Collective Bargining in Public Service, a right?
By debrakcarey
@debrakcarey (19887)
United States
April 3, 2011 9:17pm CST
"All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations...The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for...officials...to bind the employer...The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives."
Who said this? It was FDR
http://www.americanthinker.com/2011/04/the_truth_about_wisconsins_col.html
So why does the left, who champion FDR as the patron saint of labor ignore what he says on this issue?
Nevermind that the law recently signed in Wisconsin does not do away with local school district level bargining (called distributed bargining) it does way collective bargining at the state level.
Nevermind that in many rural Wisconsin communities the wage and benefits of the teachers exceeds the community's middle class standards by far. Or that the need to bargin every issue makes getting policy decisions and providing services a long drawn out affair costing even more for the state in arbitration costs.
No, this is a symptom of a greater problem within our country. The idea that some are entitled to a guarantee at others expense.
I know that this is an 'old' issue. Finding that quote by FDR just made me think of it all over again. So, what do you think of FDR's quote and the fact it is overlooked by labor?
3 people like this
7 responses
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
6 Apr 11
the problem with Public Unions is that the public has no recourse if they don't like the service. If I don't like the product that XYZ company makes I can purchase a different one. If xyz is a Union company and I don't like unions I can buy from a different company. If I don't like the school and put my child in a private school I still have to pay for the public school and support the unions.
1 person likes this
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
6 Apr 11
OH, I agree with you on that and can talk for hours about it! I homeschooled for some years and you wouldn't believe the grief I got from the local school board. They tested my kids each year (state law where I lived) The achievement tests showed that all but one son was above grade level. That one son had learning disabilities and one teacher privately told me he was doing better than her special ed. kids. BUT they still hounded and harassed me. I discussed it with one principal and he said (without thinking first)...but the school distric looses money if your five kids aren't in this school each day!
2 people like this
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
7 Apr 11
I know FDR is a hero to labor and to the left but that doesn't mean that every liberal or every person who supports labor has to agree with everything he ever said or that everything he said many decades ago still applies today. Government employees on every level are workers just the same as those who work in the private sector and they shouldn't be expected to work harder for less money.
Annie
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
8 Apr 11
But apparently they should be able to expect better benefits and more guarantees than even our service members get.
I didn't hear ANY whining from the left when thousands of military members lost their jobs back in the 90s from Clinton's draw down. We didn't just lose a few benefits, we lost our jobs, and most lost their opportunity for a military pension.
Don't tell me I should feel sorry for a state worker who still has a guaranteed paycheck and pension when you didn't give a crap about our soldiers losing both!
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
8 Apr 11
Wow, I wasn't aware of that. Figures, the press won't villanize a democrat.
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
7 Apr 11
If he was right then, he's still right today. The trouble is, the left likes to pick and choose what is right.
So who said they're working for less? They just can't ask for MORE. Because if the citizens of Wisconsin and other states where this is an issue, are paying for their wages and benefits, and THEY can't afford it...why should public service union employees have more than the people paying them? It's about EVERYONE, not just those who happen to have a public service job.
In short, the public is the employer...why does the employee have the right to live better than the employer? So, they have to pay what the private sector does for insurance? So, they can't hold for ransom the schools and education if they don't get their way? So they can't cry gimme all the time while the families of the students they teach are struggling? What can possibly be wrong with that?
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
4 Apr 11
It can't be a "right" because it requires a person to join a union to get. For all their propaganda, even the unions don't consider it a "right". If they did, they would work to make it available to all workers, not just their members.
Rights are not something you have to pay dues to get.
@ParaTed2k (22940)
• Sheboygan, Wisconsin
4 Apr 11
Here is a great explanation by Wisconsin State Supreme Court Justice, David Prosser.
http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=10150139627493045&oid=104647159617653&comments
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
8 Apr 11
The video is unavailable...? Is it posted anywhere else?
@Destiny007 (5805)
• United States
4 Apr 11
FDR also said that Social Security was goig to need to be supplemented, yet the democratas are against touching it.
A union leader named Sweeney also said much the same thing as FDR did. Now they are involved in every aspect of government.
We voted AFSCME out of the place I worked about the time I left, then the idiots replaced it a year later with someone new.
Unions have no place in government, in our schools, or in the marketpklace at all. They are nothing more than breeding grounds for socialism, and vote buying, and the leadership should be arrested and charged under the RICO ACT.
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
4 Apr 11
Their rhetoric even sounds like something Karl Marx would have written.
I'll have to read up on the RICO act, I'm a newcomer to such subjects. Instict tells me that things are not as they should be with Unions, but as far as the law goes, I'm learning.
1 person likes this
@clrumfelt (5490)
• United States
5 Apr 11
Why do the liberals ignore FDR's wisdom on the subject? For the same reason they ignore the Constitution. They will say anything, twist anything people say and do to put their agenda over on the American people.
@clrumfelt (5490)
• United States
8 Apr 11
Kool aid drinkers. People are too lazy or apathetic to stand up for what is right. The Bible says they are " willingly ignorant." They are often louder than those who really care about right, but since the Tea Party movement the right is speaking out more loudly, thank God.
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
5 Apr 11
Greed, that is their motive. The lust for power and control.
What I find repulsive, is the sheep who follow them, not realizing they are working for their own enslavement. How does the human mind become so clouded?
1 person likes this
@dragon54u (31636)
• United States
4 Apr 11
Government workers have forgotten that they are employed by the people--I find that so many people think of the government as a distant cash cow without realizing that it's THEIR money they want to spend, not some alien entity with endless wealth. If we could bring that home to the people, I think we would see a change in their attitudes towards labor unions in the government.
I remember when someone who took a government job did so for security, not the money--government jobs (local, state and federal) were lower paying than private sector jobs and people either went into them because they didn't have the skills to compete or they wanted security. Now gov't jobs pay more in wages and benefits than private sector jobs.
@debrakcarey (19887)
• United States
4 Apr 11
And when the government is broke, it's time for ALL Americans to tighten their belts, not just those who happen to work in the private sector.
To think otherwise is to say one is better than the other.
@maunesrockford92078 (305)
• Philippines
4 Apr 11
Labor disputes and all other means only justifies the proletariat emancipation of the total workforce, no wonder Socialist China is not anymore a full Maoist communist country. Collective bargaining is a very sensible issue union busting is the core of the elements and contractualization is his devouring beast.
