...most violent sneeze known to mankind, blew a troop of monkeys out of a nearby tree, and stripped the tree of all its foliage.
It seems that the governor of Wisconsin attempted to restrict the power of public labor unions, and for his pains became the subject of a recall election that is yet to be held.
I'm not familiar with the details but it appears that some groups in Wisconsin are eager to go down the same path that Greece has gone down. They are apparently not aware that Greece got to the end of the path and fell into a quagmire, losing all their perks and other benefits which sank to the bottom of the quagmire.
After a period of demanding without success that someone come and dry up the quagmire, Greece has faced reality and is now seeking, albeit very reluctantly, to be rescued by a former oppressor. How have the mighty fallen.
I herewith offer some of our impressions about governmental labor relations.
When a public employee union negotiates a labor agreement with representatives of a governmental body, neither side bears any financial risk or burden which may result (theoretically the government side does bear the risk, but as a practical matter it does not). So, upon whom does the burden fall? Why it falls upon the hapless taxpayer of course who has no input whatever to the process. This is not sensible.
Accordingly, in my opinion, no labor agreement negotiated between a public employee union and a governmental body should be allowed to take effect unless and until it is approved by a vote of the citizens of the jurisdiction covered by the agreement. Each state should have this in its Constitution, and it should extend all the way to Congress and its staff. I subscribe wholeheartedly to the Warren Buffett solution but since it has little if any chance of being implemented I offer this as a partial alternative.
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I don't quite get the concept of "public service unions" at all. Seems more like a pyramid scheme or even a money laundering to me, given that unions these days pour their money into a single political party. Like they say, socialism is great until you run out of other people's money. Of COURSE workers want as much as they can get, but at the same time, they can't get more than what's there. Greasy Greece proves it.
ReplyDeleteWhere's this elephant?
Labor Unions were essential once. Today the unions largely serve the Union leaders, and add costs in terms of services or material to the public.
ReplyDeleteIt is agreed that the people who the unions serve should be in the negioation process.
As an example, it is not by chance that Union employees of GM refer to GM as "Generous Moters".