Wapo:
Across Ohio last week, the legislative push to restrict the union rights of government workers was greeted again and again by noisy protests.
But in this state dotted with manufacturing plants and their locals, this may have been more striking: At least some elected officials normally sympathetic to industrial unions were questioning whether they should side with government workers.
“I believe in what unions do, but as an elected official I represent the taxpayers,” said Jeff Berding, a registered Democrat on the Cincinnati City Council who ran as an independent after he opposed the party on a union issue. “I’m trying to get the best deal for them.”
The divide between government worker unions and their opponents, playing out now in several state capitals, highlights a critical aspect of the evolving labor movement.
Throughout U.S. history, the most prominent union clashes largely involved employees squaring off against big corporate owners over how to share profits. The recent state budget controversies feature union members bargaining against state and local governments over wages and benefits provided by taxpayers.
The shift reflects the profound changes in American unionism. Last year, for the first time in American history, a majority of union members worked for the government rather than private firms. About 36 percent of government workers, or 7.6 million people, are members of unions, compared with about 7 percent of private-sector workers, or 7.1 million people, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
And with that evolution comes different tactics and politics.
“These people are bargaining against the American taxpayer,” said Ned Ryun, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush and the president of American Majority, a grass-roots political training organization that also has helped coordinate anti-tax rallies. “I’m not sure they can win the PR battle. People are saying, ‘You’re kidding me. They’re making that much and I’m paying for it?’ ”
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, was in Columbus this week for protests. She said in an interview that the argument that public unions are fighting the taxpayer is misguided.
“You have long-standing history in Ohio of using collective bargaining to do transformative things in education,” she said.
You mean like “transforming” kids into props for your entitlement protests?
Money well spent, says I!
[…]
While public- and private-sector unions are often united in politics, they face much different constraints in collective bargaining.
When a union makes demands of a private firm, the workers and the owners can easily see that there is a natural limit on how high compensation can go. If compensation for workers is too high it will force the firm to close – or, more often these days, result in jobs shifting overseas.
Government workers, meanwhile, can demand wages based on how much tax money is available. With many government services standing essentially as monopolies, it is more difficult for customers to shift.
All well and good.
Still:
So far, some recent polls have shown the public leaning in favor of government workers having collective-bargaining rights and maintaining the essence of a union.
A USA Today/Gallup poll found, for example, that 61 percent of Americans are opposed to a bill that would take away some collective-bargaining rights of public unions. And a poll in Wisconsin by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that 74 percent of voters opposed removing state workers’ collective-bargaining rights, as long as they agree to cover more for their health care and pensions. Research by the Pew Research Center similarly found virtually no difference in opinions about private- and public-sector unions.
Maybe we really are ready to throw in the towel as a country.
Depressing, frankly: we’re entitled to everything. And everything we want is a “right.”
When the grownups are themselves behaving like children, who’s left to lead?
****
related: glass half full?
What’s the answer from those idiot 74% when asked: “How do you feel about your tax dollars being run through the collective bargaining mill and coming out the other end as DNC slush fund money?”
I know for 52% of that 74 the answer is “I’m sorry, what?”
I doubt 61% of Americans know what “collective bargaining” means. How it happens – how half of the bargaining table is elected the those that sit on the other side. So, to poll them regarding their support is stupid.
Surfing the web this morning, I read that UNION support had a bigger influence on whether one was elected to offense than incumbency. here.
Offense – office.
Although, I like offense.
And it’s not BIGGER, it just jacks it up on steroids.
No, wait. It is bigger. better to be union supported than an incumbent.
“the legislative push to restrict the union rights of government workers”
Government workers do not have rights, they have powers. Individual citizens have rights, and governments are instituted among men to secure those rights.
No one has a right to work for the government. There is no right to be a judge, prosecutor, police officer, fire fighter, etc.
Words mean things, and we must attack the false premises packed into the terminology by which issues are framed.
The ignorance, it’s everywhere. The the Make Believe Media is working tirelessly to keep it that way.
About 36 percent of government workers, or 7.6 million people
Which leads to the horrifying conclusion that 21.1 million people work for the government. Roughly 1 out of ever 6 people perform largely negative-value work, taking money away from the productive and spending it on the inherently non-productive.
If we lose this lame battle, then we really are toast.
The GOP gets elected to cut spending and then moves to cut spending. When did government union benefits become so untouchable? Why are they any better than the rest of us?
Over on NPR last week some fool opined mightily on just how public sentiment — that illuminator of all truths leftist — had not yet turned. Because he saw his kid’s faithful overpaid teacher drones as teachers and not as union members. There was no discussion as to fallacy or bias or sample sizes on this, the esteemed network that enlightens the minds who support it out of the sacredness of their mutual charges.
This rot is why you are reviled and despised, NPR. Had he gone into how these Valued Public Servant’s collective worth to society was assessed by their forcing heists on the public and not actually on truly educating a damn thing, they you might have gotten the attention of thinkers instead of further cementing your reputation.
And you continue to see yourselves as the exception to a world full of ignorance.
There is also this view that Blue State Democrats such as Rahm Emmanuel and Andrew Cuomo are also moving to rein in public sector unions.
I however agree with the 5th commentor that this is a tactical move to wait for the ire to subside and then go back to business as usual. It is similar to what Clinton did during the ’95 government shutdown. He made a secret pact with the unions to take a short hit that would be returned in full later.
It is not cutting pay or benefits that will make the fiscal problems better as those can always be bargained back up again and even have back pay and benefits included in an agreement once the Tea Party “types” are placated and go home. Collective bargaining for benefits for the public sector is what must go away at a minimum. That is the cancerous thing that must be cut out entirely. Then treat the area with the radiation therapy of annual re-certification votes and no dues automatically withheld for the cure.
I think Carin is spot on….if most people really understood that in all practical terms, “collective bargaining” under a PEU effectively means: “We’ll sit here and bargain with your money…meanwhile, you won’t have squat to say about it.” If the public really knew what a closed loop the process was, they’d have a different opinion. Right now, the phrase itself and the media meme is that big, bad (fill in the blank: Koch, Walker, Repubs) want to take away the right to negotiate.
That’s the short answer. The public thinks “collective bargaining” equals “negotiation.” But it ain’t that simple when “you can elect your own boss” using the public’s wallet.
Title of the executive summary: “Executive Summary Majorities Oppose Governor Scott Walker’s Anti-Worker and Union Agenda”. Client? AFL-CIO.
You get what you pay for.
Fuck. Ate my post. I hate that.
Their slip is showing, better make it a pink one.
OT: Intentionalism On The Rise!
Well, not really. But nice to see some mention of it outside of Jeff-land.
In today’s Supreme Court ruling Michigan v. Bryant, on a 6-2 vote, Scalia wrote a fine dissent, based in part on where intent lies.
The crux of the biscuit is the Confrontation Clause of the 6th Ammendment, e.g. the right to confront your accuser in a criminal trial. In the underlying case, police responded to a man who’d been mortally wounded by a shooter, and asked him a bunch of questions regarding who/what/when, for the purposes of apprehending the shooter. The victim died, but his testimony was used as evidence in the trial. Legal question arises: was the victim offering “testimony” with all the legal ramifications inherent, or was he merely aiding the officers in stopping an ongoing crime.
The court holds that while the victim was in no further danger from the shooter (being nowhere near where the shooting occurred, and surrounded by police), the police were operating from a “the public is in danger, the crime is still ongoing until the shooter is apprehended” viewpoint, and thus their questions were of the “meet an ongoing emergency” variety.
Scalia argues that it matters not a whit what the intent of the police may have been (and taking same into consideration only muddles up the issue – what if the police and the victim had conflicting intents?) All that matters is what the victim intended with his statements. And in the underlying case, it is clear (to Scalia) that the victim was offering “here, go arrest this guy and put him in jail as punishment for shooting me” statements (i.e. testimony), and not “I’m locked in the bedroom, and there’s a guy in my house with a gun coming to shoot me” ongoing emergency requests.
Anyway, I’m badly paraphrasing here; read the link, it’s interesting. Scalia’s dissent starts at pg 39.
Glass half full, to me. The discussion has gone from “you can’t touch us, we are invincible!!!” to “OK, so we give back X, isn’t that enough?”
The longer this issue stays in front of the public, the more people like Jeff, et al, can educate them.
Those polls put out by AFL-CIO of walking zombies are shit.
Try these: http://www.hughhewitt.com/blog/g/450216f8-777a-4427-9b6d-6590f8953c20
Or for a more better look on a federal level, try these: http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/politics/general_politics/february_2011/58_favor_government_shutdown_until_spending_cuts_are_agreed_upon
For some reason I can’t get the link html to work on this site. Don’t know what I’m doing wrong, but the preview looks like shit.
Aww Stephanie, you went and awakened the h-scroll monster. Bad scrollbar!
HTML linking: You do this <a href=”YOUR_LINK_HERE”>descriptive words</a>
Thanks. That’s different (slightly) than what I’m used to. Rasser frasser style sheets require the descriptive words to be ‘surrounded’.
More glass half full?
They seem to have quit trying to hide it.
Stephanie, were you trying to use BBCode instead of HTML?
No. Just a different flavor of html. And not all flavors work on all sites. wordpress and typhuspad for example each have some peculiarities. I’m used to Dreamweaver and some funky sql variants from work. S’all good once you get the cheat sheets down for the exceptions.
I agree with LTC John. I’ve found the best way to educate the … uh… less educated is to remind them the differences between private and public labor unions- ie, the big bad to unions in the private sector is evil corporation XYZ while the big bad to public unions is each and every person who pays taxes.
This is one of those situations where the public unions overplayed their hands and in the words of a great American moderate and Obama mentor, “the chickens are coming home to roost.”
Where is says “HTML: You can use these tags:” if you hover the cursor over them you will see the proper code shown.
Hover… what ya think I am a helicopter? Seriously, though, thanks!
This is the problem.
On a state level it is only slightly less bad because they can’t wrack up the debt the way the federal government can.
This is the problem.
On a state level it is only slightly less bad because they can’t wrack up the debt the way the federal government can.
Why do I keep reading the comments to stuff people link to. Damnit.
More “Capitalism is the Disease, Socialism is the Cure” knuckleheads in there, Joe.