Scott Walker vs. The Unions: The Real Public Enemy

[OldTrees]

Does anyone feel fair negotiations between the suppliers of jobs and the suppliers of labor (Bosses and Private sector workers or Taxpayers and Public sector workers) is a bad idea? I doubt the value of a one sided thread.

Several people have argued that practically eliminating collective bargaining was the right thing to do, yourself included. This is what I would expect such a thread to be about.

The threat of collective bargaining should always be on the table between the suppliers of jobs and the suppliers of labor (Bosses and Private sector workers or Taxpayers and Public sector workers).

Would you please show me where I misunderstood the bill or what quotes of mine were arguing for eliminating collective bargaining as an option?

[Neopergoss]

Does anyone feel fair negotiations between the suppliers of jobs and the suppliers of labor (Bosses and Private sector workers or Taxpayers and Public sector workers) is a bad idea? I doubt the value of a one sided thread.

Several people have argued that practically eliminating collective bargaining was the right thing to do, yourself included. This is what I would expect such a thread to be about.

The threat of collective bargaining should always be on the table between the suppliers of jobs and the suppliers of labor (Bosses and Private sector workers or Taxpayers and Public sector workers).

Would you please show me where I misunderstood the bill or what quotes of mine were arguing for eliminating collective bargaining as an option?

However I have heard little concrete evidence about the law accutally being unfair in the Taxpayer-PublicWorker situation. (although I admit that it hits the union organizers and elected democrats pretty hard)

Perhaps I misunderstood this quote to mean you thought the bill was perfectly fine even though it limits collective bargaining to wages only as well as limiting wage increases. Still, ever since coinich's input about this in an earlier thread things have been less clear to me.

[OldTrees]

Does anyone feel fair negotiations between the suppliers of jobs and the suppliers of labor (Bosses and Private sector workers or Taxpayers and Public sector workers) is a bad idea? I doubt the value of a one sided thread.

Several people have argued that practically eliminating collective bargaining was the right thing to do, yourself included. This is what I would expect such a thread to be about.

The threat of collective bargaining should always be on the table between the suppliers of jobs and the suppliers of labor (Bosses and Private sector workers or Taxpayers and Public sector workers).

Would you please show me where I misunderstood the bill or what quotes of mine were arguing for eliminating collective bargaining as an option?

However I have heard little concrete evidence about the law accutally being unfair in the Taxpayer-PublicWorker situation. (although I admit that it hits the union organizers and elected democrats pretty hard)

Perhaps I misunderstood this quote to mean you thought the bill was perfectly fine even though it limits collective bargaining to wages only as well as limiting wage increases. Still, ever since coinich's input about this in an earlier thread things have been less clear to me.

The bill mostly dealt with the negotiations between the workers and the middlemen (elected officials). The rights to bargain with the employers (the taxpayers) was left unchanged from my reading. Although I did not find how General municipal employees bargain with the public.

My personal opinion of Walker is very poor and I have heard that it reduced collective bargaining unfairly from people I intellectually respect. So I expect that I am misinformed but I do not know where. Hence my request for my enlightenment.

It turns out my misgivings were right but not for the reasons I was told of.

I am adding relevant details:

This bill limits the right to collectively bargain for all
employees who are not public safety employees (general employees) to the subject of
base wages.

This is not troubling to me because it still allows many different concessions (although monetary) for hours, and conditions of employment.

However the definition of base wages is more troubling to me. (Although I have not be informed once about it by opponents of the bill. hmm.) This is troubling and objectionable.

The municipal employer is prohibited from bargaining collectively with a collective
bargaining unit containing a general municipal employee with respect to any of the
following:
1.  Any factor or condition of employment except wages, which includes only
total base wages and excludes any other compensation, which includes, but is not
limited to, overtime, premium pay, merit pay, performance pay, supplemental
compensation, pay schedules, and automatic pay progressions

Is there a system like the school board Referendum(section 305) are in place for the General municipal employees (I did not see any but this bill is amending a separate document)?

For economist: section 310 points to how the CPI will be used to calculate inflation based wage adjustments.

Section 9132 points to definitions of “General municipal employee" and “School district employee”.

[Neopergoss]

My personal opinion of Walker is very poor and I have heard that it reduced collective bargaining unfairly from people I intellectually respect. So I expect that I am misinformed but I do not know where. Hence my request for my enlightenment.

This ^^ for me too. It seems like we're mostly in the same place here. What's confusing me the most is an earlier post by coinich.

Essence, you seem to be missing this distinction between private and public unions.  Private unions provide a very necessary form of worker's collectivization, and are absolutely necessary to modern America.  I support them, though to lesser an extent than other people.

Public unions however, especially in Wisconsin, are truly an abomination of the idea.  The state mandates that all workers mus be a part of the union and then as a result dues are collected from their paychecks.  Generally the dues get funded straight into the political machines of Democratic candidates, who often side with labor for political and other reasons.  As a result, public unions have a hand on both sides of the bargaining process; they often influence the people setting their own wages.  This dynamic is the absolute opposite of private collective bargaining, where there are two sides struggling and as a result public unions can be disastrous to governments.  This was a fact that FDR and other union leaders, including the original founder of the AFL-CIO, recognized.

Now is politics coming into play?  Most certainly yes.  The Democratic senators fled the state because they didn't want to face the consequences of losing the fight.  The will of the majority is not an egregious abuse of power, and it never was.  Or is Obamacare now legitimately tyranny at its finest?  The two situations aren't that much different.  Are Republicans and Tea Partiers tagging onto this out of spite and a whole other host of reasons?  Yes.  Is the movement funded by ultra-conservative (more than me!) Koch brothers along with suspicious cuts for police and fire unions?  Yes.  Is the Governor probably using the situation to correct something he (and I) view as wrong?  Yes.  This is politics at its finest.

Also, last I checked, we have a retarded tax scheme for both individuals and businesses alike.  As it is, I believe the federal tax on corporations is among the highest in the world, counterbalanced with more holes than a bloc of swiss cheese.  As a result, saying he cut corporation taxes is only half the story when many corporations are paying out the ass as it is.  Cutting limited amounts of taxes on corporations is a measure designed to stimulate the local economies.

Is there really a clear good/evil split between private and public unions? Even if there is, I would hesitate to find common cause with corporate America.

[OldTrees]

Good/evil split? ... no. Public unions are a twisted form of private unions. In some ways this is understandable in others it is unfortunate.

A particular politician can get a significant edge in their race by relying on the union's special interest donations. The end result is that the collective is able to bargain with a paid off manager rather than deal with their true bosses.

The government does not like to give up power and thus has control of "vital services" the workers of these services can be demanded to work even if there is cause to strike if a "emergency" is occurring. [The first person to think of the words "emergency powers" should have been ...]

Until recently dissenting members of a public union in Wisconsin had to pay union dues even though they were not in favor of the union organization in place. [Walker's bill changed it so that the dissenting workers did not have to pay dues but could still be counted as part of the collective. Whether this is an improvement I am not sure.]

Private unions were/are/will be a great working solution to creating fair negotiations between private workers and private business.
Public unions on the other hand are just the best idea someone had when the question was asked. The model was not adapted to the political nature of the negotiation.

So I would not categorize it as a good/evil split. I would categorize it as a B+/D- split.

Corporate America is typically categorized as the CEOs of large businesses. Did you know CEO's have more lenient bosses than public unions? Currently the owners of a company are not responsible for what the company does. This allows them to treat it as a bank account and not as being the boss of the CEO. This leaves the CEO with no one to deny them exorbitant salaries. Managing a company should pay a lot but the salaries you have heard of are out of proportion. [It is strange to think that the most obvious grievance against corporations is due to negligent bosses.]

[Neopergoss]

Thank you. I feel that I have a better grasp now of the concept of public unions.

    This bill limits the right to collectively bargain for all
    employees who are not public safety employees (general employees) to the subject of
    base wages.

This is not troubling to me because it still allows many different concessions (although monetary) for hours, and conditions of employment.

So you're saying that if they are unhappy with their working conditions, they can just bargain for higher wages? But there's a problem with that idea: this bill places a tight cap on wage increases. (http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/wisconsin-budget-would-allow-collective)

state employees would maintain the ability to collectively bargain for wages as long as the union’s proposed wage increases are no greater than the annual change in the consumer price index (CPI).

In other words, pay can only increase as much as the value of money decreases -- which isn't really an increase.

[OldTrees]

I am not sure if I am explaining this well enough.
The negotiations between public workers and elected officials should only adjust for changing conditions and inflation. Actual wage increases should be negotiated with the taxpayer. The bill does not touch the negotiations between the public worker and the taxpayer. However it renders the elected officials unable to preform half of their negotiating duties. Specifically by restricting the negotiations to that limited definition of base wages(see quote: section 223), the bill makes it illegal for elected officials to adjusting wages to account for changing conditions other than inflation.
I know how School district employees can negotiate directly with the taxpayer but I do not know how Wisconsin allows General municipal employees to negotiate with the taxpayer.

[Glitch]

I've always hated the "real reasoning" argument.  I don't care if the bill is actually a secret ploy by republicans to make democrats look bad.  I don't care if it's democrats trying to ruin the republican's next luncheon.  I don't care about the why, really, more the "what".

Is this a good bill for the people?

Everyone has to make cuts, it's true.  There's no denying that unions will oppose all cuts on teacher pay.  However, teacher pay isn't as ridiculous as it's being made out to be.  It'd probably be better to just raise taxes on the rich, if the bastards paid them in the first place.  No, if you ask me, this bill is all about firing teachers.

And frankly?  Some teachers need to be fired.  And they can't be /touched/ with unions in place.

So cut the political bullshit, do we need unions to go away?

Absolutely not.  Unions are counter-points to oppressive companies.  But these aren't unions against oppressive companies, they're up against the government.  Their money comes from the people, not some business.  What are they going to do, go on strike against the people?  Picket the tax-payers house?  Unions are good.  State workers unions?  Not so much.

So here's what need to happen:

1.  Senate Bill 5 (or that's what it is in my state) needs to pass.
2.  The necessary cutbacks need to be made.
3.  The tax people, in response, need to strike.  The people who collect the money, file the paperwork, check the paperwork, and pay the government/citizens.  That'd piss /everyone/ off.  The government wouldn't get money, the tax payers would freak out, everyone would be paying attention.  When money's involved, that's when you have the government by the balls.  Things would get done.  The exception, of course, would be our students, who need to learn.  Teachers would be busy teaching listening to smooth jazz (or that's what the protestors did in my state).  It'd force everyone to come up with an actual compromise.

[Daxx]

A number of liberal blogs and opinion shows spouted the notion that the budget shortfall was somehow Walker's doing, or that Wisconsin had some kind of magical budget surplus, but those who live there know better and these notions have been demonstrated to be false as evaluated by PolitiFact Wisconsin here:

http://politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/feb/18/rachel-maddow/rachel-maddow-says-wisconsin-track-have-budget-sur/

I disagree with their take on it largely because they seem to not have taken discounted future tax revenues into account for fiscal decisionmaking. Budgets are not all about a single year; they must be taken in context: the entire economic cycle, or alternatively the discounted future budget surplus/deficit. This is why governments are able to run deficits in the same way that you or I can drop into our overdrafts or run up a credit card bill - because they are capable of borrowing money and repaying it later.

I accept the inaccuracy in claiming that he created the deficit (mea culpa), but he certainly created an addition to the deficit equal to the amount that this bill would save. Fundamentally my point still stands that he is not reducing the surplus across the economic cycle; if he truly had Wisconsin's budget at heart he wouldn't have cut those taxes.

But these aren't unions against oppressive companies, they're up against the government.  Their money comes from the people, not some business.  What are they going to do, go on strike against the people?  Picket the tax-payers house?  Unions are good.  State workers unions?  Not so much.

Actually the government is still a monopsonist demander of labour, and can therefore still be responsible for market failure.  Public sector unions counterbalance the same sort of problems that private sector ones do. Granted that the problems may not be to the same scale since the incentives facing government employers are slightly different to those facing private sector employers, but the idea that the situation is somehow different purely on the basis that the "taxpayer" is involved is just special pleading.

I'll consider starting a thread when I have a little more free time. If I knew the specific things people wanted to know about, it would make life a little easier. Maybe a Q&A thread of some kind?