The Bishop and the Butterfly: Murder, Politics, and the End of the Jazz Age

    Collective Bargaining should be a constitutional Right.

    By Flavius on Sat, 03/05/2011 - 9:50pm |

    That's my position. To which no doubt a popular response will  be: who cares?

    Probably law schools expend millions of class hours exploring the criteria for any "right" even to  be worth considering for elevation to that level ... I say "probably" not actually knowing never having eased my anatomy into a seat in a law school ampitheatre.  So I'll happily  stipulate the subject is above my grade of pay. Before  proceeding  to discuss it.

    This was actually the elephant in the living room in the lengthy exchange  in Ramona's space. But implicitly, not  explicitly, appearing  under varous headings such as:

    o Have the voters any right whatsoever  either to  prohibit or defend collective bargaining (hereafter CB)?

    o If so, at which governmental level? Town, State , Nation?

    o Or to cut to the chase: should it be done ? Should CB be a right like  all the others in the Constitution?

    o Is there any chance it could happen?

    A five sentence history: The subject didn't  come up in 1500. The Church held the Natural Law required employers to pay a living wage, end of story. Luther ended that. As Max Weber famously explained in Protestanism and the Capitalistic Spirit. And it's been fought over ever since.

    I have argued endlessly here that CEOs (and Governors) don't cut wages because they are bad human beings, but because they have to. The theory of Corporate Responsibility, or Stakeholders etc. ....  are cant. CEOs have only one responsibility: to legally achieve the highest profit on behalf of the shareholders. Many of whom AOBTW are union pension plans or our individual 401Ks which badly need those profits  to deal with the unfunded liabilities which the politicians and the media have suddenly "discovered" although accountants and actuaries have without doubt deforested 10% of the country to print arcane analyses of the subject.

    Pre-Globalization the Race to the Bottom (is it "Gresham's Law that the bad drives out the good?) in employee compensation was attenuated by the tariff walls which allowed at least some US employers to remain solvent without cutting  wages to equal those in Shenzen where wages were slightly raised recently to counteract  the prevalence of suicides. Known as the worst form of Industrial Action. Only temporarily because management plans to now shift the work to areas so underdeveloped that workers would prefer that subsistence level compensation to none at all.

    In theory other jobs will then be provided for the Shenzen workers who are unemployed as a consequence.

    Pigs could fly.

    But an anachronistic economic philosophy: that free trade is inevitably and always beneficial has been used to provide a meritricious justification here for successive bi partisan destruction of our protective tariffs so no CEO will soon be able to resist the garderene rush towards Shenzen levels of compensation.

    The only effective counterveiling pressure is workers ability to organize. The general public will always vote for what Robert Reich called The Great Deals that are available for the products made by starving Shenzen workers. At present, CEOs are only delaying the inevitable  outsourcing to provide for a suitable phasing in of our own level of starvation wages.

    If instead of a powerless work force American workers had a secure right to collective bargaining they could instead seize this interval to educate Management that if the progress of Globalization is inevitable, its own enjoyment of office may not be. That its 40 year campaign to promote Globalization needs to be put into reverse if they want  to stay in office long enough to afford Jim and Sarlly's fees at St. Grarkelsex.

    This blog has gone on long enough (hear, hear!) but before closing let me touch on the states' rights argument. Perhaps Marx's most perceptive prediction was that the "state should wither away". The 50 US states. But accepting that there are arguments for them to remain in existence, there is none for them to use that existence to recreate beggar-my-neighbor wage competition within the US if we once cut of the snake's head of Globalization-created wage competition.

    CB should be a Constitutional Right. Before it's too late.

    Comments

    Okay, regardless of how one views the current attack on public unions as an attack on all unions, the basic argument against public employee unions is that they are able to decide who is sitting on the other side of the negotiating table, which is not the case in the private sector.  This ability to influence the entity on the other side of the negotiationg table, the argument goes, tilts the playing field.

    Until one can counter that, the constitutional issue is a mute one.


    by Elusive Trope on Sat, 03/05/2011 - 10:14pm

    Most importantly,  I am addressing the right to  collective bargaining in general rather than the special case of public sector unions.

    But to your specific point , with  respect  it seems to me you're reaching: relying on an argument .more superficially plausible than substantive..

    Certainly public sector employees will  have some ability in a coming election to influence who is sittng on the other side of the table(.To completely  avoid that you should logically argue that they should lose the right to vote which of course you don't .) Depriving them of collective bargaining does not deprive them of the ability to let the governor know their feelings by email, by letters to the editor etc

    As do lots of other  citizens.e.g. members of the PTA , infuriated  by cuts in the school budget.

    .There is a case for certain restrictions on some public service employees.For example the police and fire departments .But no reason to apply that  to  the state liquor stores!.

    Of course if public workers do not themselves  have the tools themselves to protect their standard of living they will have to depend on the conservatives' bete noir  regulations which inflict they're own "rigidities and inflexibilities." It could easily be true that if flexibility is the goal, it can better achieved in a discussion with a union leader than by petitioning Washington to change some arcane rule.

    If as do I you consider collective bargaining to secure your standard of living  as much a right  as free speech of which the Supreme Court has been so solictitous then we should consider the  objections  as issues to be addressed rather than obstacles that close discussion.


    by Flavius on Sat, 03/05/2011 - 11:30pm

    You mean "moot," Trope.

    Only about one-third of public-sector employees are unionized, and public-sector employees are only a small fraction of any state's workforce. How exactly do they decide who is sitting on the opposite side of the negotiating table? Each member gets one vote, just like each CEO or non-unionized private-sector employee (who make up 90% of that workforce).

    How exactly does that tilt the playing field? For a supposed Democrat, you have internalized one hell of a lot of Repunlican talking points.


    by acanuck on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 2:54am

    In the past month, I've heard Republicans assert that education is not a right, health care is not a right, collective bargaining is not a right.

    People died to make collective bargaining a right, so I beg to disagree.


    by acanuck on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 2:59am

    'When I use a word,' Humpty Dumpty said, in rather a scornful tone, 'it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.'


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 7:50am

    And that is what is meant by being on the Right and in the right!!


    by Richard Day on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 2:10pm

    the basic argument against public employee unions is that they are able to decide who is sitting on the other side of the negotiating table, which is not the case in the private sector

    I'll go with reductio ad absurdum, if you don't mind. (I don't know my post-structuralism from my anti-establishmentarianism, but I can do logic.) On the face of it, that argument (and I realize you're primarily playing devil's advocate) doesn't sound unreasonable. However, by that same logic, public employees are able to decide who gets to decide their salaries and working conditions, so therefore the unions shouldn't have any affect whatsoever, so why bother legislating against them? Thus, if we want to solve this problem (and this is meant to be satire), we have two options:

    1. Prevent public employees from voting, or
    2. Outsource public jobs (a logical extension of #1, really)

    by Verified Atheist on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 10:30am

    I've never heard anyone make this particular argument before .... my response: shall I call the waaaambulance?

    All employers hold essentially the same power in reverse. They are able to use the power of hiring and firing to decide who sits on the other side of the table. And unlike a single vote per union member on election day, their power is autonomous and can be wielded directly during negotiations. Walker DID just send out a ton of layoff notices - but "only" 1500 public workers are supposedly at risk of losing their jobs ... who gets to decide which 1500? The management side of the equation, that's who.

    Additionally, public office holders ALSO have a vote. As do staff members and non-union constituents who are serviced by their offices. The only way a negotiation with labor could cost them their elected position is if the conduct of said negotiation is unpopular with more voters than it is popular with. Which is exactly the correct formula for democracy. The fact that ALL participants in the negotiation are valid electors doesn't change that.

    This seems like the sort of argument that should be ridiculed for it's stupidity instead of treated as worthy of being met with a remedy. What direction have you seen it being lobbed from?


    by kgb999 on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 8:24pm

    Collective bargaining and freedom of association are considered core labor rights in many countries and as human rights by some.  The United States is one country which has never ratified the International Labor Organization convention stating this.

    The consequences for the future nature and course of globalization if the United States were to substantially increase union density and change its labor laws to reflect a meaningful and  enforceable belief that collective bargaining and freedom of association are to be protected rights in the workplace could be vast.

    One reason why a rapid increase in union density in the US without more would not necessarily have more positive than negative effects, however, is the easy global mobility of capital.  I think it is predictable that if the unions start to get some real traction towards a comeback many employers who haven't already done so will just pick up shop and move their jobs overseas to places where workers collective power is weak to non-existent, and environmental, public and worker safety and other regulations affecting them likewise.

    There is a literature on collaboration initiatives between unions in different countries who are only too well aware of this reality and seek to combat it or at least mitigate its worst effects, as well as more broadly on cross-national attempts to form social movements to counterract globalization as predominantly manifested this round (on the latter, see Jackie Smith's Social Movements for Global Democracy for what I thought was a useful introduction to that topic; I wrote an amazon review on it.).

    On another front, the Tobin tax among other proposals which seek to reduce the ease and slow down somewhat the pace of capital mobility and/or address currency speculation by very wealthy individuals, have been around for awhile and are fought tooth and nail by those interests who have been dominating the form this latest historical round of economic globalization has been taking so far. 

    And of course trade policies are a frequent subject of focus when the topic is big job losses and undermined compensation and economic insecurity for vast swaths of the US middle class. 

    A resurgent, globally aware labor movement in the US is something I wholeheartedly support.  My point is simply that there are a lot of moving, interdependent parts and the law of unintended consequences looms large here as it does in so many areas.

     


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 10:01am

    We're tried being passive and it ain't working. 


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 10:08am

    Dreamer, you worry about the possible unintended downside of "a rapid increase in union density in the US," as if that's a real danger. It's not. Union membership has fallen by two-thirds since World War II, largely because of aggressive anti-labor state legislation. That's the real-life result of not recognizing the right to bargain collectively. Weigh the theoretical harm against the actual, known harm. Don't workers deserve a level playing field when dealing with employers?

    As for union membership causing job outsourcing, nine of the World Economic Forum's 10 most competitive nations have higher union densities than the U.S. In some cases, 75 or 80 per cent, compared with 12 in the U.S. Shouldn't all those jobs be in India or China by now?


    by acanuck on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 4:45pm

    The German economy has done very well  during this same period despite co determination which ( at least into the 80s) involved union representation on boards of directors.


    by Flavius on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 6:19pm

    I think I linked a few weeks ago to a TAP article by Harold Meyerson in which he noted that the Germans have done a lot better on the jobs front than us since the financial meltdown, along with some of the policies that he thinks account for that (as well as, it seems, a management culture and corporate governance mechanisms dealing unions in which are quite different from the US situation): http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=business_is_booming#

    I've seen particular examples where US companies threatened to outsource or close if their workers unionized and, if that didn't kill the organizing effort right then and there, proceeded to do precisely that if it made headway or succeeded.  So, no, I don't think this is a hypothetical concern.

    The best way I know of to build enough political clout to adopt the kinds of policies that will help rebuild the middle class is to rebuild the labor movement.  I just think there needs to be a recognition that that process will be highly disruptive, as it has always been in US history.  And that there will be casualties along the way--people who lose jobs when an organizing campaign or just talk of it leads companies to pick up shop. You know that the provisions in our labor laws protecting them are so weak that organizers are often fired in the US--it's just a cost of doing business for many anti-union companies.  And as several others have pointed out people have died in the struggle to form unions.

    The prospects for successfully regrowing the labor movement in the US will be better to the degree that tangible support can be found for as many people as possible who are harmed in the short run.  Those who have been all-out to finish off the unions once and for all will mount an early onslaught with the hope it will discourage the pro-union forces sufficiently to destroy the effort in its infancy.  The reaction of workers who lose their jobs in that way is sometimes to direct anger and their future activities at organizing efforts and conclude that efforts to unionize are futile or counterproducive, rather than at the actions of the employer, or at the nature of the wildly destructive system we have constructed for ourselves in the US wherein shareholders reign supreme and no other interests--workers, communities, future generations, environmental concerns--count for anything. (see Marjorie Kelly, The Divine Right of Capital)      

    So, I am not "worried" about increasing union density in the US--I think it is necessary.  But not sufficient. And not unproblematic.  I want a globally aware, broad-minded, learning, sophisticated, resurgent labor movement in this country, one that many more middle-class fellow citizens can feel much less conflicted about being a part of or supporting. 

    By the same token I am not at all sure that labor will be able to grow in the US unless it adapts in a way that enables it to recruit from non-traditional sources of membership, including professional and technical workers.  (for a good data-based analysis offering clues on how that might be done, see "Unionization of Professional and Technical Workers: The Labor Market and Institutional Transformation", by Richard W. Hurd and John Bunge, in Emerging Labor Market Institutions for the Twenty-First Century, ed. Richard B. Freeman, Joni Hersch and Lawrence Mishel, 2005, which has other articles I find helpful in advancing thinking about what alternative or complementary institutions might be possible or necessary to perform the functions unions have performed in the US, and what adjustments unions might make to have a better shot at revival.)  I want it to do just that. 


    by AmericanDreamer on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 9:54pm

    Dreamer, the "globally aware, broad-minded, learning, sophisticated, resurgent labor movement" you say you want is what most union activists want. It's a bit hard to pull off while in a life-and-death struggle with people who want no labor movement at all. 

    Scott Walker's bill has many draconian aspects (including an annual sunset clause on union certification). But the most cynical is the part barring negotiations on anything other than wage scales. In his view, unions are just money-grubbing parasites -- and even if they aren't, he'll simply legislate them into playing that role and that role alone.

    In passing, once again I see you openly musing "about what alternative or complementary institutions might be possible or necessary to perform the functions unions have performed in the U.S." Talk of "alternatives" at this point strikes the wrong chord. If the labor movement is to survive and rebuild, it won't be by sloughing off existing functions, it will be by doing them better.


    by acanuck on Sun, 03/06/2011 - 11:47pm

    My preferred focus is on rebuilding the unions.  The reasons why I regularly mention a possibility of alternatives are two.

    First, many people who really don't like unions nonetheless appreciate, increasingly, the need for one or more institutions strong enough to counter the dominance of big business and the hyper-wealthy.  In part I am attempting (in the "Progressive and Power" thread a few days back, for example) to challenge the thinking of such individuals: "Well, ok, so you say you don't like unions.  What alternative do you propose to serve a function you seem to now believe is critically necessary?" 

    Second, I can't rule out the possibility that a better solution(s) will in fact be developed, soon enough to matter.  I don't think it serves union supporters well to adopt an attitude that says no one else could possibly come up with a better idea.  You (and I) happen to believe that the best bet right now is probably to try to rebuild and update if necessary an institution that has a history and a track record including many great successes rather than invent a new wheel.  However, some people who are now coming to see the need for countervailing institutions simply have made up their minds about unions for the worse and will not under any circumstances give them another look.  If they have other ideas for how to fill the countervailing power need I would not want to discourage them from offering their best thinking and trying alternatives.  Maybe they have a better idea than I do to get the result I want.       

    You wrote:

    Dreamer, the "globally aware, broad-minded, learning, sophisticated, resurgent labor movement" you say you want is what most union activists want. It's a bit hard to pull off while in a life-and-death struggle with people who want no labor movement at all. 

    Where do you see me suggesting any of this will be easy?  Contrary to a common popular stereotype, the union leaders I have known and worked with I have found to be thoughtful, self-scrutinizing, and excruciatingly aware of challenges they and the union movement face. I would go so far as to say that the individuals I have worked closely with in my life who in my estimation are most skilled in making democracy work well--by far--have been union leaders.   


    by AmericanDreamer on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 12:21am

    I don't disagree that their might be a better idea out there. What I know for certain is that it is not on the table at the moment. So it seems focusing on finding something new rather than focusing on advancing based on extant frameworks takes us farther away from the real goals - which isn't unionizing simply for the sake of unionization. If there is something concrete, the person sitting on it needs to put it out there - otherwise it makes no sense to not move forward with the structures we have and to promote them with everything we've got.

    I'm kind of like Ghengis in that unions never had any real direct impact on my life (although, an early experience with the Teamsters kind of turned me off to them). I matured into realizing that the structures and negotiating standards we all pretty much take for granted today wouldn't exist without unions having fought to establish them (both for employees and small business owners trying to figure out how to succeed while also giving workers a honestly fair deal). My own personal feeling, and I sense it in others, has been that unions don't really look out for crap except the interests of the bosses. I know my teamster experience reinforced this in me - and I know a teacher in New York (where union *and* government corruption are both astounding) who also feels like this. But I don't really have that solid an understanding of what's happened in the movement beyond a superficial "Regan destroyed the unions by breaking the ATC strike" explanation for the demise of organized labor.

    I was checking if the Massey mine that exploded last year or the BP rig were union. In addition to an answer to the trivial point I was curious about ... I came across this interesting article talking about about what happened back in the 80's.  If you look back, it kind of looks like unions sold out the workers as much as it looks like the GOP was amazingly adept at busting unions. How many people in West Virginia who lived through *that* are really going to stand up and say "The union stood by me when the chips were down." Precious few, I'd imagine. My guess is that miners who fought with the unions were all punished quite harshly by the corporations for their efforts - along with their families.

    It looks like in the 80's unions changed their tactics and stopped challenging industry at a systemic level. I can't help but wonder if the unions didn't compromise raw power for "political influence" ... which is pretty much the same milquetoast strategy being pitched like crazy to the liberals now. I think the unions got snookered into that "If you focus on electing Democrats instead of antagonizing big business - Democrats will always advance your interests more than Republicans ... so stop antagonizing our big-business donors please." scam. And for their troubles, union membership in WV has fallen from 180,000 to 14,000 as their solidarity was shattered.

    We need to ask ourselves if the people who's leadership weakness has led to such declines for American labor over the last three decades are really the ones to lead a restoration. I think between traditional union structures and less rigid ones such as those set up for artists (musicians, actors, etc.) we have a pretty good basic toolkit to build on for meeting the needs of today's workforce. What we need are leaders with serious huevos and loyalty to no party other than American labor.

    Unions are no more discredited than any other institution at this point - and rather less tarnished than many. Certainly far less so than labor's traditional adversaries; big finance. As long as we're framing every conflict in terms of fighting the bankers ... we're pretty golden. If unions are seen to be fighting and giving the worker a chance to *win*, I don't think we have to worry about the ones who have made up their minds against them, they'll get caught up in the rising swell.

    Maybe try and organize Google. Now THAT would be fun. Can you imagine the line they'd have to walk to union bust while trying to "not be evil".


    by kgb999 on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 1:51am

    kgb, I keep seeing at dagblog a somewhat bogus distinction between professional associations and workers' unions. Musicians and actors, whom you mention, are well unionized across the continent. Screenwriters, directors and journalists may call their groupings guilds, but they are unions in every sense. TV anchors like the venerable Walter Cronkite. Players in every major sport. Teachers, from pre-school to tenured professors. Lawyers in public-service roles.

    In Canada, where 30% of the workforce is unionized, medical associations negotiate with governments over doctors' fee schedules. By contrast, the U.S. private sector has a pathetic 7% unionization rate. So aside from contact with the DMV, your kids' teacher or a cop or fighter, you rarely see any real live union members at all, let alone professionals.


    by acanuck on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 2:56am

    The distinction I was trying to make related to diversity of various employment scenarios. The "traditional" structure I see as an industrial model with a worker's union involvement heavily linked to the physical location where their work is performed - or the company for which they work - and focus on long-term employment contracts, benefits packages, etc. In contrast, SAG membership more goes with the artist from company to company within an industry where various contracts cover each relationship. Then there are groups like ASCAP (which I'm a member of) .... it isn't exactly a full-on union like SAG or AFM but has started doing some stuff like putting together a group health plan, etc. Largely, I see most people exclusively envisioning the first type of structure when they talk about expanding the labor movement.

    For a lot of industries - especially areas of IT - an organization that supports the worker through a series of short term contracts along the lines of SAG would probably better meet the needs. My real point was that between the various extant structures we have a pretty good model - if not specific organization - to build on in servicing the representation needs for almost any cross-section of the American working public without having to reinvent the wheel.

    (I lived in Las Vegas for over a decade ... pretty strong private sector unions in hospitality, entertainment and mining. Reid supports them - they support Reid.)


    by kgb999 on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 4:36am

    We don't disagree. Union activists know the "traditional" industrial structure by itself can't provide the revival and expansion the labor movement needs. So yes, health-care, minimum work standards and retirement plans for independent workers and free-lancers must be part of the mix. I'm just saying unions can do that, and the smartest ones already have.


    by acanuck on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 1:29pm

    Please notethe following from The Universal Declaration Of Human Rights particularly number 4:

    Article 23.

    • (1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.
    • (2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.
    • (3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity, and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection.
    • (4) Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of his interests.

    The Declaration was adopted by the United Nations on December 10,1948.  The United States was the guiding force behind this universal declaration.  The sine qua non of trade unions is collective bargaining.

    To pick and choose which workers have this right is disallowed by the Declaration in Article 30.

    Article 30.

    • Nothing in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein.

    This important document is not terribly long and it is easy to read. It is shocking to note how many of these fundamental principles are so easily and frequently violated by the United States government and the governments of the various states of the union.

    Nonetheless, it is important to note that this list of fundamantal and universal rights includes the right to form trade unions for the protection of their interests.  It does not say some of their interests.  It does not say to protect wages only, but not benefits.  Clearly, if the right to form trade unions for the protection of our interests is a universal human right, then the primary function of trade unions: collective bargaining on behalf of it's members, is also a universal human right.

    You might find the actual text of the Declaration of interest.  It can be found here:

    http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml

     


    by oleeb on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 12:57am

    Thanks, oleeb. That is one fine document (thank you too, John Peters Humphrey). Rereading it just now, I spotted something for the first time:

    Article 16 
    1. Men and women of full age, without any limitation due to race, nationality or religion, have the right to marry and to found a family. They are entitled to equal rights as to marriage, during marriage and at its dissolution.

    The declaration doesn't say "a man and a woman," it says "men and women." That could be taken as protecting both polygamy (as I'm sure some Muslim states would insist) and same-sex marriage. I'm just saying.


    by acanuck on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 2:04am

    Good eye and good point acanuck! 


    by oleeb on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 10:07am

    Scott Walker isn't trying to ban unions, he's trying to ban collective bargaining.

    With respect to unions it's ironic that criticism so frequently alludes  to Reagan and the Air Traffic Controllers when they had been his most prominent labor supporters in 1980 .

    In the case of  the Teamsters clearly they deserved their reputation when Jimmy and Freddie fought for  control. And Jimmy  ended up in a barrel under the Meadowlands.

    But for me  any sweeping generalization even about that period has to take into  account the good guy I knew who became President of the Local when his predecessor was found at the bottom of the Ohio River.

    Which side are you on, indeed.


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 8:11am

    Actually, Walker is trying to ban unions, Flavius. The sunset clause, under which unions need an annual approval vote by 51% of total membership to avoid decertification, guarantees their not-so-slow disappearance. I've chaired general meetings. It's hard enough to get quorums, let alone 51% attendance, let alone unanimity from those present. Once those unions are decerted, as Stringsteen sings, "they ain't coming back."


    by acanuck on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 1:40pm

    I agree completely.

    For  the commentators indulging themselves in a cheerful vision of the spontaneous emergence of cooperative consultative process I was trying to point out  Walker's "no collective bargaining" means ...........no collective bargaining.

    We know where that leads .Been there done that.  At best to the Soviet Union's "they pretend to pay us and we pretend to work". . More likely, welcome to the 19th century..


    by Flavius on Mon, 03/07/2011 - 5:33pm

    In the private sector, the bargaining table has a workers rep on one side and a company rep on the other. They bang heads, argue and eventually come to a financial agreement.

    In the public sector, a tax sucking person sits on BOTH sides of the table.  There is no incentive to get more from the employees.  The tax sucking negotiator wants the union to think he's a nice guy and ask for him again next time so he can suck more tax money.

    My public sector friends take 60 to 100k from my pocket each year in wages and benefits.  I need protection from them...especially in IL where I live.  In reality, our state is 60 Billion in the hole with unfunded pensions and benefits for the "poor downtrodden" public sector tax suckers.

    Our eyes have  been opened.

     

    Ed


    by edward (not verified) on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 12:54pm

    Anectodal diddy, brought to you by a guy with "public sector friends".  He must be corrrect, ain't?


    by Bruce Levine on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 1:13pm

    I see. In that case, why is collective bargaining (which is what Gov. Walker is trying to eliminate) even needed? I mean, the employees' bosses fall into the same category as their negotiators, so surely they're already getting everything they could want, right?

    C'mon. Think it through. Don't just parrot your sides' talking points.


    by Verified Atheist on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 1:16pm

    Fortunately, ed, our Democrat (that is your preferred term, no?) governor and legislature did the right thing in regards to our state's budget crisis: they raised our ridiculously low income tax to more reasonable levels.  I'm sure you agree?


    by brewmn on Fri, 03/18/2011 - 2:18pm