If you benefit from Collective Bargaining, shouldn't you contribute to the costs? Otherwise or opt out of the benefits you get from it.
On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 3:07 PM, Judah McAuley <[email protected]> wrote: > > I believe that the summary is pretty accurate. Here are some of the > problems that it causes. > > 1. Having contracts have to be negotiated yearly is a waste. Contract > negotiations take time and effort and often can be contentious > (regardless of whether you are in the public or private sector). There > is no reason to not negotiate a 3 or 4 year contract, possibly with > opt out clauses, and focus on the actual work in the interim. It's > wasteful. > > 2. Total wages, I believe, includes benefit supports by the employer. > By artificially capping at the CPI, it doesn't take into account the > rise if health care costs and similar factors. Regardless, I thought > we want government to run more like a business? Would you support a > law that told businesses that they couldn't give raises above the CPI? > In general, most raises probably won't be much higher than the CPI and > might be lower. But artificially limiting the options is bad > management practice. > > 3. What the hell is reasonable about dissolving a union every year > unless they have another vote? Great, more paperwork, more money spent > on something stupid, more opportunities to have management interfere > elections. Unions can be dissolved, there are mechanisms in place > already. Maybe we need to strengthen those. Requiring a > reauthorization of all unions every single year is just wasteful and > stupid hoop jumping solely for the purpose of making unionization > harder. So much for reducing bureaucracy, right? > > 4. Not allowing employers to collect union dues. Awesome. Let's add > another unneeded layer of complication! Employers are the ones who are > already processing payments, deducting taxes, ira deposits, premium > payments, etc. Why the hell would you add a whole separate scheme for > collecting union dues, post payroll? No reason other than to just make > life harder on unions and union members. Punishment and stupid > regulations, plain and simple. > > 5. Members of the collective bargaining unit wouldn't be required to > pay dues. This is really the heart of what they were after when > Republicans in Wisconsin passed this law. Everything else was about > punishment for the audacity of having a union and being a union > member. This one, however, gets to the heart of what collective > bargaining is. Collective bargaining is the notion that an entity, in > this case a union, is going to negotiate the wages, benefits, etc for > a class of workers, say classified staff at a college. The union does > the heavy lifting in terms of contract negotiations and are paid to > try and get the best deal for their clientele, just like a sports > agent gets paid for negotiating a players contract with a team. If a > worker can get all the benefits of the negotiated contract without > having to put any money toward the actual negotiation of the contract > it completely blows the notion of collective bargaining out of the > water. It is no longer collective bargaining because some reasonable > portion of the collective is no longer participating in the > bargaining, just the receiving of whatever benefits are negotiated by > the people that other folks pay for. The words Collective Bargaining > no longer apply and it's wrong to use them. > > The law effectively eviscerates collective bargaining but tries to > pretend that it keeps unions around. It's totally dishonest and > complete bullshit. If they had passed a law that just gets rids of > unions for public employees it would have at least been honest. No, > instead they redefine the notion of collective bargaining and then > pass a bunch of add on rules so that if unions somehow survive in some > form from the redefinition of collective bargaining or a court strikes > down the rule on collective bargaining, then they still have a bunch > of onerous rules in place designed, at every turn, to just make things > more complicated, to add layers of regulation, to make things slower > and more tedious and make every single little thing having to do with > unions harder. It's anti-worker, it's bad for productivity, it's > dishonest and purely driven by an ideological motive to crush unions > in any way possible without regard to side effects on anything else. > > Hope that helps clarify things. > > Cheers, > Judah > > On Fri, Jun 8, 2012 at 11:02 AM, Cameron Childress <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> I have been casually observing the Collective Bargaining thing that seems >> to be att he root of the whole Wisconsin thing. Most of my information >> comes from my own research, or from mainstream media. I am very not >> interested in extreme left or right talk radio. >> >> So - I decided I'd take a look at the law changes that started this whole >> thing to get a direct, un-politically-polluted plain english description of >> the changes. I don't really care about who funded what or what crybaby got >> his feelings hurt - I am just interested in what the real change was. >> >> I ended up here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_Act_10 >> >> Assuming the wikipedia article is correct (admitting it may have flaws) >> there are alot of changes, but the items under collective bargaining are: >> >> *"Collective Bargaining:* The bill would make various changes to limit >> collective >> bargaining <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collective_bargaining> for most >> public employees to wages. Total wage increases could not exceed a cap >> based on the consumer price >> index<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Consumer_price_index> (CPI) >> unless approved byreferendum <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendum>. >> Contracts would be limited to one year and wages would be frozen until the >> new contract is settled. Collective bargaining units are required to take >> annual votes to maintain certification as a union. Employers would be >> prohibited from collecting union dues and members of collective bargaining >> units would not be required to pay dues. These changes take effect upon the >> expiration of existing contracts. Local law enforcement and fire employees, >> and state troopers and inspectors would be exempt from these changes." >> >> None of these sound unreasonable to me. If I work somewhere that's >> unionized but I don't want to be part of the union or pay dues, now I don't >> have to. The union has to have a valid reason to exist once a year by vote >> (which should be super easy for any worthwhile union). Wage increases are >> pegged to CPI - this all seems very reasonable to me. >> >> Perhaps there is an additional item I am missing? Does anyone have any >> links to a good (neutral) alternate summary of the law that has something >> else worse in there? >> >> -Cameron >> >> ... >> >> >> > > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Order the Adobe Coldfusion Anthology now! http://www.amazon.com/Adobe-Coldfusion-Anthology/dp/1430272155/?tag=houseoffusion Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:351815 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
