The hypocrisy from the rightwing against union workers

While what Walker is doing in Wisconsin is the step in the wrong direction in my view, I don't see how his actions are unconstitutional. He wants to make a policy that public workers cannot bargain their income, well that's fine, there is nothing stopping Union workers from walking off their jobs. If there are other tools willing to have their employer work them to slave labour, that's their choice. We still have the freedom to petition, to join a Union, to protest in this country and this is something that people should not forget. Unions cannot and will not ever be outlawed, I am confident of this.

What I am disturbed at are these attacks on Union workers, on public workers, by tea partiers and other conservatives labelling them all as "thugs", as "criminals". Teachers, fire fighters, policemen, working and middle class folks being attacked from none other than tea partiers, the same folks who insisted they were one in the same before, the same folks who told the rest of us to respect what they stood for. It's do as I say, not as I do. One individual makes a very good point of this in his video:



You know, it's almost as if by tea party standards, we are only to look out for the interests of big businesses and the wealthy, and nothing else.

Big business cuts down income of working folks to maximize shareholder value, they are looking out for whats best for the company!

The worker petitions and moves to increase his income for his family, for his own costs, and he is branded a thug or a criminal.

Big business sends jobs overseas, blame the government, taxes are too high!

The worker loses his job because of offshoring, its a tough world! Maybe you should consider slave labour!

The unemployed worker takes up his unemployment benefit, the one from which he has paid part of his taxes towards the years he spend working 50 hour weeks and he is a criminal!

Big business takes on illegals in place of american citizens, blame the government for not closing the borders!

Raise taxes on big business by 2% to cut down debt, you are a criminal but cut down the income of public workers by more than 5% and we are doing what is necessary to bring down the deficit!

It's do as I say and not as I do by the tea parties, this is all this is. I must say, the treatment of our police men and woman along with our fireman, our teachers, it's a long cry from 9/11:



These days our fireman, policeman, paramedics are treated much differently under a different environment with a different administration. They want decent affordable healthcare, an income that is sustainable enough, and those on the rightwing call them thugs, but when it was 9/11, the were a political goldmine. Hypocrisy, huh?

Originally posted by Southern Guardian

You know, it's almost as if by tea party standards, we are only to look out for the interests of big businesses and the wealthy, and nothing else.

Big business cuts down income of working folks to maximize shareholder value, they are looking out for whats best for the company!

The worker petitions and moves to increase his income for his family, for his own costs, and he is branded a thug or a criminal.

Big business sends jobs overseas, blame the government, taxes are too high!

The worker loses his job because of offshoring, its a tough world! Maybe you should consider slave labour!

The unemployed worker takes up his unemployment benefit, the one from which he has paid part of his taxes towards the years he spend working 50 hour weeks and he is a criminal!

Big business takes on illegals in place of american citizens, blame the government for not closing the borders!

Raise taxes on big business by 2% to cut down debt, you are a criminal but cut down the income of public workers by more than 5% and we are doing what is necessary to bring down the deficit!

It's do as I say and not as I do by the tea parties, this is all this is. I must say, the treatment of our police men and woman along with our fireman, our teachers, it's a long cry from 9/11:

These days our fireman, policeman, paramedics are treated much differently under a different environment with a different administration. They want decent affordable healthcare, an income that is sustainable enough, and those on the rightwing call them thugs, but when it was 9/11, the were a political goldmine. Hypocrisy, huh?

edit on 25-2-2011 by Southern Guardian because: (no reason given)

Though I disagree with some of your points, you are correct on some of the rhetoric. I for one do not believe "Government" employees should be in a union... their mandatory union dues is technically taxpayer money and taxpayer money should not fund a Union. Collective bargaining against who... the taxpayer. Unlimited Pensions paid forever by the taxpayer.

Both of these parties are to blame. Big Business is off-shoring jobs because there is NO reason not too. Why even have minimum wage laws and environmental standards when there is NO penalty to move your operations to China, Not pay US taxes, pay slave labor wages to workers, dump all you want, AND STILL sell the end product back here with not a single Tariff.

Neither party will address this issue and until they do, we will hemorrhage jobs and wages and spiral into bankruptcy as we pay additional unemployment, welfare, and handouts because there will be no new "living wage" jobs. You cannot legislate "domestic" wages if you do not address "import tariffs".

What company would NOT do this given the way the rules are stacked against US Trade. No "real" Union will be around in 20 years at this rate because we cannot compete with slave labor. It is that simple. If we do not address "Fair Trade" and access import tariffs and keep REWARDING those who off-shore, our way of life is toast.

Anyway, Unions are Political and because they have sworn allegiance to the DNC like most of the media, they no longer sway the sympathy of half the country. By their own actions, they have Polarized themselves both with Politics and the benefit demands that far surpass any in the private sector. Like it or not, Unions are now viewed as Left wing DNC stooges and have lost allot of clout with the private sector American workforce.

reply to post by Southern Guardian


It works both ways. Having worked for a asset management firm that dealt with institutional investors, I can tell you that the toughest clients were not the fortune 500 pension funds, not the large family endowment, it was the unions, most specifically the public sector unions.

The unions were tough clients, they pushed for the highest returns, the most aggressive investment strategies. They wanted big business to make big dough because they wanted to cash in on the returns. The same folks who are hammering "big business" are more than happy to take a nice lift off the profits those businesses make from off shoring, laying off staff and the like.

Now we did screens on our portfolios, meaning that you could exclude companys that hit certain criteria. Tobacco, booze firms, union vs. non union. The private endowment would choose screens, the union never would.

As it relates to "they just want a decent living". I'm sure thats right. The problem is that due to collective bargining they are destroying the effectiveness of those very public institutions they serve.

I live in Hawaii. Hawaii is broke. Hawaii has a new Governor. I did a consulting gig with the state as Abercrombie was looking to streamline the government. OK. There are over 2 dozen state entities that do fullfillment - print documents and send them to folks or to the locations that hand them out. Over 200 folks work in those centers, coupled with the technical infrastructure and associated physical facilities. It would be simple (and I mean simple) to consolidate those centers and create a state fullfillment center that would need about 45-55 staff, 1 building and about 20% of the technical infrastructure. Sounds good. No can do because all 200 of these folks work for the AFL-CIO and they will not tolerate the consolidation. I found 4 other examples where the state could save literallly hundreds of millions. Web hosting, call centers, data centers, network operations centers. All were redundant and all rejected because the unions would not accept it. Well its about time the tax payers of the country stopped accepting the unions not accepting these common sense efforts.

To the OP - Ok, well, you've got it wrong, in my humble opinion. What the Unions want is health care for which they pay much less than the national average. Further, they also don't want to contribute to their OWN retirement plans. The Senators in WI were elected to do a job, they should return to it, end of story. As far as them being in the minority, in the words of our "Dear Leader", they won, again end of story. Public sector unions should never have been allowed int he first place. An argument can be made that PRIVATE sector unions had a purpose and indeed did fix many labor problems. Public sector unions however are a different story. Perhaps we should take a lesson from Ronald Reagan. Remember the Air Traffic Control Strike? Worked out really well for them. They were all fired, oops, no job at all. Things that make you go hmmmmmmm.

On some levels, SG, it just makes me sad. It really bothered me a lot when the tea party went up against these people. I sorta ranted about it here in this thread from last week: Wisconsin protesters to face Tea Party counter protesters today. Things like this start making me believe there really is no hope left for this country. We're too divided.

Originally posted by dolphinfan
reply to post by Southern Guardian

 

It works both ways. Having worked for a asset management firm that dealt with institutional investors, I can tell you that the toughest clients were not the fortune 500 pension funds, not the large family endowment, it was the unions, most specifically the public sector unions.

The unions were tough clients, they pushed for the highest returns, the most aggressive investment strategies.

I think it is good that there may still be Unions that have enough muscle left to counter balance those of businesses. Was your management firm obligated to hire union workers? I do not support any measure to force businesses to hire union workers, at the same time I do believe that Union workers are of no different nature than private employers. Both are looking for their own best interests, both are looking for the best outcome.

No doubt there are corrupted Unions out there, no different from whether there are corrupted corporations, that being said, in nature, both are necessary to creating a balance in my opinion. You attack Unions and in my view you are only advocating for the interests of the employer which i believe is unfair. An individual employee is nothing against an employer, especially in these economic times. Unions are necessary, and the fact that people continue to attack them, to generalize them, only shows me the biased agenda they have for big businesses. If you want to criticize corrupted Unions, by all means, but to generalize entire unions and workers, you will not gain my ear.

Unfortunately the reality is, unions are not as influencial as they once were. With the ever globalized community, businesses are finding ways to by pass unions, so it still astounds me that Unions are being partly blamed for this economic mess, it is a joke. Many businesses will move jobs off shore or hire illegals regardless of the demands from unions, you simply cannot compete with slave labour.

SImmer down my friend...I was part of a union for many years and I actually held a position for my local..I know first hand that their are great union members and I also know that there are leeches within the union who perpertuate negative work ethics..when you are part of a union and you are either a steward or on the executive board you learn first hand that just like a lawyer even if your client tells you he's guilty your doing everything to get that person off and that's just wrong..and the ratio of people doing the right things filing a grievance was insignificant to the amount of people filing grievances the were perpertaully always complaining about something.

As far as Firemen, Police and EMT my only issue is that the EMT's are the one that get crap pay...Several years ago in Boston the Fire Fighter Union fought tooth and nail to try and prevent random drug testing..there was for some short period of time issues where Firemen where caught in possession of narcotics...the union does not do enough to extract the crap from the ranks and these are precisely one of the major reasons why people get so frustrated with collective bargaining and unions in general. I have many police officers that are making a killing between going to court, details, callback pay and the Quinn Bill they are doing ok...I don't know about you but there is not shortage for applicants for police officers...they are not getting in it for the money it's an exciting career like the Fire Department..most firemen have a second job not because they need one but because their schedules easily accomodate the extra time..If anyone is getting paid crap it's the EMT's...

When you hear that teachers union oppose merit pay you have to scratch your head and think that god forbid if a teacher tries to excel at his or her job why shouldn't that person get rewarded...but the union is not in favor of that..in my previous position all the personnel wanted polo shirts with the emblems on them just two per person was going to be worked out with the department and the majority of the membership was all for it..people were sick of their own shirts getting ripped at work and not being reimbursed...at the time the idiot president and vice president then wanted to push the issue that the employees should also be reimbursed for laundering the shirts...that's what greed does in a union they just don't know when to stop...as I said in another post it's going to come down to layoffs and see how much solidarity there is when the union does nothing for the then laid off people..I've seen both sides of the coin my friend and at this time everyone is guilty of the mess that we are in and it's not worth identifying the flaws of one side withouth mentioning the shortcomings of the other..do you really believe that one side is better than the other?? Sorry if I rambled so tired...

Oh come on it is not about firefighters and police officers. no one is attacking the police or fire fighters. they have a very hazardous job and should be commended, and it isnt about private worker unions either like steel workers or whatever.

This is about people with cushey govt jobs that get paid an average of 30% more than the same private sector worker. and also recieve about 70% better benefits than the private worker.

Remember this is all our tax money paying these people.

Then they retire after 20 or 30 yrs when they are around 50, and recieve full pension and benefits then go get another cushey govt. job and get paid tax payer money for another 15 yrs or so and retire from that job and continue to get all those benefits

And the Govt. worker Unions collect their dues (of tax payer money) and pays the Union bosses who don't do Jack or Sh*t. Then to top it all off the unions use our tax payer money to fund (read bribe) politicians campaigns.

Seriously OP do you have ANY idea what you are talking about?

Sorry,

I'm going yo butt in here, just to say that tomorrow, Sat, at noon, there will be protests at the Capitol of many, if not all, states.

Don't know how to link, sorry, I'll find out. But in the meantime please check Move.On.org for listings of cities involved.

Please take time, just a little while, to stop by and let the Wisconsin Union Members that we support them.

Solidarity folks, that where it's at.

reply to post by ~Lucidity


Divide and conquer wasn't that the plan of both the democrat and republican party? Then both sides have a big laugh behind closed doors...I lile to think and hope that the tea party was going to be just a fancy way of saying I'm a registered independent and I do subscribe to some of the alleged tenants of the tea party however I can't stand Sarah Palin more than Hillary Clinton and I hated her with a passion...if we could only focus our attention as loathing both sides I think we would make some serious gains but some people just choose to ignore that bad things of their party and turn a blind eye...

reply to post by watchitburn


Kind of wished I kept it short and sweet like your reply..well said...

reply to post by watchitburn

No. Please realized that this is already affecting police, EMS, and firefighters in some states. What this is about is enslavement and also privatizing. All to the benefit of the corporations. NJ is a key example here, where Florio stole from their pensions to the tune of $900M and Whitman followed by stealing another $600M. million dollars, This is $1.5B that belonged to the police, firefighters, and other municipalities that contributed to the PERS fund. And now the government can't pay obligations, so they are changing the retirement ages and years of service so they can postpone the inevitable until they can set in place their other "reforms."

I'd be willing to BET this is happening to varying degrees in most states. They can't pay back the money they owe people because the tax base is gone. Again, these are SECURED pensions (which means the workers paid into them themselves) or Wall Street has lost them, and now the states have no money to pay these pensions as people are retiring. Hell some barely have enough to cover current pension obiligations, so they have to "reform" the pension system just as they did with most of the private sector unions.

To "reform," first they shove new workers and workers with less than X amount of time into the "new" system. Then they "pay out" for people with more time in and "provide for" things like 401K's, which Wall Street then further robs these. It's the pattern. It's been happening since the 1990s to people all over the private sector, with and without unions.

Those with unions had them busted first. Those without were just flat out screwed and no one cared. In some cases, they even went after people already collecting their pensions. There wasn't a lot of luck with that one, but they did manage to screw many of them out of benefits like life insurance and medical. And no one cared. Because it wasn't effecting them. And now no one even remembers that this happened.

And they won't rest until all unions/pensions are gone/raped. I have watched this happening for 30 years now. And no one will be exempt in the end. Not even the tough unions like the Teamsters and the AFL/CIO. These public sector unions and pensions are among the last to go because their unions are strong, so to get to them, the unions must go first. People are making this all far too complicated. That's the bottom line.

So to summarize, this is a systematic dismantling caused because secured pensions were borrowed/stolen by governments and used for other things and/or stolen by Wall Street. And mark my words, the SSI system is in the same boat and will be the last step. They will "reform" this too. First they will "buy people out...well see the paragraph above that describes the pattern.

I further believe that this is why a lot of the "demonizing" of police is taking place, so they have no sympathy when they come for them. Just think about it.

reply to post by chrismarco


Thank you very much for that point.

This is not a political issue, but a constitutional one.

reply to post by chrismarco

There are no parties and haven't been for a very long. That's just an illusion. They attach ridiculous social issues that are so low on the priority list that don't even really matter to one group or another to keep the minions fighting and distracted while they rape and pillage and destroy the middle class. So yes it was the plan. They divide and conquer on so many levels it's not even funny.

reply to post by chrismarco


The issue of merit pay is tough to calibrate.

How do you measure it?

Test scores?

Depends on what the test measures and whether the teacher is imparting independent thinking skills or merely teaching the test.

Graduation rates?

How do you measure the effect of one teacher over others in that case?

Student evaluations?

Why certainly students are mature , sophisticated and wise enough to rate the teacher who works them hardest highest, and the one who lets them goof off the lowest, especially in high school.

How do you factor in parental involvement, hunger, stress, fatigue, and a host of other factors beyond any teacher's control that substantially effect student perfomance?

Merit pay is one of those ideas that work better in theory than practice, and is sure to destroy the essential ingredient of successful education: teamwork.

The educational system is broke and in serious need of reform, but the problem isn't the teachers. the problem is the structure and conflicting goals. the system actually worked pretty well for a brief time int the '60 and '70, but then well-educated citizens decided to tell the establishment what to do with their wars and pollution and actually made progress on a lot of fronts: that's when curriculums were dumbed down and days shortened.

Reform is needed, but don't expect it to make things cheaper; better doesn't come cheap, it requires investment.

Smaller classes, less rigid age-grading (allow students to advance as they will in seperate subjects, so a student might be in 5th grade math, 7th grade english and sixth grade science, for instance), broader curriculums, longer process, new techniques such as using games like Civilization to teach history, economics, diplomacy and interpersonal relationship skills all at the same time.

reply to post by bertapearl

My vote would be for criminal.

Just for a moment , as balance , lets talk about the hypocricy of the left . Before being elected Obama said that he would put his shoes on and walk any picket line of strikers for fairness and the right to collective bargin . There are 2 million federal workers with no right to strike or collective bargin . I'd think he would have done something about that . Organize them into a union to strike against his administration for fairness and the right to collective bargin . That's why you've never seen him on a picket line and never will . All hat and no cattle . He'll be in China before Wisconsin .

Reply to post by infolurker

Well said, and I agree.

Star for you when I can.


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Reply to post by apacheman

Attach the money to the child. If a parent does not like the education the child is getting, they switch schools, and the money goes with the child. Schools with not enough students shut down.

Competition breeds excellence.


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reply to post by ~Lucidity


yes you are absolutely right, I agree with that post completely. But it seemed to me you were painting a republican/democrat lop sided picture with your Op. They both have the same agendas they just go about it from opposite sides.

Political parties should be banned.

it is inevitable, that all pensions, 401K's you name it will all be eventually seized by the Govt.

Actually I am pretty sure there is an executive order that allows the govt. to take them. I will find it and post it here.