The gig is up! The Senate vote in Wisconsin is not so much an assault on unions, but a victory and a seat at the table for taxpayers. It also represents restoration of individual rights if government unions would stop and consider. With this vote, teachers have won a choice whether they want to join the union and pay dues. They no longer are forced into payroll deductions for union dues. Teachers have won the opportunity to be rewarded for good performance, and parents win by schools being able to fire teachers for nonperformance. Formerly, unions controlled hiring and firing practices. Now school districts can staff based on merit and performance. They can remove the dead wood.
As I write this, I am watching as union workers and their leftist cronies storm the Assembly in Wisconsin preventing elected officials from voting on the budget repair bill. The '60s are over, people. Some old-timers must miss their glory days of protests, where they chant, sing and chain themselves together. What's next? Blowing up buildings? Listen up, people, get over yourselves and get back to work while you still have a job. The gig is up!
Susan Leeper, Scottsdale
Dale Whiting posted at 4:12 pm on Thu, Mar 10, 2011.
Susan,
Are you positive? You seem to interpret the events of yesterday as turning Wisconsin into a Right to Work state, like Arizona. There are not so subtle differences between being a Right to Work state, what you appear to describe, and termination of collective bargaining rights. Here in Arizona, if a union can attract sufficient support, i.e. membership, and hold that membership, i.e. get them to voluntarily pay dues and follow the collective decision of their membership, they can bargain and the bargain can be enforced collectively and voluntarily. But in Wisconsin, as I understand things, the unions organizing state employees cannot bargain with the state, regardless of what the members would have their union do.
Have you ever studied the union movement? Do you know the history of this part of our US history? I'd guess your answer would be NO, you have not!
Leon Ceniceros posted at 5:09 pm on Thu, Mar 10, 2011.
Dale.............if you had studied the Union Movement...you should know that the leaders were Socialists and Communists with strong ties to ....Mother Russia.
Rival union members fought pitched battles with many deaths and hundreds were sent to the hospital. When the Commies and Socialists were cleaned out then the Mafia moved in.
The Union Movement fought against ...democracy. They fought tooth and nail against ...so-called ..."SECRET BALLOTS"...where an employee can vote for or against a Union in private. The reason they did not want "secret ballots" was because they could not intimidate or physically harm any worker who voted against the Union.
Dale..........wake up and smell the du-du.....Unions win through psychological or physical intimidation. They use the same tactic to get their...........CADILLAC HEALTH BENEFITS....CADILLAC VACATION WEEKS.....CADILLAC HOLIDAYS.... CADILLAC PENISONS....CADILLAC INCENTIVE....CADILLAC COST OF LIVING EACH AND EVERY YEAR.
Why do you think that the Union Movement spent ...TENS AND TENS OF MILLIONS OF DOLLARS TO BUS IN THOUSANDS OF OUT OF STATE UNION MEMBERS IN WISCONSIN AND IOWA.....THE HOTEL ROOMS....THE MEALS....ALL PAID FOR WITH UNION DUES.
Dale.....America doesn't want ...SOCIALIST PUBLIC SERVICE UNIONS....any more. They don't want...............TAX-PAYERS TO BE THREATENED WITH A .....POLICE OFFICER'S STRIKE....A FIREFIGHER'S STRIKE....A TEACHER'S STRIKE...A SEWER WORKER'S STRIKE...A ELECTRICITY WORKER'S STRIKE...A WATER AND GAS WORKER'S STRIKE..........OR A CRIPPLING ....TRANSIT WORKER'S STRIKE.
WE ARE THESE PUBLIC WORKERS "EMPLOYERS"......OUR TAX DOLLARS PAY THEIR PAY CHECKS.
Public Service Workers are the ............LAST ONES....affected by a Recession/Depression. They are the last to be fired and the first to be hired back. They are usually furloughed.
The private workers.....(THE TAX-PAYERS)...go in to work every single day in this Economy.........scared to death...........is this my last day.....am I going to get a pay cut...am I going to lose ALL of my health benefits or my family's health coverage...am I going to have to pickup and move..............PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEES DON'T HAVE MANY IF NOT MOST OF THESE..........WORRIES..............and yet....THEY ARE STILL MOANING AND WHINNING...JUST LAST WEEK THE TEACHERS UNION WAS COMPLAINING ABOUT THE REDUCTION IN ...."INCENTIVE PAY OF $2,500"....incentive pay FOR WHAT.....DOING A GOOD JOB ?????
Police and Fire Fighter Unions were complaining last week about possibly not getting their....AUTOMATIC COST OF LIVING ADJUSTMENT OF 3%.
Dale, don' these arrogant PUBLIC SERVICE UNION MEMBERS read the papers....last week 23,000 TAX-PAYING AMERICANS LOST THEIR JOBS.
....AND YET.....THESE ARIZONA PUBLIC SERVICE WORKERS WERE.......WHINING AND MOANING ABOUT.....INCENTIVE PAY and AUTOMATIC COST OF LIVING ADDED PAY.......................GIVE ME A BREAK......ARIZONA SHOULD BE THE NEXT STATE ABOLISHING PUBLIC SERVICE EMPLOYEE UNIONS ......RIGHT TO STRIKE......FOR ANY REASON.
Rich posted at 9:02 pm on Thu, Mar 10, 2011.
The problem seems to be a misinterpretation here. Wisconsin will no longer bargain with unions. That's all. Unions still exist in Wisconsin, nobody assaulted them, nobody is denying anyone the right to bargain for their labor as they choose to. All that has happened is that Wisconsin removed the parasitic middle man. If all the public workers in Wisconsin get together, decide the minimum they will accept, and don't break ranks, they are, in effect, a union. No one prevents that, no one really can. What is lost is the middle man, taking dues from those who want their representation and those who don't, controlling hiring, firing, and promoting mediocrity, because it is more profitable for them, as well as creating an expensive bureaucracy we all get the bill for. Don't go nuts here. A good labor leader improves efficiency, and gets a piece for his workers, the problem is not organized labor, it's they have 'leaders' who have long since sold out both sides. Now, in Wisconsin, public employees have been freed from these parasites and are free to bargain for their own labor, or get together, decide what they want and hang together or separately as they choose. Just because the labor leaders bussed in activists doesn't change the fact that the public workers of Wisconsin were just freed, only that a corrupt power bloc was cracked.
Slabside posted at 2:40 am on Fri, Mar 11, 2011.
And yet again we have Dale (I'm a conservative like Goldwater/Buckley) taking up the ultra liberal position of unions. Put a liberal in a clown suit and you will have Dale Whiting every time [beam]
geekette posted at 8:17 am on Fri, Mar 11, 2011.
Ronald Reagan on unions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HsHXJr8tqP0
Scroll to the 25 second mark, where he says "They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost." Looks like freedom is lost in WI.
Dale Whiting posted at 9:03 am on Fri, Mar 11, 2011.
Leon,
Let's exchange transcripts! I'll bet you I have more graduate level and more undergraduate level business administration credits than do you and certainly more addressing management/labor topics. And I spent a summer doing an externship researching labor/management topics and statistics for a professor who was a part time NLRB mediator and a noted and published labor relations expert!
geekette,
Remind these folks that Ronald Reagon was a union president!
And Rich,
As usual you hit the nail on the head. Once again Leon and Slabside must be experiencing headaches, now Susan too. Thanks for coming through once again.
samkat posted at 7:37 pm on Fri, Mar 11, 2011.
Gee Dale: I have a BS and an MBA in Business Administration and Economics so I guess we will discuss who has bragging rights as well. I also have many courses under my belt in dealing with labor issues. I was an employee who advanced to a supervisory and then to a senior manager position who has actual experience in dealing with unions on a face to face basis. I was also an employee in a union shop many years ago that reinforced my position that the most staunch union members are the ones who do the least and depend on the union to prevent them from being disciplined or terminated. I well remember the professor in a Labor Management class who talked about the kamakazi union tactics that has stuck with me all these years. His analogy was that the unions would rather force the company out of existence than to compromise. This is obviously so true. Now, other than having a degree, what is your actual experience in the real world labor management issues?
Dale Whiting posted at 11:00 pm on Fri, Mar 11, 2011.
samcat,
Then don't you agree that rather than suffer strikes, management decided to give the farm away to unions, not update and renovate capital investments in the northern union states and move down south were they could take advantage of non-closed shop right to work states? That is what my research indicated.
I'm waiting to hear your response. Or did you ever think about this?
My MBA came from Washington University in St. Louis. Where'd you get your? A Wheaties box?
Accuracy posted at 10:53 am on Sat, Mar 12, 2011.
Concerning Dale Whiting’s comments – Slabside posted: “And yet again we have Dale (I'm a conservative like Goldwater/Buckley) taking up the ultra liberal position of unions.”
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You’ve got that right!!
Not that Dale Whiting’s political views have shifted from what you would call Conservative to “Pro-Liberal.” But you are right because, by far, his favorite politicians are only “Liberal Democrats” . . . such as Liberal Democrat U.S. Senator Harry Reid from Nevada.
Leon Ceniceros posted at 10:15 pm on Sat, Mar 12, 2011.
"THE FOOL DOTH THINK HE IS WISE, BUT THE WISE MAN KNOWS HIMSELF TO BE A FOOL"