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. > I think a one year contract, renewable every 12 months is a pretty easy thing. Kinda like paying rent month to month. Renegotiation isn't required, it's just available, annually. 2. Total wages, I believe, includes benefit supports by the employer. > I'm not sure about this. I'd be surprised if this were true, but it might be. > By artificially capping at the CPI, it doesn't take into account the > rise if health care costs and similar factors. It can still be raised above CPI by referendum. Admittedly it's an additional hurdle, but available. > 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? > I would not support any law that dictates what a company pays to employees. Except perhaps minimum wage, in limited industries. But if an employee chooses to be a member of a union then they have already delegated their salary negotiations to someone else, this is the same. > 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. > I have to agree that artificially limiting pay is bad, but that's really the definition of union negotiations isn't it? Again, if you are a member of a union, you've already signed up for this. 3. What the hell is reasonable about dissolving a union every year > unless they have another vote? An annual confidence / no-confidence vote seems easy to me. Maybe the voting process may be inside a union is terrible and inefficient, but it's not really that bad. you could just check a box when you're mailing in your dues. > 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? > I think this assumes alot of things are going to be run inefficiently and be very cumbersome. If unions are really that bad at running things, how well can they actually be representing their members? > 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. I could see allowing an employer to collect the dues, if they wish to, but not requiring them to. And I sure as hell would want to be able to opt out of paying union dues as an employee if I don't want to be a member. > 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. > Because you're voluntarily paying for a service from an organization that is not part of your employer - like paying an attorney to represent you, or a CPA to file your taxes for you. This is not a government organization, or one that the employer has a benefits relationship with. As an employer, I completely cannot even comprehend another organization coming to me and demanding that I dock all my employee's pay and hand that money over to them. > 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. Perhaps. > 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. Perhaps. > 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. I think I you're leaving out the most amazing part of unions (to me). So I would revise your statement to be "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 [whether the workers likes it or not, and then send them a bill for it when they are done]" This is like someone breaking into my house while I am at work, cleaning it, and then sending me a bill for it. Sure, maybe my house is better for it, but shouldn't I get to choose who clean sit and when? 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. ...and if the client already has a totally awesome fair deal, the union will still push for more, even if it puts the company out of business, and even if the worker is lacking competence at their job. Unlike a player, who will get fired if they aren't any good at the job. > 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. The worker should pay to be part of a union, and not pay if they choose not to be a member of the union. I agree that no-one should expect to be a member of a union without paying, but it should be that worker's choice as an individual if they want to be a member or not. > 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. > It's bargaining for the collection of people who choose to be part of the collection. If there aren't enough people interested in being part of the collection - is there really a problem that needs to be solved here? > 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. > This is all open to interpretation, obviously. -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:351816 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/unsubscribe.cfm
