Go teachers!

I udnerstand balancing a budget, while I lean progressive, I understand the budgets HAVE to get balanced.

But the one untouchable is and should be educaton.

I hope this thing keeps growing and expanding,
and that the dems send for their spouses, and don't reutrn back for a few months.

I thought this was going to be about cheese

dissapointing

only one untouchable, serv?

should be an interesting balancing act.

The problem is the republicans need to stop blaming the Unions and not single them out. An across the board pay deduction for ALL state employees of %10 would go much further and not inflame police or teachers near as much.

Our country is in a depression. The state employees who refuse a pay cut like that should be told they can EASILY be replaced by 1000's who would gladly work for that wage. I think the republicans are making a huge mistake by demonizing the unions. We can dig out without eliminating them. All they accomplish by doing that is loosing potential votes. I have been a conservative democrat my whole life, but after this administration i will never vote democrat again. If republicans continue to demonize unions i will not vote for them either. I think its time for a legitimate third party in America.

At least it is only a rise in expenses for them. Here in NYC they are talking about laying off another 6600 teachers. After cutting 12k or so in the last few years. And our class sizes already average over 30.

they would not have to do that if ALL state workers (should be local too) took a 10% pay cut. In the private sector they are way below that. Working for much less and getting less hours (mostly).

This is not about the pay cuts. The public employees have been willing from the beginning to accept tough cuts. The huge uproar is about the attempt to bust their unions.

Wisconsin had/has a budget surplus. The governor turned away $147MM in stimulus money (clearly not all would end up in state coffers, but some of would). Then the governor issued $140M in tax breaks to businesses (that would have all been state money). Now the governor says the budget is $137M short (although a memo from the legislative fiscal bureau projects a $56M surplus).

Basically there is still no budget problems, however the workers of the state are still being push overs and letting the governor take money from them to "repair the budget". What they will not allow is for him to bust their unions and that is why this is such a huge deal.

Similar things happening or fixing to happen in,

Ohio,
Minnesota,
Oklahoma,

and others.

This is part of a preplanned national level plan, to use the deficits and "cutting them" as an excuse to bust the unions.
How about if the Wisconsin legislator, just listens to their people, and ignores the National Party agenda that may not be what is best for their state.

Yup, you are absolutely correct - this is a preplanned national agenda.

14 senators have fled the state so the legislature can't reach a quorum and hold a vote. This has only been done in Wisconsin a few times ever, and always over huge issues (like taking away worker's rights, not pay cuts). Texas did this in 2005 I believe (although for completely different reasons).

It will apparently only take 540,000 votes to recall the governor next January. The vote break-down from last election is as follows:

Walker , Scott GOP 1,128,159 52%
Barrett , Tom Dem 1,005,008 47%
Langer , Jim Ind 10,531 0%
James , James Ind 8,287 0%
No Candidate/Virgil Lib 6,738 0%


In otherwords it would have been easy to recall him even if he hadn't started alienating some of his republican voters. Walker is just in it for the corporate kick-backs and I am certain he will just do what the Republican party tells him until he is removed.

Detmer, are you dumb? I was not saying this was about pay cuts. I was saying there is not reason to bust the unions. I was offering a suggestion of pay cuts to show that this is just an attempt to bust unions. I am for the unions.

No, I am not dumb. I am in fact probably 1,523.61 times smarter than you. Thanks for asking.

Seriously though, I would have quoted your post if I was referring to it in particular. I was explaining the situation to everyone. As someone who lives in Madison, is paid through the state, and has been out protesting - I think I should explain the situation to everyone rather than making everyone on the outside piece it together. A good summary includes the points that people are talking about.

Public Unions will be the downfall of this country if they are not removed. What is the purpose of a union? To protect the worker from the "evil" corporation no? By creating a union they have the power to fight back and come to an agreement with the said corporation. It works in the private sector because if the union is too strong, the corporation goes bankrupt(aka GM, and should have dissolved) and usually sells assets. If the union is part of the public sector it doesn't work correctly and only leads to bloated pay and pensions. When negotiating with the public sector, there is no push back because they simply raise taxes or kick the can down the road with pensions. There is no profit incentive so the negotiators connected with the government have no incentive to keep costs down. Its for the children right? If the unions become too powerful in the pubic sector the state and federal government cannot go bankrupt, so they take on loans. It has now gotten to a point that if any loans were called in on the US or state governments, they would need to print so much money as to destroy our country.

So private sector unions, though bad in my eyes, can work. Public sector unions are just bad through and through.

Oh and a education being untouchable. Do we not spend more on education than most everyone in the world? Clearly we are not getting the bang for our buck that we ought to. Our education system has become a monopoly and as such they do not strive to improve but would rather indoctrinate. Private education is no option because to go private you must pay for both private and public removing as a viable option for many middle class citizens. Give a voucher for the amount of money the local public school shells out per kid and we could have more competition. Even better, remove those who send their kids to private school from paying for the public schools in the first place. If competition can be introduced in some fashion(and there are probably better ideas than mine to do that) we will have real education in this country once more...and at a better price to boot.

Your argument is completely bogus.

The point of a union is for people to collectively get together to establish minimum reasonable working conditions. There are negotiations so both sides can meet a mutually agreeable situation. In the private sector this is balancing profits with worker demands. In the public sector this is means ensuring public workers have livable wages, benefits and working conditions while staying within a budget (aka they have incentive to keep the costs down). Public sector employees make worse pay than their private sector counterparts even though they have unions. Public employee unions do not force exorbitant costs on the government by any means - it merely protects the people and ensures that they can pay their bills. Public nurses for example make far less in terms of salary and benefits than private nurses.

It's like you live in some nightmare government scenario and don't pay any attention to how the world actually has been functioning...

Detmer, please look at how much public workers make. Something like 70k average. Private sector? 46k or so. They don't cost us an "exorbitant" amount? Where have you been living? Need me to bring up all the states that cannot pay for their employee pensions? The assertion that public employee union workers make less than private employees...simply not true. Them staying within a budget? Name me some government budgets that actually do that..they are few and far between. What you say just doesn't add up to what is happening.

pay the students to learn. the point of a union is to extort money for their members from the majority of the non-unionized population.

http://suncoastpasco.tbo.com/...-employee-pensions-looms/

http://online.wsj.com/...04576150382648740642.html

http://www.bloomberg.com/...-state-pension-funds.html

Those are some news articles at the top of a search in google. Its clear that public union pensions are a major factor in state budget crises across the nation.

lets see if I can get those fixed lol, just a sec.

nice its automatic lol...good thing I complicated it all.

Reading further down the bloomberg article:

"The Teachers' Fund for Retirement has about 9,900 contributing members and almost 6,700 retirees, according to its most recent annual report. As of last June, it had about 70 percent of the assets needed to cover its obligations, and an unfunded liability of $795 million, public filings say."

Thats only north dakota...what 1% of the population? They have almost as many retired as contributing, its social security all over again.

CK, so you dislike how pensions are done (I agree that the whole pension and SS system are unsustainable and need to be reconsidered) and thus you think unions are going to destroy the country? The ability to collective bargain is much more than just establishing pensions. That is certainly an aspect of it, but not the only function and something I am certain they are willing to discuss. I know that my dad, as a state employee in Washington has a pension plan that is no longer available because they realized that for the future such a pension was unsustainable. I am sure unions would consider increased pay in lieu of a pension. Obviously a pension is one of the few attractive things about working for the government and something would have to be altered to fix it. Pensions vs wages are obviously a pay then or now deal but due to the incease in life expectancy, etc paying more and having people invest privately might make more sense.

http://www.usatoday.com/...0-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm

http://online.wsj.com/...04575003101210295246.html

http://blogs.abcnews.com/...ic-vs-private-sector.html

Look especially at that last one Detmer.

You have already admitted they make more in pensions, but are willing to negotiate. Now I said earlier they make more money as well...there is my proof.

Public sector have better pensions, better healthcare coverage and better pay...all while our governments of all levels are going bankrupt. Just proves that there is no incentive for the government to actually negotiate with unions instead of giving in for votes. There is more incentive for our government to give them higher wages and pensions for votes and public opinion than to keep pay lower and keep a budget. How do you think so many reps are re-elected each year? Its essentially buying votes. All the facts point to public unions being a major root problem in this country.

and again, I searched "public pay vs private pay US" in google and took the top three results.

anyways...I searched enough in the past about this stuff and I hardly read this forum as you can see by my post count...I was actually looking for something specific in here and this sparked my interest. Ill fade back out...have fun all.

I am 100% against unions. They are a dated system. This isn't the industrial revolution anymore. All unions do is force companies to outsource their jobs in order to make a profit and kill more American jobs. I don't see why a functional retard should make $60 an hour with benefits and everything to work on an assebbly line.

Unions are horrible and counter productive as fluff in the modern business world. If a few eggs need to be cracked to rid this country of their toxic existance then I am all for it.

From your first article:

But National Treasury Employees Union President Colleen Kelley says the comparison is faulty because it "compares apples and oranges." Federal accountants, for example, perform work that has more complexity and requires more skill than accounting work in the private sector, she says.

"When you look at the actual duties, you see that very few federal jobs align with those in the private sector," she says. She says federal employees are paid an average of 26% less than non-federal workers doing comparable work.

Office of Personnel Management spokeswoman Sedelta Verble, says higher pay also reflects the longevity and older age of federal workers.

WSJ pulls a number out of thin air in its first claim and then makes a claim without any context (since the first claim is 100% unverifiable).

Third article:
Take, for example, accountants. Government data shows that a certified public accountant who works in the private sector will have an annual salary of $71K. That same certification and education will lead to a $68K average salary for the federal government and $64K if you work for a local government.

Basically, it seems you are helping prove my point...

mrford, worker's rights are never outdated... the reason we aren't living in The Jungle anymore is because of unions. Outsourcing is due to greed alone - not an inability to make a profit otherwise. There is a reason the richest people in this country still manage to grow their wealth. It is at the expense of the average American worker.

That is stupid.

Toyota, BMW, Nissan, and Hyundai all have plants in the United states. They are all in the south, non Union country. They are making better cars for cheaper because they treat their workers fair and their workers treat them fair. Don't really see them needing bailouts.

Yes, unions were badly needed in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They are no longer needed. With the ammount of lawyers and the speed of communication domestic companies will no longer be able to strongarm their employees. The only thing unions do now it throw their weight around, make money off their poor misinfoed members, and drive profit margins down for domestic companies.

Why do you think GM makes so many cars in Canada? It sure as fluff isn't the weather. It's so they don't have to pay the workers $60 an hour so they can save some money for R&D and the progression of the company.

the average American worker is lucky that the computer was invented or it'd be too dang complicated for them to get paid $60 an hour to push a button when the light turns green to tell the robot that it was time to get some work done.

canadian auto workers union?
and, i might be wrong, but was gm canada not given billions of dollars?

The union protesters are leeches trying to intimidate the rest of us into continuing to overpay them.

GM Canada was given billions of dollars and CAW workers took pay cuts so they could give their unionized American employees $4,000 bonuses barely 2 years after being on the verge of bankruptcy.

i thought teachers did the CWA dealy. Communication Workers Of America... but then again, i am getting drunk.

Buy Japanese, German or Korean! I am glad our auto tariffs/shipping costs are sufficient to keep US employees competitive relative to our peers. We aren't losing factory jobs to those countries.



Lawyers can only help them with what is legal. Lawyers can't help if there is no legal recourse to be taken. OHSA will keep you from having your hand cut off at work. It will not help you feed your family.



They do it so the executives can buy an extra yacht and add millions to their hoards. If they reinvested in the company as you suggested and sold quality cars it wouldn't be such an issue. They could have made the Volt a long time ago if they had cared to - its not like the battery technology they use is new. Free trade with Canada does certainly hurt the US auto workers - you are right.

Also - just as an update on how things are going here. The media is accurately reporting that there was a Tea Party Rally at the capitol today. Less than one thousand people were Tea Partiers in support of Walker. I have heard the number is about 400 however I can not verify that. There were very clearly fewer than 1000 though. So even though they are getting media representation they are certainly the vast minority here.

You are too far gone.

You are a union man arnt you? That is the only way you can be this jaded lol

how can paying someone $60 an hour with even more benefits be beneficial to a company? I mean fluff, the union is making more money than the employee.

The union is clogging up the system. Northern workers are brainwashed into thinking they NEED these unions. There are many many industries that are not unionized and they are doing just as well if not better than the unioned ones.

I have friends that graduated with me that are workig at the BMW plant in South Carolina. They are not unioned and they have some of the best benefits that I have ever seen.

You know why? BMW doesn't have to spend all that money on lawyers, and the employees do not have to pay all those union fees.

Modern unions are like bringing a dump truck to the hardware store for a 50 pound bag of sand. Sure it will get the job done easily, but it is overkill and wasteful

I have never heard of anyone in a union making $60/hour. That is ludicrous. If it is true, then whoever is negotiating for the company(s) is doing a piss poor job because realistically if you can make more than $70k/year you don't need a union.

I am very pro-union however I have never been a union member before. No researcher or petroleum exploration unions it turns out =P

I do believe that unions will always be necessary. Always. If you ever let your guard down things will be taken from you. That being said, it is not always necessary to negotiate for more. Honestly I feel at this point all that most unions should be there for is to say "we're still here so don't fluff us." Maintaining cost of living increases is the main necessity of most unions currently however without them the workers will not maintain livable wages.

I feel like you've heard a union horror story or two and feel that stopping one or two freak cases is more important than the general good they serve.

I am in a union and the best benefit i can say is that our retirement is not put into a company fund but given to our union. We get vested with the union and when we retire we will get pensions from the union. Company's go out of business or bankrupt so they do not have to pay retirements. If your in the union you will get your pension. Without unions here is what will happen: a corporation will offer their workers a great retirement but give them a lower wage. The worker will agree to this because they know when they retire they will be taken care of. Then once the corporation has been in business for 20-30 years, all the while paying out huge profits to share holders and executives, they will then declare bankruptcy and the workers will get nothing for all their years of hard work. If you think i am wrong, i am not. I personally know many people who had just that happen to them at Westing House.

If you want to make big business more profitable start with paying the executives much less. In Japan the CEO's make only 3-5 times what their workers make. Here one CEO will make what 3-5 thousand workers make. Demonizing unions is a tactic of the rich to make themselves richer and separate the middle class further from the upper and create a 2 class system.

Yes I have heard union horror stories.

It's called the American automotive industry

Unions arnt 100% to blame. But they had a large part in it. As a diehard American car fan, I can no longer accept the workers that are effectively working the same IQ job as the drivethrough at McDonalds making the equivalent (this is after insurance, bonus, and retirement/pension) of $60 an hour

unacceptable. Do you think the people that work in a cheese factory make that much? What about on the flightline at an airport? My uncle just got a job on the flightline at an international airport, he's making $10 an hour and he's a ex-airforce seargent

do I wish he made more money? I'm sure he does. So I think he deserves $60 an hour? fluff no go to college.

mrford you are wrong. While there may be some idiots in those types of jobs MOST union jobs are somewhat dangerous and do require at least some good common sense. When idiots get hired they do dumb things like: an idiot i know of in construction who was told to cut a 2by4 (with a line drawn where to cut it) decided not to use a saw horse. He figured his leg would make a good saw horse. So he cut the lumber in half, also putting an 1/2 inch gash all across his leg. Now, when you get idiots doing dangerous work people get injured or killed.

They are not doing the same work as "workers that are effectively working the same IQ job as the drivethrough at McDonalds" Most union work is dangerous. It is not idiot work. Granted there may be a few idiots in any line of work but the majority are well trained and have good common sense.

And how much of your check goes to the union deerhunter?

Unions use scare tatics. I'm not saying that they ate 100% bad, however I really think that they need to be scaled back vastly. I mean fluff, UAWGM owns a massive steak in GM right now. That a little tarded

I will admit, I really know very little about unions outside of auto worker unions. My crusade is against the bastard unions that are destroying the American automobile.

I'm surprised NY isn't following suit. They're cutting education across the state. My brother was just hired in August as a 4th grade teacher, he just found out this week he's losing his job.

There are several teachers who are in their 7th year and losing their jobs. Of course the superintendents making $100K+ didn't get cut.

mrford, the closest unions come to using scare tactics is setting up a picket. There are strict rules to doing that too. They can only picket one entrance/exit to whatever place they are picketing. EX: a nonunion electrician is doing work in a subdivision for a builder. That local union is allowed to set up only ONE picket to an entrance for the entire subdivision. There are no scare tactics. No scare tactics for members either.

The "scare tactics" you have heard about and politicians like to throw around are from the mob era back when Al Capone was around. Yes back in the early days of unions when the mob was involved it was like that but its not now. You need to stop watching scary movies.

As far as unions ruining America's auto industry- you can blame the management for that. Ive seen first hand the wast they do. The Fenton Plant in St Louis MO is now closed and being demolished. Just before they closed the doors they retooled the entire plant costing 4 BILLION dollars. WTF??? I worked on the retooling of it. Overtime didn't matter. Nothing mattered but rush, rush, rush. If we had to set there for 6 hours waiting for someone else to finish their work so we could work- we were paid to wait. Even if the job we were there for only took 1 hr.

Needless waste and retarded bonuses and salary's for executives is what has ruined the auto industry. One exec makes what 2k union line workers make in a year. THINK, it takes 2-6 k employees to run the line. How many cars could be made with one exec's salary? No, unions are not the problem. Its the uper system of corruption starting with corporate heads and ending with politicians.

Thomas, police and school teachers are loosing jobs all over the country. Here in St louis they are talking about laying off another 200 cops. And we have not hired for years and have already cut cops.


The government needs to get lean. The problem is the people making the big money are still there and they are cutting the little guys. We need the cops, teachers, firemen, and EMT. We can do without huge political salaries.

Thomas, until the monopoly hold on education subsists, you will have bloated administrative costs.

Detmer, you try to cherry pick on those articles? I didn't take those articles because I knew they would only give my side of the story, I picked them because they were the first three returned from google. Im not trying to skew any of my thoughts and only point out part of the situation. The fact is that government jobs make more money. I highly doubt they are more complex either...you talk of unverifiable, there you have it. You quote the CPA pay, why not bring up the table just before it?

Average Annual Wage
Federal Govt. Workers $67,756
State Police $61,000
Local Firefighters $60,572
State Govt. Workers $48,742
State Legislative Workers $48,129
Government (all types) $47,552
Private (total sector) $45,155
Local Govt. Workers $43,140
Local Schools $41,113

add in retirement benefits from the same site:
"Public sector workers also are significantly more likely to have traditional pension plans – called “defined benefit” plans. The latest data from BLS showed 20 percent of workers in the private sector have pension plans. In the public sector, defined benefit plan coverage is four times greater -- about 79 percent."

put healthcare into the equation:
"The latest Kaiser Family Foundation survey on the costs of health insurance showed government workers are more likely to be offered health insurance while they work and in retirement....And those state/local government employees are paying less for coverage than their private sector neighbors. "

Look anyone can cherry pick any subject on the internet Detmer. I showed you those sites because they are a good catch on the problem from three random sources, not withstanding a bloomberg article in my first three sources. I could literally give you hundreds of sites showing trillions of dollars in debt and unpaid liabilities because of government pensions. I could show you hundreds of sites showing the problem with public union pay, but it would be useless because you could show hundreds doing the exact opposite. The fact is that taking the entire problem into account, unions, including benefits, are paid much more in the public sector than those in the private sector. You talk of putting food on the table and having living wages, I think we surpassed that long ago.

Im not going to change your mind in this matter Detmer, but don't cherry pick articles that were basically chosen at random and have an overall showing of the problems unions are foisting on the American people.

Anyways, that's not the entire problem. How come our education system is failing? THAT is what we should be asking. If these teachers want better pay, why not actually perform? We throw more money at the problem than anyone in the world and we get sub-par performance back. Since fixing that problem would most likely include competition in the education system, it would probably fix the teachers union problem as well by simply making the public school teacher outdated.

CKHustler, thanks for confirming what i have already stated- Detmer is dumb.

Detmer,
Remember when the GM plant in Janesville Closed about 2 years ago? The workers there were in a union, and alot of them were making either close to 6 figures or more.

MR Ford is right. Unions are outdated. Unions were around to make sure that employee's arn't mistreated. Right now unions are costing people jobs, as we've seen in this state where companies are moving to places where the unions arn't starting. Harley almost moved because of the union, and those employee's took thier cuts. In fact I was just talking to some of them the other day, and they feel the state workers need to feel the cuts like the public sector has.

Here is the major issue with the state employee's union. The state can't pick up and move somewhere else, where they can work without a union, where the private companies can, and some are.

Teachers say they are standing up so that they can teach our kids properly. Well, doesn't that statement mean that they should show up to work to teach those kids, instead of having to close the 2 biggest school districts in the state? Our kids are really getting taught alot right now.

And about the democrats running and hiding... If anyone here did that with thier job, they would get fired. And from everything I heard, durring the next elections, alot of them probally will be, because I have heard from both Dems' and Repubs that are increadibly disgusted with this.

If memory serves correctly, when Boeing decided to build new plants here in South Carolina, they all be said that one of the huge factors in doing so was that they were tired of dealing with the unions.

I won't even touch the mess that is the education system other then to remind that scared cows tend to make the best hamburgers.

I didn't mention the table before it because the article you provided earlier stated that most jobs of the same type require MORE of the public worker, If we know the public worker does more than the private worker we should expect that the public worker gets paid more. People should get paid equally between public and private dependent on the amount of work they do.



LS, I am sorry those Janesville workers made 6 figures. I don't think labor should be a top paying job. I just don't think they should be mistreated either. See my earlier postings for how unfortunate it is that they get paid too much.

Wow, wish I could make close to 6 figures. I'm a substance abuse counselor, and get a measly $32k. And thats living in NYC!!

I am sure those auto workers wish they could make 6 figures too. Cause they don't.

I can vouch that career (as opposed to appointed) public employees generally make about the same as private sector employees in my field (architecture) - when you add in the benefits (at least in New Jersey, where that information is easily accessible public record). Someone in my field with my level of experience in my area makes about 40-50k a year (plus about 16-20k in benefits) in public sector, and 55-70k in private sector.