Unions

[Kyrillian]

Partly because the company isn't taking in the revenue to justify the salary of the mechanics. It's one thing if the company is prosperous and raking in the profits, but in the case of NWA it was not by any standards. So they are handcuffed by the union labor, then if they are forced to pay them what happens? The company will issue new debt to cover the increase in cost in hopes of increasing revenue in the future. Then when revenue doesn't increase they go bankrupt, the employees are fucked (26% paycut lookin good at this point), and now the bondholders are mostly fucked too!

[Ender]

Absolutely.

And more to the point here government worker unions should be illegal.

Why? Because the government by definition is a monopoly. They have a monopoly on force. Thus there is no competing "entity" to give workers a better choice or to balance out the ridiculous handcuffing unions cause the entities they work for...with unnaturally high compensation.

They basically demand and get whatever they want and its up to the taxpayer to pay it.

Well the time of reckoning has come. The pyramid is inverting and will collapse. Wisconsin appears to have realized it and done something, we'll see if they get yelled down or not.

So you want a bunch of private companies and corporations doing all of the governmental regulatory work? Yeah, lets see how long it takes before that completely corrupts the governmental system. At least with unions there is some accountability. Its scary to think how much tax payer money taken from local governments (cities) would be going into the pockets of private company executives in that case.

Someone has to enforce the laws that are passed, otherwise they are meaningless. If you don't have the workforce necessary to enforce those laws, people will just take advantage of the situation by not paying attention to them. Why worry about a law if not abiding by it leads to no consequences?

However, I think the government can and should be streamlined. Believe me, as a government worker, I can tell you that it does not operate efficiently. But, I think that can be done in a way that doesn't result in drastic wage decreases across the board or cutting out people's benifits. There would likely be some loss of jobs though after restructuring.

But, there are definately some government employees in certain sections that seem to have way too much time on their hands. I am not one of them, however, and as such I expect to be compensated fairly. I make around 45k per year prior to taxes and have been working there for 5 years. I don't consider that to be a gross overpayment of salary considering what I do.

[Trany]

The NWA mechanics went out on strike because they were expected to take a 26% pay cut. Would you happily stay at your job if your employer told you not only were you not getting a raise, but instead they were just going to pay you less? I see a lot of you saying unions don't need to exist because of employers being ethical nowadays, how is a move like that by a company even remotely "okay" ?

Well, I did work for NWA, and lost my job int the merger with Delta, I wasn't union, but dealt with the unions all the time, Now as for the mechanics, they walked ,and guess what NWA hired scabs!!!!! I am not certain but I believe that majority of the union mechanics are not working for NWA/Delta now either.

Unions suppress fair market value, My wife is forced to be in the teachers union, although she isn't a teacher. She is a skilled position as a SLP(speech language pathologist). So there is one or two SLPs in a school, some even split time between two or three schools. No she makes good money for working 9 months of the year, but if the school districts had to contract to her for her services, she would probably make 50% more. Hers is a case of supply and demand, her graduating class at the U was ~40 students, The UofM and UWRF are the only SLP programs locally or at least 5+ years ago.

You should be all for the unions if you want to be average and support the encouragement for sub standard and mediocre work. Not only are you protected, but you might just get a position as a union rep or steward. oOOOoOoooO you can then be the royal pain in everyone's ass, and protect worthless employees who have been there for eternity but are incapable of doing anything remotely like the job at hand.

The unions have done some good with child labor, 40hr work weeks, and safe working conditions. Now you have ACLU, OSHA, EEOC, USDL, tones of other acronyms to watch out for you, the unions just suckle at the teat of the working class and try to remain a pain in everyone's ass.

[Ender]

Trany, Union contracts don't protect your ass from getting fired if you are doing poor work or not putting in enough effort. It is up to the supervisor to make that decision and it is not restricted by any Union clauses as far as I know.

That being said, most supervisors of government employees are far too lenient and do not fire people who should be fired for doing substandard work. Seriously, there is someone that works in my section that has absolutely no clue how to do her job and everyone that is supposed to rely on her position for technical expertise is pissed off about it and has complained to her supervisor. But, she has remained in her position for probably 3-4 years.

Unions just organize your pay structure, usually based on the amount of time you have worked in your position, so you get periodic pay increases based on time instead of performance. It could be said that encourages mediocraty, but only if the supervisor does not properly enforce the slackers.

[kwiikz]

Unions definitely wont protect bad workers. UPS may tolerate 'average' work, but if anyone isn't carrying their weight they will find a way to terminate that employee. I've seen it multiple times. The only difference is that instead of a day or week before the termination, it may take around a month.

NWA/Delta may have not made as much money before they replaced all their union workers, but look at the quality of work they are pumping out now. Even just yesterday, an engine blew up in Florida. By putting in scabs the quality of the work done immediately and visibly decreased. You get what you pay for.

So while I can agree that in SOME cases union workers are 'mediocre' and those workers will indeed be protected by the union, but it is impossible to say ALL unions are bad things. I would again like to point out the closest example I have experience with. Fed-Ex vs UPS: UPS is the better company to work for, and the more successful business, hands down.

[Trany]

......It is up to the supervisor to make that decision and it is not restricted by any Union clauses as far as I know........

Grievances, work loads "job details", they have all sorts of hooks to set in to keep the union jobs union jobs, I had a lady who worked underneath me at NWA, she had been there ~20 years, seriously 4- 5 times a day I had to show here how to attach a file to email. This lady could not perform simple tasks like that.

The job she did a half retarded hook armed pirate monkey could do, it was open a envelope, read the details of the "papers" stamp it with where it looked like it should go, she basically routed mail. The emails stuff was from the OCR service they used, and she would have to pair things up. She had 3-4 month stints in various departments, but as her gross incompetence was known, the union protected her, and just shuffled her around.

Sure you have a few who fall thru the cracks, but someone who has spent 20 years being shuffled around, although they were incapable of even the most mundane task. The process with unions and "performance" reviews, you get the union rep, fighting for the idea that the union is supreme, they fight for every union member less gross negligence, like smoking crack while watching kiddy pron on their bosses computer smoking inside.

The union wants you to be afraid, but their defense of looking out for the workers so they have jobs and their livleyhood aren't destroyed is bull shit. The unions had a history with "thug" tactics, and they will try to use them even though the mob is out

[Klaus]

All of these seem reasonable.

Wisconsin capitol Madison was besieged by protesters this week as tens of thousands of state workers demonstrated against a Republican spending bill. Here is what Republican Governor Scott Walker proposes:

* State workers must increase contributions to their pensions to 5.8 percent of salary, and double contributions to their health insurance premiums to 12.6 percent. This would result in a cut in take-home pay of about 8 percent.

* Walker wants to limit collective bargaining to the issue of wages, and cap increases to the rate of inflation, with a voter referendum needed for bigger increases.

* Walker's proposal would also prohibit employer collection of union dues and members of collective bargaining units would not be required to pay dues. Contracts would be limited to one year, and collective bargaining units must take annual votes to maintain certification as a union.

* Walker said collective bargaining takes too long and the cuts need to be made immediately. He said the alternative would be layoffs of more than 10,000 workers.

* Certain employees, including local law enforcement and fire employees, would be exempt from the collective bargaining changes.

(Reporting by Jeff Mayers; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune and Todd Eastham)

The current debate is over publicly funded unions (government) that are really a monopoly. The people against the legislation like to try to shift it to ALL unions but this bill is only about the public ones.

[Ender]

All of that sounds reasonable to me too, except maybe capping all wage increases at the rate of inflation. Making the rate of inflation the normal annual step increase is fine, but you should still periodically get a raise that is slightly above the rate of inflation, maybe every 3 or 4 years at 3-4%. It should require a strict and thorough performance review, though.

I think my annual wage increase is 2.5% if I recall correctly, which is about 1% above the current inflation rate. All state employee wage increases have been frozen for the past couple years though, which is understandable, so I haven't gotten any raise at all recently. I have probably only averaged out raises at the rate of inflation over my 5 years of working here, so I don't think there is anything wrong here at the MN level since the legislature can freeze those increases whenever they want to.

I really wouldn't have a problem paying more for pension and health care... I do pay very little for those benefits right now. If that is the only thing that the WI workers are all up in arms about, that is pretty stupid.

[MnWilly]

Ender, the point is that the WI employees are being asked to give up about 8 to 8 1/2% of their take home pay. That is a nearly 10% REDUCTION in pay no matter how you look at it, and that is significant! I think that is the main reason they are willing to "fight" against this bill. That being said in these trying times WI has two choices. Cut existing salaries and try to keep the level of service for state residence. Or, layoffs and impact that level of service. I would think a more balanced approach would be to cut both a little.

Problem is that in my experince when it come to laying off employees the ones in charge NEVER get rid of pet programs. They tend to cut essential services first to "punish" the taxpayer for forcing them to make layoffs. Then they throw up their hands and say look what the Republicans made us do! I have personally seen this a bunch of times in local government. It is disqusting.

[Klaus]

And don't forget most layoffs are based on seniority in unions... The old guys get to hang around forever even if they are below average employees.

I understand if you are in a union and faced with a 8% pay cut you are going to be unhappy. It's a shock but compared to what some of us in the private sector have seen it's not so bad. I know I haven't seen a raise in a few years plus I have had to pay any increase in health insurance costs (employer said they were done paying increases for a few years) which adds up to much more then 8% of where I should be. Still I understand 8% is hard to take all at once.