expert level work, and experts aren't willing to work for peanuts. That's how pay in many cases in both the public and private sector is adequate even in the absence of a union.

If you want a system in which some private organization or interest group can literally trump the power of the democratically-elected government itself, you don't believe in representative democracy.

 

[Craig234]

Now you're trying to seamlessly substitute the voting public for those greedy billionaire CEOs who want to enslave and abuse and torment all workers. You're part of the voting public and you don't want slave-wage-paid inadequate public sector workers. I don't want the people teaching my children paid slave wages. I don't want people fixing public utility infrastructure in my city to be incompetent minimum wage earners. It's not remotely convincing to allege voters want to abuse public employees and cut their pay to the bone.

But even if they did, they'd soon become frustrated with their inadequate public employees and would vote in new leaders who propose better operating strategies. And that's exactly what happens in non-union private sector places of employment. Depending on skill and expertise, private sector pay is plenty often adequate. Not always, but plenty often. How is this possible? Because customers demand adequate work at a minimum, sometimes they demand expert level work, and experts aren't willing to work for peanuts. That's how pay in many cases in both the public and private sector is adequate even in the absence of a union.

If you want a system in which some private organization or interest group can literally trump the power of the democratically-elected government itself, you don't believe in representative democracy.

All kinds of voters want lower taxes and public workers paid as little as possible. Government officials have an interest in paying them as little as possible, to either cut taxes or fund other programs. Workers need some power, and the 'free market' isn't always adequate, as we've seen since the gilded age.

 

[Craig234]

Can you show us where you have expressed concern for the workers to get decent wages, recognized the need for them to have power to get them, and suggested how they should be able to have leverage for better wages? If ALL you do is talk about the need to prevent strikes, then yes, that's kind of just crapping on unions, even if the point you're making is agreed to.

He responded, and the answer is "no".

 

[Neomalthusian]

All kinds of voters want lower taxes and public workers paid as little as possible.

No doubt, but a lot of them are also offset by voters like you who think the opposite.

Government officials have an interest in paying them as little as possible, to either cut taxes or fund other programs.

They don't have the sort of "interest" in doing that the way that competitive private businesses that are vying for price-sensitive customers do. There are several layers of separation between those voters who want government to endlessly cut its budget and the actual workers doing the work. Ruthless cost-cutters have a hard time succeeding in government management, because ruthless cost-cutting leads to significant difficulty accomplishing even the most basic objectives, while the penalty for allowing cost growth is delivered extremely slowly. A lot of government managers plead desperately for maximum budget dollars going into their department, and it's up to executive administrators and elected legislators to show some restraint.

Workers need some power, and the 'free market' isn't always adequate, as we've seen since the gilded age.

We're talking about the public sector (I have to remind pro-union people of this literally every time I post). The free market doesn't determine governmental sector wages. The democratically elected legislative body determines it. This body also determines what labor related regulations it will pass, and it determines whether or not it's willing to ratify or fund a collective bargaining agreement. Government workers will never have trump power over the democratically elected legislative body. If they ever do, it's because that legislative body willfully abdicated it to them.

 

[Craig234]

They don't have the sort of "interest" in doing that the way that competitive private businesses that are vying for price-sensitive customers do.

Of course they do - and many are a lot worse. Business owners at least want their businesses to function - many politicians are against whole parts of the government even operating. You think the scientific division of the USDA that was wiped out when trump moved them to Kansas could have used some union protection?

Ruthless cost-cutters have a hard time succeeding in government management, because ruthless cost-cutting leads to significant difficulty accomplishing even the most basic objectives, while the penalty for allowing cost growth is delivered extremely slowly.

Wrong - a lot of them only care about one thing, freeing dollars that can go to the wealthiest in society, and they don't give a crap about any harm to the function of government. Occasionally it can bite them - look at the result when Republicans cut costs on the water system in Flint. Right now trump is cutting food aid for $750,000, you think they care about government functioning on that?

 

[Paradoxical]

wonderful

what have they done in the last 60 so odd years other than destroy most of the american manufacturing base?

they were great and needed in the early 1900's thru maybe the 1940-50's

after that, they have become a blight...a cancer...problems

take a look at the California public employees union and the issues it has caused....

300k a year sherriffs? 250k town bookkeepers? the fraud and abuse is so rampant it is ludicrious

if i still lived out there, i would petition the governor to have every one of those contracts voided and renegotiated

and fire everyone who wont do it.....the schools arent much better....utter thievery

I live here. It is a mess. Public employees are royalties. Teachers make 90k a year. Moving in about two years.

 

[Manc Skipper]

Back to France. There comes a point where the proletariat says No more!

Joshua Potash on Twitter: "Unbelievable.

Millions of French workers are on strike today.

This is Toulouse

https://t.co/xCQRykjjge"

 

[3leftsdoo]

Unions = Still a cancer

 

[FinnFox]

Unions = Still a cancer

Nope.

Here unions are doing good job, like increasing wages. Last Post Strike ended up in crazy way, our prime minister (Antti Rinne) resigned. Messed up negotiation process with unions and final reasonable move from government was get rid of prime minister - glorious end :lol:

 

[snakestretcher]

wonderful

what have they done in the last 60 so odd years other than destroy most of the american manufacturing base?

they were great and needed in the early 1900's thru maybe the 1940-50's

after that, they have become a blight...a cancer...problems

take a look at the California public employees union and the issues it has caused....

300k a year sherriffs? 250k town bookkeepers? the fraud and abuse is so rampant it is ludicrious

if i still lived out there, i would petition the governor to have every one of those contracts voided and renegotiated

and fire everyone who wont do it.....the schools arent much better....utter thievery

Your manufacturing base went to China. People like cheap stuff and businesses like big profit margins.

 

[snakestretcher]

Unions = Still a cancer

Would you prefer slave wages? Because if it were not for unions keeping bosses in check, they would pay you as little as they thought they could get away with. Why do you think trades unions were formed in the first place? Yes, there have been historical abuses by unions, but on the whole they do a good job and keep people in work earning a decent day's pay.

 

[SenorXm/Sirius]

More prattling on about "the rich" and "owner class" and all that tripe. This topic concerns PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS. Do you guys not know what that means?

Actually the post below is what I was replying to, it said the unions destroyed MANUFACTURING in the US. MANUFACTURING has nothing to do with public unions.

gdgyva said:

what have they done in the last 60 so odd years other than destroy most of the american manufacturing base?

 

[Neomalthusian]

Of course they do - and many are a lot worse. Business owners at least want their businesses to function - many politicians are against whole parts of the government even operating. You think the scientific division of the USDA that was wiped out when trump moved them to Kansas could have used some union protection?

There can't really be protection from a democratically elected government itself by private special interests holding coercive powers and trump cards over the government itself. The people get the government they vote in. The only conceivable protection against a bad democratically elected government is 1) the constitution hopefully being enforced by the courts and 2) the ability of the people to vote in new leaders. We can't look to private special interests to wield more power than the government itself in order to protect against perceived "bad government managers."

Wrong - a lot of them only care about one thing, freeing dollars that can go to the wealthiest in society

This is baseless garbage rhetoric intended to maximize people's sense that they're being attacked and defrauded at all times.

Whenever I put union faithful on their heels about this stuff, everyone except unions becomes a villain that wants to abuse and enslave workers. The voting public, the government itself, elected legislatures, salaried middle managers. No one is safe, every worker is a victim that needs protection, and only unions can provide that protection.

There is no intelligent reason to be so unconditionally pro-union as you are. At least one union is teaming up with pharmaceutical giants to oppose drug price controls. The AFL-CIO (largest conglomeration of labor unions in the country) paid attorneys big money to file an amicus brief with the Supreme Court in favor of Citizens United, and then a mere year later, the AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka said "The system is broken. The Supreme Court helped break it even more with Citizens United." And then a year after that he was gloating about what unions can do thanks to Citizens United, stating "We do a grassroots program and this time our program will be better, more effective. This time we get to talk to non-union workers instead of just union workers. It's another little disadvantage, and this is the first election cycle we get to use it!" Then a couple years after that he's bemoaning it again, blaming the Supreme Court for a decision his union quietly championed: "Since the Supreme Court’s devastating Citizens United decision, corporate dark money has flooded our elections and made our American politics even less fair for working people." And despite whining about "dark money" just there, note that the AFL-CIO opposed the Disclose Act which would have addressed this dark money in politics problem.

These guys are as corrupt and deceitful as it gets. They might provide some valued services to some, such as their card-carrying members and political allies, but in no way are all labor unions in general deserving of anyone's unconditional, unwavering support.

 

[3leftsdoo]

Would you prefer slave wages? Because if it were not for unions keeping bosses in check, they would pay you as little as they thought they could get away with. Why do you think trades unions were formed in the first place? Yes, there have been historical abuses by unions, but on the whole they do a good job and keep people in work earning a decent day's pay.

I would prefer no unions; they're a cancer.

 

[Snoopysvet]

Public Sector Unions
YESTERDAY - The government employees work for the people
TODAY - The people work for the government employees