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Beginning of the End for Public Unions?

Last two years beginning of a downward slide for Public Sector Unions?


  • Total voters
    64
I'd like to say differently but unions are getting crushed.

For people that think "Unions have lived past their usefulness"....you'll be able to test that theory. It's interesting this idea that all those laws that people bled and died for can't be rolled back...



" First they came for the communists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.

Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.

Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me."


- Martin Niemöller
 
Only 11% of the US population are in unions (public and private), so it only makes sense to make them the scapegoats for the bad economy caused by deregulation of the banking industry. It makes perfect sense.................to the GOP.

Its known as sleight of hand. Some fall for it and some don't.


With the exception of what happened to the automakers, I don't think anyone has blamed "unions" for the bad economy. We simply point out that Public Sector Unions have faced no effective check on their extraction, which has now grown to levels where it threatens the solvency of our State and Local governments.

Nor is this a "GOP" thing. Democrat governors and mayors are having to trim back on the Public Unions too. Just, oddly, no outrage...... :thinking:
 
We agree! I never said otherwise. Read more carefully, Haymarket. If the contract is changed after five years, so be it. The amount that was actuarily needed to fund that pension each of the five years accrues to the employee. And the new deal is then in place. Pension contract law. Read it.

Maggie - could you please clarify something for me?

If a worker puts in the required time to earn a pension, then retires under the terms of their employment contract, do YOU favor looking upon that as a sacred contract which CANNOT be changed or are you saying it can be changed even after one party has fulfilled their terms of it and has retired?
 
The Constitution is not a suicide pact. Government is under no obligation to wreck the citizenry for the good of itself. And given that public unions were sitting at both ends of the table, and negotiating benefits of which we never had any chance of paying, I don't terribly see that they were negotiated in good faith to begin with
.

Over the top extremist hyperbole.

Libertarians and right wingers are showing their true colors and just how much respect they have for contracts. And then they wonder why they cannot get even 1% of the vote for president? Amazing.
 
Nor is this a "GOP" thing. Democrat governors and mayors are having to trim back on the Public Unions too. Just, oddly, no outrage...... :

Correct me if I'm wrong...no Democratic governor is restricting public unions from existing or collectively bargaining. They are cutting public employees pay and compensation through negotiation with the unions.

There's a big difference between the two.
 
Oh, I'm pretty sure I've got him about marked. It's a pretty easy test, you see. We are headed straight towards a fiscal cliff. States, Localities, even our Federal government face very real threats to our solvency. Anyone with their foot on the gas? That's the enemy :). Fortunately (see OP), one of them appears to be getting cut back down to size. Let us hope we are still in time.

Oh I know the Enemy of the People well indeed. They make posts like yours. They would spit in the face of forty years of service and crap on the workers of this nation in the pursuit of a radical extremist agenda designed only to serve the rich and corporations.

They would have us betray our obligations and NOT honor our debts. That is a disgraceful and a dishonorable path equalling that of the traitor and the thief.

We know the enemy well indeed.

And we will deal with them accordingly.
 
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So you think unions came up with the idea?

This is some reductive nonsense...you know what Cpt American is saying...without labor unions the 40 hour work week wouldn't be common place....well at least as common as it is now. Most workers will put you on salary and work your hours 60 hours a week.
 
This is some reductive nonsense...you know what Cpt American is saying...without labor unions the 40 hour work week wouldn't be common place....well at least as common as it is now. Most workers will put you on salary and work your hours 60 hours a week.

You are going to totally confuse him with history, common sense and reality.
 
This is some reductive nonsense...you know what Cpt American is saying...without labor unions the 40 hour work week wouldn't be common place....well at least as common as it is now. Most workers will put you on salary and work your hours 60 hours a week.

Doubtful, but continue..
 
So you think unions came up with the idea?

No, but unions made it happen. 36 reasons why you should thank a union

You can have a great idea to help your fellow Americans but without a union or a plurality of Americans to support it, it would never see the light of day. Changes in work rules cost money. Shutting down a factory for a weekend or setting a limit of 8 hours before requiring overtime costs companies money. None would give it willingly.
 
EVERYONE: Please read this post from Henrin. Then read it again. Then read it again. Pay attention to every word he wrote.

The next time anybody identifies themselves or their ideas as LIBERTARIAN - remember this post. Remember what is behind it. Remember the type of society that this sort of ideological madness would produce.

Yes, imagine the horrors of a society in which people believe that it is wrong to initiate aggression against one's neighbor or his property. Oh the humanity.

Ask yourself is that the type of society I want to both live in and work in? Is that the sort of society you want your children and grandchildren to live in and work in?

Or would you prefer that your children and grandchildren are granted only those rights that society deigns to allow? To be free men and women, or to be considered the property of the state? To have the state serve them, or to serve the state?

Recognize the enemy. Deal with them accordingly repudiating their ideas and their ersatz ideology.

Always good advice, no matter what the source.
 
No, but unions made it happen. 36 reasons why you should thank a union

You can have a great idea to help your fellow Americans but without a union or a plurality of Americans to support it, it would never see the light of day. Changes in work rules cost money. Shutting down a factory for a weekend or setting a limit of 8 hours before requiring overtime costs companies money. None would give it willingly.

Why did you just link me to a biased site?

If you actually knew what I was talking about you would know that weekends were offered by businesses and the idea was spreading. That is where the unions got the idea.
 
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With the exception of what happened to the automakers, I don't think anyone has blamed "unions" for the bad economy. We simply point out that Public Sector Unions have faced no effective check on their extraction, which has now grown to levels where it threatens the solvency of our State and Local governments.

Nor is this a "GOP" thing. Democrat governors and mayors are having to trim back on the Public Unions too. Just, oddly, no outrage...... :thinking:

You just did it yourself! It was not the teachers that hurt state's economies, it was the recession caused by deregulation of the banks. That is what crushed state budgets, not that teachers, firefighters and policemen were being overcompensated.

That is just more sleight of hand that so many conservatives seem to get distracted by.

sleight-of-hand-magician.jpg
 
Why did you just link me to a biased site?

If you actually knew what I was talking about you would know that weekends were offered by businesses and the idea was spreading. That is where the unions got the idea.

Dude, are you seriously telling me that corporate culture has the best interests of employees in mind regardless of profits?
 
Whoops! My bad!
 
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Do you know what the word "initiate" means?
I don't see it in this quote:
Whether you belong to an association is irrelevant. If you murder someone, that person's protection agency will come to you looking for compensation. You do not "get off" just because you don't belong to some association.
 
I'm not sure what you mean by "power over others", but I am unaware of any rich person who has any power over me (other than those in the government, of course.)
Then you truly are wearing blinders. :shrug:
 
You just did it yourself! It was not the teachers that hurt state's economies, it was the recession caused by deregulation of the banks. That is what crushed state budgets, not that teachers, firefighters and policemen were being overcompensated.

That is just more sleight of hand that so many conservatives seem to get distracted by.

Gotta throw my BS flag on that. Try derivatives.
 
1. We are discussing de facto, not de jure.

2. In fact this is what occurs with regards to most major entrenched special interest groups. It just so happens that when "government" is the interest group, there is no balancing faction. Just as government unions face no profitability check on their rent-seeking (as their private counterparts do), they face no check on their control.
Like I said, you have no clue what the laws are here so you're just talking out your ass. You assume some coercive force on the part of public sector unions but the major coercive force of private sector unions, the ability to strike, has been stripped from them. Like I said, no one here can "take over government". Your arguments fails.
 
So we have unions so people can assume loyalty has a meaning and instead of being involved in to better themselves they can instead demand and force the owners to do their bidding. Did I get it right? Or is it perhaps that has to do with their effectiveness and no so much why associations of workers exist. Hmmm..



Its appears to be working fine. What exactly isn't working? The only problem is that we aren't competitive and right now we just floating a bit on the fact of having more freedoms than china.


Your analysis of collective bargaining and loyalty is so far fetched form reality as to be a sad case of profound ignorance.

The Teamsters that I grew up with had business agents that would give their word on a new contract at a local bar that both the Teamsters and company owners frequented and the deals were done on a hand shake!! Signatures were only a formality!! Those companies and our local union had been in business together, in some cases, going back to the turn on the 20th century. Loyalty you ask?? A union contract is a benefit that comes under the freedom of association guaranteed by The Constitution of the United States America and the concept of collective bargaining goes back to the medieval
stone masons of continental Europe! They had a highly skilled and necessary skill that was in demand. You sign a labor contract every time you take your car to a mechanic! Do you think those places pay their mechanics $100 an hour for labor???

Man, dude - get a grip. Company loyalty is going by the way side because nobody has a long term job anymore. Everybody’s an independent contractor . . . No, you should spend more time actually talking to union people instead of attacking their characters: bums under a contract have nothing to worry about with respect to the company; ooohhh noo!; the worry of the bum is rested in his fellow union members. Because they are the ones that are going to run him out of job: he draws too much attention.

And, you say that the free market is working fine huh? Have you looked outside lately? Were you there in Sept 2007, or did you just wake up?

No, like I said, you gave two great holes to fill with your completely uninformed and actually laughable opinion.

Man: unbelieveable.
 
Nice pull. Astoria has a population of 1,200 people. I'm surprised they have a school district. Those salaries do not represent anything even close to average. I can't pull the entire data base into DP -- suffice to say your "average" is incorrect. If it isn't? How about a link from a credible source?

Fair enough. I don't know anything about Astoria. I'm sure that isn't representative as they were all well below the average except the guy with 14 years of experience. But, keep in mind that you live by Chicago. Cost of living and salaries are presumably way higher there than in most of the state. What you encounter in your area isn't going to be representative either.

I just clicked on the one right after Astoria:

Alderman, Kim $37,661 - 6 yrs
Anderson, Mary $35,760 - 24 yrs (part time)
Armitage, Nicole $37,034 - 3 yrs
Barrett, Elizabeth $47,462 - 12 yrs
Basso, Lisa $59,977 - 25 yrs
Benz, Joann $53,312 - 9 yrs
Bessert, Jennifer $48,634 - 18 yrs

Still seems like the average for starting pay I'm finding is about right.

I got it from here- Teacher Salary | Teaching Salaries in IL : 58686
 
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You just did it yourself! It was not the teachers that hurt state's economies, it was the recession caused by deregulation of the banks. That is what crushed state budgets, not that teachers, firefighters and policemen were being overcompensated.

That is just more sleight of hand that so many conservatives seem to get distracted by.

Gotta throw my BS flag on that. Try derivatives.


LOL! Evidently, you do not understand that derivatives were not an issue before deregulation removed the firewall that separated investment banks and commercial banks.
 
The first district I checked was Astoria CUSD 1. The first seven teachers in the list alphabetically are:

Arnett, Melissa $15,423
Bair, Lindy $27,943
Banwart, Douglas $32,256
Bastien, Garry $29,530
Boggs, Bobette $39,977
Bollinger, Sharenda $26,783
Cheatum, Kathy $30,807

So, out of those, only Bobette Boggs makes more than $37k. Boggs is working full time and has 14 years of experience teaching.
For the record, the website she provided you is a conservative owned website. My mother, who was a Chicago inner city teacher for over 30 years, has looked herself up on there before and said that her salary was incorrectly reported (it was reported higher than it is), so I wouldn't trust the numbers.

Here's a clue for how biased they are: They refer to education on global warming as "Global Warming Indoctrination."
 
For the record, the website she provided you is a conservative owned website. My mother, who was a Chicago inner city teacher for over 30 years, has looked herself up on there before and said that her salary was incorrectly reported (it was reported higher than it is), so I wouldn't trust the numbers.

Here's a clue for how biased they are: They refer to education on global warming as "Global Warming Indoctrination."

So you mean "conservative" in the same sense that failing out of high school or going to prison for blowing up your meth cooking trailer are "conservative", not the William F. Buckley sense of "conservative", right?
 
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