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Vitriolic Rhetoric in Wisconsin

candrew said:
Either you're lying or you're working with a very low-skilled pool of workers.

My Dad was a skilled union worker his whole life and I can tell you for a fact that our family had medical insurance, dental insurance, vacations, etc because of unions. Comparable non-union, jobs to what my Dad did were always for less pay and less benefits.
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+1. I was a member of the sheet metal workers union, and we cleaned up compared to sheet metal workers in non-union shops.

And were, mysteriously, still competitive...
 
LogGrad98 said:
I agree with a lot of what you posted Viny...
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My post was not about arguing for or against unions, it was just stating my experience.

I dont consider my union dues steep at considering what I make an hour and that I dont pay for benefits. I will wholeheartedly agree that some unions dont realize how good they have it and that sometimes, the math, the calculations of pensions and benefits will not allow the contracts to continue.

I realize how good I have it and would definitely make concessions if need be. Maybe not getting a raise every year, but every other year. But that is neither here nor there. As is with everything, there is good and there is bad. My union, in my opinion, just happens to be one of the good ones.

The auto unions were definitely one of the bad ones as they definitely contributed to the problems the car manufacturers had...Among other things. I can definitely agree with you there. And in regards to the teacher unions, I agree again. It needs to be easier to get rid of crappy teachers. Hell, those "suspension rooms" they have in NYC are a complete and utter joke.
 
candrew said:
Either you're lying or you're working with a very low-skilled pool of workers.

My Dad was a skilled union worker his whole life and I can tell you for a fact that our family had medical insurance, dental insurance, vacations, etc because of unions. Comparable non-union, jobs to what my Dad did were always for less pay and less benefits.
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Can you prove that if your dad was not in a union that he wouldn't have had those benefits anyway?

Besides that, you obviously haven't worked in industrial jobs much yourself in the past 15-20 years. I realize I didn't make it clear above, as I was not really talking directly about the unions in that particular post. But I never meant that people in unionized jobs don't get any benefits at all. And I wasn't talking about actual "health insurance" benefits. What I meant was that unions in America rarely get their constituents anything more than the companies would offer anyway. Competition for talent has been steep, and most companies provide solid benefits and decent pay as a means to compete. The company I work for now just went through a salary restructuring, raising the pay of warehouse workers $2 an hour across the board, even in the down economy when we have tons of applicants. This is because many people are turning to education or other industries to find work as the going gets tough. So we need to offer a solid benefits/pay package to acquire and retain talent.

We are also seeing large companies moving plants out of the country or even state to state, partly to avoid the impact unions have on the bottom line. I am familiar with the situation Cummins Diesel Engines is in and I know of at least one plant that organized under a union about 6 years ago. The benefits actually got worse and the pay structure changed so, yes, immediately all got a raise, but the raises after that came less frequently than management had already planned for their budgete salary. It was also one of the first plants to experience the layoff as part of their 20% worldwide reduction in force 3 years ago. It was just too costly to operate so the lower-profit plants go first. Obviously all costs were not the labor pool, but labor is the single largest cost category on most industrial companies' budgets.

Everyone seem to view companies as evil but that is where the jobs come from. Companies pay the wages that drive the economy. And when profits are scarce and wages are at risk, unions do not help matters. Especially when some unions are raising dues to provide more money for their leadership right when financial situations for those paying the dues are getting worse. Anymore the unions just do not have the best interest of the workers in mind. And yes union leaders typically make a ton of money off the dues of the workers. I have talked to people in the industrial sector who tried to actually negotiate lower dues to help retain employees and the union walked out of the negotiations. They did not want to cut into their 6-figure salaries.

I just think the day and age of unions has come and gone. There was a time when they were necessary to provide a decent working environment and salary for workers. Anymore that is forced by competition. Right now in America I think unions do more harm than good.

By the way, take a guess the percentage of all workers in unions today then click on this link. It might surprise you.

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm
 
GVC said:
So amazingly slanted. Do workers not make the products that are sold for the profits that drive the economy?
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Wow talk about slanting it yourself. Of course it is reciprocal, give me a break. Excellent way to take 8 words out of a much longer post and put it out there as sum of the whole. Even though I am in management I am still a worker. I work for a wage. I help the company be profitable. I have a stake in it all as well.

And you do not understand economics if you think it is company profits that drive the economy. It is directly the wages paid and the amount of those wages that people choose to spend. A profitable company can pay higher wages. Workers help to make the company profitable. There are plenty of companies out there that do not turn a profit and still provide a wage, mostly start-ups and companies in new industries. Amazon.com took over 10 years to have their first profitable quarter and they still paid decent wages (actually on the upper end for warehouse workers, really well for software engineers).

And so the economy goes 'round. Spend more and the economy grows, spend less and the economy contracts. That is pretty simplified but it is the crux of it.

I pointed out that companies are providing better benefits and generally better wages to compete for talent. People are the greatest asset a company has. But you are incredibly slanting it if you think that companies have nothing to do with the wages people make. A poorly managed company will pay no wages no matter what the workers do to make anything or provide services or simply work hard. A company forced to close it's doors and/or move out of the country due to rising costs and shrinking revenues pays no wages. Rising taxes, costs of raw materials, labor costs, cost of capital all play into a company's ability to turn a profit and in turn provide a wage to workers.

But in the end the companies have the larger impact on this dynamic, as there are so many factors that impact a company beyond what the workers produce or the services they offer.
 
First of all there are two separate debates.

Public Unions and Private Unions

IMO Public Unions should be illegal. They lack the same cost pressures that a private union and private company has.

The Private Union debate is a lot more complicated.
 
I have never in my life seen anyone try to make the claim that unions only get their members what the company would be willing to offer anyway.

That is complete BS.

I have worked several union jobs, and every single one of them paid better, with better benefits, than the non union jobs in the same field.

Funny that the sticking point in Wisconsin is the right to collective bargain. The union workers have already agreed to accept whatever cuts the governor wants to impose, they just want to keep the union intact.

If the union is worthless, why is that a sticking point for either side, let alone both sides?

Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.
 
GVC said:
So amazingly slanted. Do workers not make the products that are sold for the profits that drive the economy?
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Does cheaper production raise the consumer's standard of living? Don't lower production costs and economic advancement go hand in hand? The money doesn't just vanish. Factoring only one side of the equation is amazingly slanted.
 
franklin said:
Does cheaper production raise the consumer's standard of living? Don't lower production costs and economic advancement go hand in hand? The money doesn't just vanish. Factoring only one side of the equation is amazingly slanted.
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Of course. I was just responding to what seemed like a rather one sided statement with another one sided statement.
 
SaltyDawg said:
I have never in my life seen anyone try to make the claim that unions only get their members what the company would be willing to offer anyway.

That is complete BS.

I have worked several union jobs, and every single one of them paid better, with better benefits, than the non union jobs in the same field.

Funny that the sticking point in Wisconsin is the right to collective bargain. The union workers have already agreed to accept whatever cuts the governor wants to impose, they just want to keep the union intact.

If the union is worthless, why is that a sticking point for either side, let alone both sides?

Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.
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Does this answer you question?:

Meanwhile, public employee unions have become perhaps the dominant force in our political life. They extract dues from their members which go to fund the candidacies of politicians who will pay public employees even more money. The unions' ill-gotten clout has created a vicious cycle; at the same time that government units are going broke, public employees are now far better paid than their private sector counterparts, while enjoying better benefits and ridiculous job security.
 
Millsapa said:
Does this answer you question?:

Meanwhile, public employee unions have become perhaps the dominant force in our political life. They extract dues from their members which go to fund the candidacies of politicians who will pay public employees even more money. The unions' ill-gotten clout has created a vicious cycle; at the same time that government units are going broke, public employees are now far better paid than their private sector counterparts, while enjoying better benefits and ridiculous job security.
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And you think the thousands of people (workers- teachers, firemen, police officers, etc) protesting in order to keep their unions intact care about that (contributing to a campaign) more than the right to negotiate a future collective bargaining agreement?


Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.
 
Another thing...

Lower production cost does not mean more production, cheaper goods, etc.

More often than not, cheaper production costs just means a bigger salary and bonus for the executives, and possibly a dividend for the shareholders.

For example, Apple didn't lower their prices when they started sending work overseas. Neither did Microsoft.

Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.
 
Millsapa said:
Link?
His tax cuts don't even go into effect in this years budget, knucklehead.
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Why does it matter when the tax cuts go in affect? The governor is asking teachers to take a pay cut even though he has passed a tax cut for big business. The same business (Koch industries) who contributed to his campaign. Of course he isn't going to have the tax cuts this year but they are coming even though the State is broke. Sounds a little fishy to me.
 
Millsapa said:
That?
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Let me rephrase...

You think the thousands of teachers, policemen, firemen, etc, who have already agreed to all of the cuts in pay, benefits, etc, but continue to protest because they want to keep their right to collective bargain...

You think they only care about collective bargaining so they can contribute to some politician's campaign?

And we won't even get into your claim that government workers are far better paid than private workers.



Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.
 
LogGrad98 said:
And you do not understand economics if you think it is company profits that drive the economy. It is directly the wages paid and the amount of those wages that people choose to spend.
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If nothing is produced, how do you spend a wage? Clearly, it is not wages that directly stimulate economic growth. What a stupid assertion.
 
LogGrad98 said:
Can you prove that if your dad was not in a union that he wouldn't have had those benefits anyway?

Besides that, you obviously haven't worked in industrial jobs much yourself in the past 15-20 years. I realize I didn't make it clear above, as I was not really talking directly about the unions in that particular post. But I never meant that people in unionized jobs don't get any benefits at all. And I wasn't talking about actual "health insurance" benefits. What I meant was that unions in America rarely get their constituents anything more than the companies would offer anyway.
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I never did a Cost-Benefit Analysis for my Dad and you're right that I've never worked in any industrial jobs. However, I can tell that I've lived in an area with a heavy union presence (NY and NJ) and I've also lived in an area with no almost no union influence (Texas). Blue collar workers do much, much better in NY/NJ than they do in Texas. From what I've seen, this is not debatable. I have a friend in NYC who drives a bus for special needs children. He is a union worker - he is by no means well off; but he makes a living wage, has good benefits, a pension and owns his own home. He makes more than triple what the same worker makes in Austin, Texas for the same exact job which has no benefits and no pension. Granted, you have to consider the cost of living between NY and Texas and yes there are no state taxes in Texas - but take all that into consideration and it's still not even close.

LogGrad98 said:
We are also seeing large companies moving plants out of the country or even state to state, partly to avoid the impact unions have on the bottom line.
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Perhaps this is the rhetoric you might hear on Fox News. And yet your own link illustrated the number of union workers has dropped dramatically in the past 30 years. While the number of corporations that have moved some or all of its operations over seas in the same time span has gone up exponentially. Why is that?


LogGrad98 said:
Everyone seem to view companies as evil but that is where the jobs come from. Companies pay the wages that drive the economy. And when profits are scarce and wages are at risk, unions do not help matters.
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In some cases you may be right; but in this particular case in Wisconsin you're wrong. The unions have made concessions the past 2 years and have agreed to all cuts proposed by Gov. Walker this year as well. The sticking point is the right to collective bargaining.
 
SaltyDawg said:
Let me rephrase...

You think the thousands of teachers, policemen, firemen, etc, who have already agreed to all of the cuts in pay, benefits, etc, but continue to protest because they want to keep their right to collective bargain...

You think they only care about collective bargaining so they can contribute to some politician's campaign?

Sent from my HTC Evo using Tapatalk.
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Your question: If the union is worthless, why is that a sticking point for either side, let alone both sides?

I guessed with this question you were asking why both sides care more about "collective bargaining" than teachers having to contribute to their health care and pensions.
I'm not sure who you consider to be the sides, but I was answering why the Democrats care more about the union than the teachers the union supposedly represents.
The Democrats both state and nationally are supporting the unions side with money and protesters. Why are they doing that? Because they care about teachers personally? No, they already threw the teachers under the bus. They just don't want to give up the mandatory dues they provide, and the power they have to elect their candidates.

Not all teachers want to be in the union, especially if they are Republicans. I heard an interview with a Wisconsin teacher who said her complaint with the union was that even though she didn't want to join it she still had to pay 80% of the union dues. She also complained that her forced union dues went to support candidates that she didn't agree with. Why doesn't she get a choice on whether to pay union dues to a union she doesn't want to be a part of?
 
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