Posted on 03/17/2011 5:19:53 PM PDT by JohnRLott
Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker has finally won his first battle with public employee unions. But the fight against excessive union rights now moves to Idaho, Indiana, Michigan, New Hampshire, Ohio, and Tennessee.
Of course, union leaders are upset, with AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka recently telling PBS’s "News Hour": “This is about [Gov. Scott Walker] trying to take away the rights of workers to come together to bargain . . . .”
But in fact, Governor Walker’s budget will help the vast majority of workers in the state. Mr. Trumka naturally wants to make it appear that he is fighting for workers generally, but that is not the case. He is just fighting for some workers, but he is hurting other workers -- other union workers who are laid off because the state cannot afford them or other workers who are forced to pay higher taxes.
Unions are harmful because they act as monopolies. If the union members won’t work, the law makes it extremely difficult for anyone else to step in and do their jobs. As a result, union workers have little competition -- so they can demand higher wages and do less work. . . .
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Since Lott lives in Pa., this is worth a Pa. ping
“Unions help ship a lot of would be American jobs overseas.”
That would be an understatement. Unions have done more harm than good to our economy. The exorbitant wages and benefit packages they demand and receive set the tone for the overpricing of just about everything in this country from cars to housing.
There may have been a time unions were needed, but those days have been gone a long time. If we banned all unions tomorrow, employers, public and private, would still need to offer a pay/benefits package sufficient to hire qualified workers. Grandiose Packages? Probably not.
Yes, great harm to the economy and to the workers. We need to return to the good ole days, when the peasants were paid peasant wages and were content to worked in squalid conditions and were fired when a detached arm gummed up the machinery.
The deliberate blurring of the lines in Wisconsin between public employee unions and private-sector unions is disgraceful; the average union or non-union worker is being crushed by the costs of public service unions (and if nothing else changes this will accelerate as the cost of their out-of-this-world retirement packages kick in). A nearby town had a police chief retire, and they had to strike a deal where his package (NOT PENSION) would be paid out over 3 years (mostly accumulated unused vacation) - it was over $300K! This was in a wealthy town with low crime and sky-high taxes; who will move into these areas that have HUGE liabilities on their books for years going forward? I remember the anger by the California government when the scale of their crisis was broadcast; they realized that any corporation or individual with common sense would NOT be moving there, to take up their share of the public debt/misery. The same is taking shape in NYC/NJ; buying a home here just adds you to a pool of victims to be sucked dry for “services” performed by people twenty years ago. Potholes can’t be fixed now because of the retirement costs of the guy who fixed them years ago; the school suck because of the expenses incurred operating them years ago. Most people and companies are simply looking for a true “fresh” start; I guess it can be compared to the American car-makers (with their retiree costs strangling them) trying to compete with foreign auto companies without that union legacy dragging them down.
That is the truth. At a unionized factory I worked at the workers were making about $28/hr and the company needed to reduce the cost of labor. That is a lot of money for factory work in Tennessee. So the company presented them with a plan where new employees would be paid $13/hr for the first three years of employment. This was just before the economy started to slow in early 2008. As the full recession hit, layoffs began with the newest and lowest paid workers getting the ax first. This caused the average cost per unit of the product to go up, making the plant even less competitive.
At this point, the plant I worked at had the highest cost per unit in the entire company. Eventually the recession got so bad that they had to lay off nearly 2/3 of the hourly employees and a large portion of the salaried employees. Now after two years, even the most senior employees who were laid off cannot come back and retain their seniority.
I know of quite a few people who have now realized that jobs that pay $60,000 for unskilled labor are few and far between.
P.S. I got the ax, too, but I was given two months notice to look for a job and was made an offer the day after I got my pink slip.
What’s so wrong with free people working for freely negotiated wages, and free employers hiring who they choose? Seems like a workable system. People that don’t like their situation are completely free to do something else.
The biggest problem with public-sector unions is the built-in conflict of interest. In the private sector, the employer and the union reps sit across the table and negotiate. The employer pays the wages, and they get a seat at the table.
In the public sector the only people at the table are the union... and they’re negotiating with politicians... who are beholden to the unions first and need their support. The people paying the wages— the taxpayers— are not at the table. It’s a recipe for corruption and fleecing of the taxpayers.
In all the Wisconsin coverage I have never seen these basic facts regarding unions’ effect on the economy:
1. We all get wealthier through productivity increases.
2. Unions restrict productivity.
Can it be any simpler? Unions act as though they own the jobs, not the owners, or, in the case of public unions, the taxpayers. All that propaganda about unions creating the middle class is pure crap. When successful the unions reduce output and productivity below where it otherwise would have been. Like all good socialists, union supporters believe the economy is a zero sum game and they can only gain by taking it away from someone else. Public union membership is an increasing percentage of total membership simply because most government jobs can’t be shipped overseas (where the industrial unions - along with their enviro wacko political allies) have driven manufacturing jobs by raising costs to uncompetitive levels.
Solutions that exist without Union costs:
1) Social Security
2) lawsuits
3) workplace safety rules (OSHA)
4) ...
Assuming victory in Wisconsin is premature. Legal suits are exploding everywhere, the dem. sec. of state apparently has veto power until the 25th giving the complainants extra time to find one of the numerous liberal judges required to negate the bill.
Oh, wait, it IS 2011, where cops make 300K per year with overtime, and "retire" at 52 making 100K per year and living like the fattest kings of Europe couldn't even conceive. ALL on the taxpayer's dime. But at least they "gave" us the weekend. Oh, wait,that was Henry Ford. (Greedy bastard). Well, the city manager of Bell, California CERTAINLY deserves to make TWICE what the President makes. After all he is a "workin' man" just like the President. I mean being President of the United States is only half as stressful as some "workin' man" sitting on his ass 3 hours a day.
Good Post!
Public servants should never be unionized, it is unconstitutional, and even more so, they should honor a non-strike clause!
It is forcing Cities and States to contract out all services! And maybe it is the way it should be!
The best way to get a better job, is to do a better job!
LOL, what nonsense!! Just as employees are free to quit and find new jobs for ANY reason so should employers be free to dismiss them.
The only thing I would say should be necessary is a period of notice or similar wages be given to a dismissed employee, unless they have committed an act of theft upon the company or other similar violations of law.
There are plenty of laws in place already which protect the employee. BTW, there is no RIGHT to collective bargaining.
No laws were broken in Wisconsin and the legislature passed a law similar but opposite to the one which granted collective bargaining to Unions way back when.
Let them find a judge to overturn this and it will eventually wind up in the USSC where the original law taking away collective bargaining will be upheld.
There is NO right to collective bargaining.
“Yes, great harm to the economy and to the workers. We need to return to the good ole days, when the peasants were paid peasant wages and were content to worked in squalid conditions and were fired when a detached arm gummed up the machinery”
The unions, regardless what they did for the factory worker over a hundred years ago, have created the depressed economy America endures today. Although no one advocates for a worker to “earn peasant wages” just how much are some union jobs worth? And why should the retirement and benefit packages cripple manufacturing to the point where companies have to look elsewhere for labor? I remember in the ‘80s when Detroit manufacturing was really hurting and laying workers off in droves. These were men whose labor was virtually unskilled but nevertheless were making very good salaries and paying for nice houses in Detroit suburbs and driving new cars. They left to find work in Texas oil plants and were surprised and dismayed to find out that these oil companies paid less than half the hourly wage the Detroit car companies had paid them. Because the union presence was limited in Texas, the companies were not strong armed into paying unskilled labor high wages. Of course, the cost of living was lower there, but the days of living high on the hog were over for them. My point is that it is way too late to revert to the cliches of how unions fought for the protection of the workers. They used those instances to push their agenda even back in the day. They are primarily socialist operatives who have undermined our economy. It is very plain to see this all around us as the United States has priced itself out of the manufacturing market and become like the England we read about in text books back in the’60s- a service economy filled with consumers. Now everyone has to work multiple jobs and be away from home all day. Children come home to empty houses, and parents struggle to maintain a semblance of middle class respectability, all the while sinking deeper in debt to do so. If that is not a life of enslavement ,well, I don’t know what is then.
That is interesting to read that your factory also saw the end result of the overpayment of unskilled labor and changed new hires to the lower wages. I have a friend who works for GM and I was surprised to learn they did the same thing-I believe she said late 90’s- so that any hire after that date does not have the same kind of cushy benefits/plan she gets. Even with those changes, the older or longer term workers still drained the company. At least they saw what was happening, sadly too late.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.