GRIN AND BARRETT
I don't normally talk about political contributions I make but, today, an exception.
Sent some money to Tom Barrett--about a half day's net pay.
Barrett's not that impressive a guy but his opponent seriously needs to be in another line of work. This is so, in my opinion, not just because he opposes the right of workers to organize themselves but also because he's a disagreeable Dickweed and casts gratuitous aspersions upon our State. His solutions are not better than ours.
I oppose organized labor leaders every day of my professional life but the idea that nurses and teachers should not be able to organize sounds to me like it came from behind the iron curtain.
So join me, if you will, and send a couple of hours' pay to Tom Barrett. Let's put a stop to this nonsense now.
The election's June 5 so don't dally.
posted by UMRBlog @ 20:01
3 comments
3 Comments:
Right, "workers of the world unite" is a communist slogan, isn't it?
As a union boss said, when students pay union dues, I'll care about the students. The collective mob of teachers should dictate that they get early retirement, defined benefits, high pay, golden pensions, can't be fired unless they have sex with a student, even as students test scores sink.
They are free to unite, but should school choice also then be offered, so free market schools can be available to those that want a real education?
The mob rule collective IS communism ... ALL public teachers must join the union and the public MUST meet their demands. But the public gets no other choice, except to pay the public schools, AND then pay for their kids to get a private education in a Catholic or other private school.
Barret will lose ... this is America, we are NOT behind the Iron curtain ... Americans want choice. Teachers want a dictatorship, it would seem. Public unions SUCK.
bill
Whoa, Bill.
Collective bargaining is a process. Management has a tremendous responsibility in that process. There is no dictating in a process as adversarial as contract bargaining. The pre-retirement "glide path" abuses of the past are abuses by the local officials and have never been embodied in a CBA. Anybody can game any system dishonestly.
School choice is kinda beyond the scope of this post so we'll leave it for another day. Test scores same thing.
Let's look at nurses. They are increasingly educated and specialized. They have continuing education requirements. They work brutal hours. Until they organized, they were being paid about what parking garage attendants and shine buys make. Their metrics are pretty good. Test scores aren't down. People are getting out of hospitals sooner and returning to life sooner. Fewer people are needing hospitalization because home care nurses come to look after their IV's. Are they just a bunch of commies, too?
I understand the arguments that public sector bargaining units are different in kind because they, unlike their private market cousins, can participate in picking their bosses. OTOH, I think there is some burden on the opponents of public sector unions to explain why the employees there shouldn't have the same rights to organize as their private market cousins.
TYFCB
The main process I see in collective bargaining with public unions, is the monopoly making demands, as if there was a free market.
The art of coercion and dirty deal making may be adversarial, but when the politician and union boss are haggling, the taxpayer doesn't have a seat at the table. Sure the politician is supposed to represent him, but is there any doubt most politicians now are largely owned by their lobbyists?
The deals are made behind closed doors, and the taxpayer gets rhetoric.
I'm not familiar with nurse's unions ... there may be cases where the more powerful take advantage. The local nurses aren't unionized, are they? In a real free market, demand for better nurses would yield better pay. That should function especially well in a more skilled field.
There are several levels of this discussion, I'm not well versed in all of them. But this election turned on public opinion that unions had too much control over acquiring special and extraordinary "bargains" for their special interest. Hiring "hit men" to coerce lavish early retirement benefits, is more "commie" than American.
I don't see that people getting out of the hospital sooner has anything to do with nurses organizing. But I do recall some effort by union bosses to force all home care providers to pay union dues. The real problem is the powerful union bosses, running their own "syndicate", will to bend/break a lot of rules (or arms and legs).
There are a lot of solutions. But organizing for money, and obstructing or attacking if you don't get it, seems to be a big part of the problem. Especially in government run monopolies.
Bill
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