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Beginning of the End for Public Unions?

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

  • Yes, their power has waxed and now it shall wane.

    Votes: 40 62.5%

  • Unions will respond and their power will grow.

    Votes: 14 21.9%

  • It depends on November.

    Votes: 10 15.6%
  • Total voters
    64
rocket88 said:
That's the inherent contradiction in hard core Libertarianism. They don't want anarchy, but when you press on the specifics of an effective government, they don't want any of the things necessary to make the government effective.
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which brand of libertarianism are you talking about?
 
Thrilla said:
ya see, i actually pay attention to the intend of the framers.. I do not perceive the general welfare as being "whatever the **** we want"as "liberals" do..
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Ah, then you should be interested to read what Alexander Hamilton said about that clause: "These three qualifications excepted, the power to raise money is plenary, and indefinite; and the objects to which it may be appropriated are no less comprehensive, than the payment of the public debts and the providing for the common defence and "general Welfare." The terms "general Welfare" were doubtless intended to signify more than was expressed or imported in those which Preceded; otherwise numerous exigencies incident to the affairs of a Nation would have been left without a provision. The phrase is as comprehensive as any that could have been used; because it was not fit that the constitutional authority of the Union, to appropriate its revenues shou'd have been restricted within narrower limits than the "General Welfare" and because this necessarily embraces a vast variety of particulars, which are susceptible neither of specification nor of definition."

Article 1, Section 8, Clause 1: Alexander Hamilton, Report on Manufactures
 
OhIsee.Then said:
You know Ipast that we haven't reached the level of say Ford in the past. For example, what the private sector can do next is provide the police force that is necessary to protect big business and their workers. A few large companies can cooperate to do this to reduce costs. This will reduce local taxes for home owners, whoever they are. Just noting that you are complaining about something that is natural and that most want and deserve.
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Your wrong and what you said is totally ludicrous...first of all I posted a poll that was taken yesterday after the recall in wisc and most of america is for public unions and that number will grow....and remember something...you and some others want a nice HUGE property tax cut that will amount to a couple of hundred dollars...while the corporate pigs have taken many thousands off their workers in benefits pensions and pay...some people cant see beyond the tip of their nose...
 
jamesrage said:
Joining a union should be a choice and it should never be a condition of employment.Closed shops remove this choice especially for anyone wanting to be a public school teacher, police officer or some other public sector career that has a closed shop. Whether or someone works for a company should only be between the employee and employer and should have nothing to do with the union.Whether or not someone joins a union should only be between the individual and the union and should have nothing to do with the employer.
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Im for that...as long as all the public workers that opt out of the union...pay for their own legal defense and do not jump on the unions bandwagon for raises and benefits....they are on their own...Im all for that.....that was tried by a group of cops...they lasted 3 yrs and all begged to get back in and we told them...sure...in 3 more years ask again...
 
samsmart said:
The problem is not every employer knows how to treat their employees with dignity and respect, and the larger the corporation is the less likely that is to be.

Small business owners may treat their employees better, but that's because those owners get to know their employees and so care for them.

The reason why Walmart is able to do what it does is because all it cares about is profit and doesn't give a **** if a worker is a single parent or not.
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Thats the reason unions were founded in the first place...horrid workin conditions that killed workers ...
 
teamosil said:
Well it doesn't seem like you have a position really... It's like you're only laying out 5% of your position and assuming I know what you meant to say. I don't. If you want to repeal the 16th amendment, you're certainly free to try, but you would fail... I dunno. Why don't you just spell out what your position is.
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Tell me since you brought up it like the founders intended it WHY the sixteenth was needed? I see you were unaware you did so AGAIN.
 
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How am I supposed to take the OP seriously when it can't even spell "Democratic" properly?
 
teamosil said:
Of course it does- "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States". You don't need to look up what any individual founder wanted it to say, they wrote it down. We have a written constitution.
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I'm not the one that called Madison a lier. That was you friend. Trying to back down on it now and quoting the line means nothing at this point. You are already known to be full of it.
 
MoSurveyor said:
Then things must be much different in other parts of the world than they are here because no non-politician or any group of non-politicians can "take over" the government here.
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:) Of course they can - which is why I label this an "effective" ceding of sovereignty rather than a "nominal" one. It's the classic De Toqueville nightmare of concentrated v dissipated interest.
 
teamosil said:
Of course it does- "The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States". You don't need to look up what any individual founder wanted it to say, they wrote it down. We have a written constitution.
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aye, but you do need to understand the meanings of the phrases utilized.
the contemporary liberal definition of " general welfare" is vastly different than the definition used by the framers....y'all have rendered the term virtually meaningless .. under the current notions, the words " general welfare' can be replaced with " do whatever we want, to whomever we want, for whatever reason"

Madison is one that defined the term... he defined it as a synonym of the enumerated powers ,seen collectively... not an independent source of power.
this is the exact opposite of the view of contemporary liberalism that consistently utilize it as an independent source of power.

I blame the public education system.. the system that was unconstitutionally co-opted and controlled by the Federal Government( another example of the general welfare clause being improperly applied)..
 
Henrin said:
Tell me since you brought up it like the founders intended it WHY the sixteen was needed? I see you were unaware you did so AGAIN.
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So your position is that the initial constitution didn't permit the income tax, but that the 16th changed that? I don't necessarily agree. People were split on whether the original one did. But with the 16th in place there certainly isn't any question, right? So what is your issue?

Henrin said:
I'm not the one that called Madison a lier. That was you friend. Trying to back down on it now and quoting the line means nothing at this point. You are already known to be full of it.
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Kiddo, I can't believe you're bringing up that Madison thing again after I totally smashed you on that. Remember? I said that he waited to release his notes until after the other framers had died and that the framers had promised not to do that. You angrily accused me of making that all up, I posted my source, and you slunk away in shame. Why would you want to relive that?
 
I find it interesting that in this thread people have argued all around the subject without actually picking up the question of the OP. It seems no one really can think of a good series of reasons why Public Unions will be able to bounce back from the blows of the last few years. That's an interesting parallel to the Wisconsin election itself - where Democrats ended up not actually running on collective bargaining.


anywho, in other news, once again, we here in the conservative ranks at DP have brought you the analysis before the talking heads have picked up on it :).

Boston Globe: The end is near for public-sector unions

In retrospect, there were two conspicuous giveaways that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker was headed for victory in last week’s recall election.

One was that the Democrats’ campaign against him wound up focusing on just about everything but Walker’s law limiting collective bargaining rights for government workers. Sixteen months ago, the Capitol building in Madison was besieged by rioting protesters hell-bent on blocking the changes by any means necessary. Union members and their supporters, incandescent with rage, likened Walker to Adolf Hitler and cheered as Democratic lawmakers fled the state in a bid to force the legislature to a standstill. Once the bill passed, unions and Democrats vowed revenge, and amassed a million signatures on recall petitions.

But the more voters saw of the law’s effects, the more they liked it... Long before Election Day, Democratic challenger Tom Barrett had all but dropped the issue of public-sector collective bargaining from his campaign to replace Walker.

The second harbinger was the plunge in public-employee union membership. The most important of Walker’s reforms, the change Big Labor had fought most bitterly, was ending the automatic withholding of union dues. That made union membership a matter of choice, not compulsion — and tens of thousands of government workers chose to toss their union cards. More than one-third of the Wisconsin members of the American Federation of Teachers quit, reported The Wall Street Journal. At the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, one of the state’s largest unions, the hemorrhaging was worse: AFSCME’s Wisconsin rolls shrank by more than 34,000 over the past year, a 55 percent nose-dive.

Did government workers tear up their union cards solely because the union had lost its right to bargain collectively on their behalf? That’s doubtful: Even under the new law, unions still negotiate over salaries. More likely, public-sector employees ditched their unions for the same reasons so many employees in the private sector — which is now less than 7 percent unionized — have done so: Many never wanted to join a union in the first place....
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Thrilla said:
Madison is one that defined the term... he defined it as a synonym of the enumerated powers ,seen collectively... not an independent source of power.
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Madison wanted a much more narrowly circumscribed federal government than was actually laid out in the constitution. Hamilton wanted a much broader one. The actual constitution is the compromise that was struck. Even after it was written, Hamilton continually tries to paint it as though it meant something much broader and Madison as though it meant something much more narrow. The courts go off the actual words, which clearly encompass spending to promote the general welfare.

Now, that most emphatically doesn't mean the federal government can just do whatever it wants. All that clause grants the government are the powers to spend and to tax, not anything else.
 
cpwill said:
I find it interesting that in this thread people have argued all around the subject without actually picking up the question of the OP. It seems no one really can think of a good series of reasons why Public Unions will be able to bounce back from the blows of the last few years.
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Perhaps your not reading well. I think that has been answered. I myself noted that this is something that cycles, so there is no reason to believe it is over, let alone something that they would require a coming back.
 
Phys251 said:
How am I supposed to take the OP seriously when it can't even spell "Democratic" properly?
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How would anyone take you seriously when you command such a weak knowledge of the English language?
 
cpwill said:
I find it interesting that in this thread people have argued all around the subject without actually picking up the question of the OP. It seems no one really can think of a good series of reasons why Public Unions will be able to bounce back from the blows of the last few years.
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No one has given a good reason why they will not. Sooner or later republicans will run out of things to blame on them. God forbid, republicans might actually try to solve problems instead of blaming them on the other guy, but that is probably asking too much.
 
teamosil said:
So your position is that the initial constitution didn't permit the income tax, but that the 16th changed that? I don't necessarily agree. People were split on whether the original one did. But with the 16th in place there certainly isn't any question, right? So what is your issue?

Did it now? Quote me where the income tax is allowed? The SC couldn't seem to find it either, so do tell.



Kiddo, I can't believe you're bringing up that Madison thing again after I totally smashed you on that. Remember? I said that he waited to release his notes until after the other framers had died and that the framers had promised not to do that. You angrily accused me of making that all up, I posted my source, and you slunk away in shame. Why would you want to relive that?
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LOL. You didn't destroy me on anything. You showed he lied about releasing his notes and then made a huge jump in logic that it made federalist 41 and everything else Madison ever said a lie. Honesty isn't your strong suit, I see.
 
Redress said:
No one has given a good reason why they will not. Sooner or later republicans will run out of things to blame on them. God forbid, republicans might actually try to solve problems instead of blaming them on the other guy, but that is probably asking too much.
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Quite true. Quite true.
 
ttwtt78640 said:
Just what should an employer do for (or to) a worker that is a single parent, as opposed to what they would for (or to) any other worker? It sounds to me that you are accusing Walmart of being fair. ;-)
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Have daycare and after-school programs for their children, for one. Flexible work hours for another. Training and education programs would be nice too so they can advance and eventually demand a higher income to care for their children themselves rather than relying on government assistance so much for it.
 
cpwill said:
I find it interesting that in this thread people have argued all around the subject without actually picking up the question of the OP. It seems no one really can think of a good series of reasons why Public Unions will be able to bounce back from the blows of the last few years. That's an interesting parallel to the Wisconsin election itself - where Democrats ended up not actually running on collective bargaining.


anywho, in other news, once again, we here in the conservative ranks at DP have brought you the analysis before the talking heads have picked up on it :).
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It depends on how badly private sector employees get treated, and they start demand better worker rights and form unions to help in that cause.
 
teamosil said:
Madison wanted a much more narrowly circumscribed federal government than was actually laid out in the constitution. Hamilton wanted a much broader one. The actual constitution is the compromise that was struck. Even after it was written, Hamilton continually tries to paint it as though it meant something much broader and Madison as though it meant something much more narrow. The courts go off the actual words, which clearly encompass spending to promote the general welfare.

Now, that most emphatically doesn't mean the federal government can just do whatever it wants. All that clause grants the government are the powers to spend and to tax, not anything else.
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Not to nitpick, but Hamilton won Madison over until Madison sent copies to Thomas Jefferson, and Jefferson then got Madison on his camp.

Madison agreed with Hamilton that a centralized federal government was needed, but Jefferson reminded Madison that some protections from the federal government, such as the Bill of Rights, was needed.
 
cpwill said:
I find it interesting that in this thread people have argued all around the subject without actually picking up the question of the OP. It seems no one really can think of a good series of reasons why Public Unions will be able to bounce back from the blows of the last few years.
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Sure, ultimately, the whole Republican vision for the country of trying to squeeze as much money as possible out of the middle class in order to make more room for the super rich isn't viable. The last 15 years of our economy have proven that profoundly clearly. Trickle down failed. Economists pretty much all realize that now, it is just that some segment of the population lags behind. They're getting sucked by ridiculous Republican rhetoric that sees wages as an expense to be minimized in order to maximize profits. Sooner or later, the people will realize that it is their income that the Republicans are trying to minimize and they'll start voting in a more moral and informed way on the topic.
 
Redress said:
No one has given a good reason why they will not. Sooner or later republicans will run out of things to blame on them. God forbid, republicans might actually try to solve problems instead of blaming them on the other guy, but that is probably asking too much.
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1. Republicans put up a plan that might harm liberal programs

2. It doesn't show up in the senate for a vote.

3. Democrats say the republicans are trying to kill old people.

4. Democrats declare republicans have no plans.
 
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rocket88 said:
That's the inherent contradiction in hard core Libertarianism. They don't want anarchy, but when you press on the specifics of an effective government, they don't want any of the things necessary to make the government effective.
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To be fair to libertarians, most just want to ensure that people aren't forced by the power of government to go against their personal conscience. Which I actually commend.

But where I disagree with libertarians is that organizations, such as corporations, are inherently sociopathic because they are an assembly of people united together for a common goal, and in such an assembly they may be more concerned about using other people to attain that goal that empathizing with the people involved.

Which is why I'm an anarcho-syndicalist.
 
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