Recent Bills attempting to cut Collective Bargaining Rights

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Pasquar
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Recent Bills attempting to cut Collective Bargaining Rights

Post by Pasquar » 24 Feb 2011 16:29

Has anyone else been following the news about the Bills coming up in Midwest states with recently elected Republican governers? Over 40,000 people in Wisconsin and 15,000 people in Ohio converged at their respective state capitols to protest a Senate Bill that would make cuts in healthcare benefits (among other cuts) AND eliminate collective bargaining rights for public sector state employees.

Protesters are more than willing to compromise with taking the financial cuts, but will NOT give up their right to collectively bargain.

This is the foundation that trade unions have been based on and this bill would effectively cut union representation, making teachers, fireman, state troopers, and other public sector employees basically toys of the state.

Similar Bills have been presented in Indiana and Michigan. In Indiana and Wisconsin, Democratic Senators fled their state refusing to vote on the Bill because it is effectively unconstitutional. These Bills are the first step in depleting just worker representation for employees in these states.

I live in Columbus, OH and have been active in the labor movement for a bit, so I've been joining public sector employees, fellow students, community members, etc in protesting Senate Bill 5.

This stuff has been all over the news recently, so I thought I'd see if anyone on here has any thoughts/opinions on the issue, about unions in general, or whatever.

Solidarity!
Nick Pasquarello


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Jeremy
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Post by Jeremy » 26 Feb 2011 15:10

I support the principle of unions, but in reality I seem to have far more disagreements with the specific arguments that my local unions make than agreements. It often seems like they are putting the interests of their members ahead of the interests of society as a whole, and putting short term interests ahead of long term interests. A great example is with the forestry union down here. In my state there is a very polarised debate about logging native forests. A few years ago the opposition federal government party put forward a $9 billion package to end native forest logging in this state. The union famously campaigned against it and is credited by many analysts in determining the result of that election (re-electing the right wing, strongly anti-union government). Since then all the international buyers of native forest woodchips have backed out due to the unsustainability and environmental damage caused by the industry. The share price of the major forestry company has fallen from over $3 to 48 cents (as of today, in fact it dropped lower for a while), hundreds of jobs have been lost, the industry has agreed to end native forest logging, and the union is trying to get some kind of bailout package from the government, which has offered about $300 million. At least in Australia, these kinds of spectacularly bad union policies happen fairly frequently. There have been similar issues around mining, and now it looks like coal be the same.

So I guess I support the basic principles of unionism, but I certainly don't dogmatically support unions, but rather support or oppose them on the merits of specific situations.

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Tsiangkun
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Post by Tsiangkun » 28 Feb 2011 16:48

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Pasquar
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Post by Pasquar » 02 Mar 2011 06:39

^^Absolutely^^

I just went to Wisconsin this past weekend and it was AMAZING. People literally taking over their state government's capitol and showing democracy means being able to stand up to even (and especially) our elected officials.

Image

THIS is what democracy looks like!


Also, I understand what you're saying, Jeremy, in terms of individual cases of unions acting against the greater public interest. I sometimes cringe when I read about trade unions trying monopolize a workforce, basically becoming like the companies they are trying to protect their workers from.

But the union workforce in general only accounts for 7% of the entire workforce of the United States, but they are entirely responsible for these benefits that mostly all employees (unionized or not) enjoy:
:arrow: 8 hour work day/ 40 hour work week
:arrow: Federally mandated minimum wage
:arrow: Healthcare benefits
:arrow: THE WEEKEND

among many others. There was recently a prank telephone call to recently elected Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin acting as David Koch (head of a corporation Walker is closely tied to) in which Scott Walker speaks about the Bill and how he won't budge on the issue

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WBnSv3a6Nh4[/youtube]

Wiping out collective bargaining for public employees would deplete unions entirely, giving the workers no voice to what they are paid, what their hours are, and benefits they receive, etc. These Bills are just the first step to destroying the voice of the middle class throughout America.

The cuts public employees would have to make they are (for the most part) fine with, but eliminating collective bargaining has NOTHING to do with balancing the budget, despite deer-in-the-headlights responses I've heard on the news from conservative politicians.
If they're SO concerned with balancing the budget, LEAD BY EXAMPLE and start taxing the rich and the corporations for once. None of this "trickle-down economics" BULLSHIT.

I'm so sick and tired of the people in power putting their interests and the interests of those who rake in 4-500x what ANY public employee makes in front of society at large. There's only a "budget crisis" this big because these fuckers always have to figure out how they can benefit the most from something before even considering the bottom 98%
Nick Pasquarello


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