Collective Bargaining: Kicking the can down the road
It’s not surprising my posts on the negative results of collective bargaining get responses from pro-union folk who completely ignore the content of the post. So I’m just going to throw some more facts out there so they can ignore those too. Countdown for someone to complain about the Koch brothers …. 3 … 2 …
More reason from the Heritage Foundation and Reason.tv, with a hat tip to Big Government.
18 Comments
The website's content and articles were migrated to a new framework in October 2023. You may see [shortcodes in brackets] that do not make any sense. Please ignore that stuff. We may fix it at some point, but we do not have the time now.
You'll also note comments migrated over may have misplaced question marks and missing spaces. All comments were migrated, but trackbacks may not show.
The site is not broken.
Hertiage Foundation speaks the most reasonable truth that I have heard on this subject.
The union need to wake up to the fact that they have out priced their members from the taxpayer's range. In my humble opinion(IMHO), the Wis. Governor started his compromising from his "break the union" position so that he could end up with a deal with the unions that the taxpayers could afford.
Believe me, I have no desire to see ALL unions broken, but really, does a state(or Federal Gov't) treat their employees so bad that a union is even necessary?
Kicking the country down the road, you mean.
I never wanted to belong to a union. First, I didn't want to be part of the lowest common denominator,. Second, I am not a socialist (and what are unions if not socialist?) Third, my money will be contributed where I want it contributed. Still, I lost my job while union stewards with fewer skills and less seniority kept theirs. But, I still belong to me.
Crickets from the trolls.
No mention of Koch-who, actually are the owners of "The Heritage Foundation", but doooo have a statement from "The Catholic Democrats":
The union-busting legislation of the new Republican Wisconsin Governor, Scott Walker, has dominated the headlines for several weeks now. By his own words, the Jesuit-educated Walker has acknowledged a hidden agenda, to diminish the collective bargaining rights of teachers, nurses, snowplow drivers and other state workers, with the ultimate intent of breaking the union. This former county commissioner, in a now notorious prank interview, compared himself to Ronald Reagan and said, "This is our moment, this is our time to change the course of history. Walker's "moment in history" – paralleling actions taken by Republican governors in other states – marks the beginning of an ambitious movement to systematically dismantle a century of social progress. As social justice Catholics, we must respond to all those who trample these American values, borne out of the Catholic Social Tradition. The right of labor to organize – and collectively bargain – is a foundational principal of Catholic Social Justice, first enshrined in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum. It has been further developed and amplified for over a century by popes, bishops and theologians. Most recently, Pope Benedict XVI addressed labor rights in his 2009 encyclical, Caritas in Veritate."
For more information visit <a href="http://www.catholicdemocrats.org” target=”_blank”>www.catholicdemocrats.org
Oh, and a quote form MLK:
"In our glorious fight for civil rights, we must guard against being fooled by false slogans, as 'right-to-work.' It provides no 'rights' and no 'works.' Its purpose is to destroy labor unions and the freedom of collective bargaining… We demand this fraud be stopped…."
@crystal: Got it. Catholics think we should steal money from future generations – jut about every future generation – to pay out the massive, unsustainable benefits and pensions for government employees. Got it.
And thank you for proving my point yet again about the Koch brothers. Can't leave that talking point huh?
By the way … we all know the words "social justice" are code words for progressive/liberal/statist political theory.
OOOOOOO a Glenn Beck follower! He said "social justice" is a code word for "Marxism" So…. you are quoting or paraphrasing the Beckster, WOW-thought better of you-
Catholic Democrats is another thinly veiled pro-choice (read: not endorsed by the Holy See) organization designed to give Kennedy era Catholic democrats plausible deny-ability when voting for candidates supporting the ongoing holocaust of the unborn. Because apparently it is morally worse to not give someone a raise than to murder them before they are born. A less partisan article on the Bishops' letters is here: http://www.ewtn.com/vnews/getstory.asp?number=111….
"Although Archbishop Listecki and other bishops around the state have not spoken in direct opposition to the proposed budget, they've reiterated the importance of protecting worker's rights in light of the Church's social doctrine.
Archbishop Listecki said in a Feb. 16 statement that even though "the Church is well aware that difficult economic times call for hard choices," current situations "do not nullify the moral obligation each of us has to respect the legitimate rights of workers."
That was from your article!!! b-now please give me a link to The Catholic Dems NOT being endorsed by the Holy See-I have googled that and could not find it!
@crystal4: Funny, I never listen to or watch Glenn Beck. As a matter of fact, I first remember discussing the term "social justice" more than 10 years ago with a friend as we were discussing ways liberals take phrases and twist them. It had to do with "intentions are more important than results."
And as usual from most who disagree, you've not even touched on the actual content of the video from Reason.tv which was the point of the post.
By the way, keep the comments on the actual post or I shut them off for the post.
Sure…whenever you are losing the argument….
Admin notes: crystal4 does not want to play by the rules. Read the Terms of Use and the FAQ and follow them or go away. You can't troll in threads and bring up topics not even related to the post just for the heck of it. Go get your own blog. I'm not losing anything and refuse to even accept your premise.
The video makes some good points and has some outright untruths (unions insisting "you can't fire us no matter how badly our members perform" and "members have to pay union dues or get fired"). It also refers to Wisc govt worker pensions as "enormously generous", but fails to point out that Wisc Gov Walker exempted firefighters and local and state police from this issue. They make up 8% of the gov workforce and share the same "enormously generous" pension plan, but they can retire at 50, all other workers at the already too early 55. Facts like this make it clear that Walker may be after some fiscal sanity, but breaking the union is the primary goal.
The suggestion in the video that the union collect its own dues is where it hits upon a solution. most workers pay the dues as payroll deduction, it is difficult to opt out, though you aren't fired. If Walker, or any gov, wanted to sap some union power, they should make it easier for members to opt out. The likely scenario would be that many would in fact opt out (the dues are expensive), the union would have a lot less money to use as influence politically and otherwise, and a drastic lessening of union clout would be the result.
See crystal4 … djt actually stuck to the topic of the post.
I like that: the ability to opt out when the union gets too corrupt (making them more responsible to the employees), union members write their own checks vs. payroll deduction (also suggested for fed and state taxes), and a pay-go retirement (like the rest of us) instead of the Ponzi scheme approach they take now.
Right to work is just that, and equivalent to right not to join a union (or pay "association fees").
A side note: up here in MA, DEMOCRAT Gov. Patrick (Øbama's mini-me) recently tried to get the state workers to "reopen" negotiations by ignoring a negotiated contract that had been unfunded by DEMOCRATS for years.