The Almighty Unions

[Warren Dew]

Your system of electing everybody down to chief dogcatcher seems to make this sort of thing more likely. Give me a professional civil service anyday.

Capuano represents five times as many people as an Australian representative does. We're not talking about dogcatcher here.

[JimC]

Your system of electing everybody down to chief dogcatcher seems to make this sort of thing more likely. Give me a professional civil service anyday.

Capuano represents five times as many people as an Australian representative does. We're not talking about dogcatcher here.

You've missed the point in several ways:

* I said "down to" the chief dogcatcher (admittedly an expression of hyperbole...), implying a whole hierarchy of elected officials. Whatever democratic gloss this may seem to give your system, it means that popularism, vote-buying and potentially corrupt nepotism have a deeper hold than in other systems (which may well, of course, have their own, peculiar faults...)

* the key point I keep trying to make that the thread is not exclusively about American unions and American political systems. It may come as a shock to you, but there is a big wide world out there (and not just the bits that America has been in military conflict with in recent years), and that this is an international forum...

[Warren Dew]

You've missed the point in several ways:

* I said "down to" the chief dogcatcher (admittedly an expression of hyperbole...), implying a whole hierarchy of elected officials. Whatever democratic gloss this may seem to give your system, it means that popularism, vote-buying and potentially corrupt nepotism have a deeper hold than in other systems (which may well, of course, have their own, peculiar faults...)

You appear to be the one that has missed the point. The reason Capuano's strategy works is exactly because the lower level jobs are not elected - if they ere elected, he couldn't use his influence to give them to his supporters.

* the key point I keep trying to make that the thread is not exclusively about American unions and American political systems. It may come as a shock to you, but there is a big wide world out there (and not just the bits that America has been in military conflict with in recent years), and that this is an international forum...

Kind of like your ignorant assumptions about how low level positions are elected in America, eh?

[egbert]

Kind of like your ignorant assumptions about how low level positions are elected in America, eh?

That's funny...living just across the border from the US, I can't help but notice, at election time, all those campaign ads from the "wannabee sumbuddys" running for everything from Judge, Sheriff, Chief of Police, to Dogcatcher.

[Seth]

Right wing loonies can bleat all they like that government employees can't unionize...

But workers don't really give a shit what right wing loonies say. They know that to protect their rights as workers, they need to act and bargain collectively, or else they will be screwed by their bosses. Doesn't matter whether a boss is a government man or not, he will still want to get blood from a stone, unless workers band together.

Public sector unions around the world are here to stay, so idealogues from the right are fantasising if they think otherwise...

Tell it to the government workers in Wisconsin.

One state in one country, and probably a temporary thing at that.

99% of the developed world says otherwise...

You seem to assume that the evil unions will immediately gouge a ridiculous and inflated wage from a cowering government. Doesn't work like that in the real world. Lots of posturing, argument and hoo-haa, followed by a compromise, less than the workers would like, more than the government would like...

At least in Australia, there are legal arbitration measures that involve giving weight to the economic realities of what can be afforded.

Which fails to explain why federal government workers in the US make nearly twice what their private equivalents make...

[egbert]

Which fails to explain why federal government workers in the US make nearly twice what their private equivalents make...

Another "statistic" the Troll pulled out of his ass, or did it come from the Beck/Limbaugh school of lies?

[.Morticia.]

Which fails to explain why federal government workers in the US make nearly twice what their private equivalents make...

Another "statistic" the Troll pulled out of his ass, or did it come from the Beck/Limbaugh school of lies?

[JimC]

You've missed the point in several ways:

* I said "down to" the chief dogcatcher (admittedly an expression of hyperbole...), implying a whole hierarchy of elected officials. Whatever democratic gloss this may seem to give your system, it means that popularism, vote-buying and potentially corrupt nepotism have a deeper hold than in other systems (which may well, of course, have their own, peculiar faults...)

You appear to be the one that has missed the point. The reason Capuano's strategy works is exactly because the lower level jobs are not elected - if they ere elected, he couldn't use his influence to give them to his supporters.

* the key point I keep trying to make that the thread is not exclusively about American unions and American political systems. It may come as a shock to you, but there is a big wide world out there (and not just the bits that America has been in military conflict with in recent years), and that this is an international forum...

Kind of like your ignorant assumptions about how low level positions are elected in America, eh?

Well, perhaps I didn't fully appreciate the intricacies of your public sector positions. However, in many other parts of the world, hiring and firing is not done, for the most part, by elected officials. That may bring a certain amount of bureaucratic inertia, but it also means there is a regulated system, with some safeguards...

My main point, however, you have not addressed. You and others in this thread are taking positions on unions which spring entirely from a US point of view; even narrower than that, public sector unions in the US. Perhaps there are some toxic features about the way your public sector unions operate. If that's the case, then the answer is not an end to unionisation, but more effective industrial relations arbitration, and more competent government negotiators...

But the key point is this. Don't generalise about unions across the world from a narrow, parochial position based, it seems, on "America is the world". This tendency is not confined to discussions about unions, and has people all over the world rolling their eyes...

[egbert]

I know that department heads in government don't give a shit what you and I say, so obviously they aren't accountable to us.

And you "know" this how?....inherent biological trait?...Beck/Limbaugh school of wingnuttery....osmosis from Seth?

[egbert]

Which is exactly why His Progressive Majesty Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself said that the idea of public sector unions is a ridiculous one.

So apropos today, especially Roosevelt's endorsement of lynching "niggers".
I suppose you miss those "good ole days".

[Seth]

Which is exactly why His Progressive Majesty Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself said that the idea of public sector unions is a ridiculous one.

So apropos today, especially Roosevelt's endorsement of lynching "niggers".
I suppose you miss those "good ole days".

Not that I have any love for FDR, but I'd appreciate a citation to this calumny you present other than your rectal sphincter, if you've got one.

[egbert]

In Marxism, everyone is equal...equally destitute and oppressed, and nobody can get ahead,

Right - that's why every peasant and factory worker had their Dachau, just like the
Country's Premier....

[egbert]

Which is exactly why His Progressive Majesty Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself said that the idea of public sector unions is a ridiculous one.

Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

[Seth]

Which is exactly why His Progressive Majesty Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself said that the idea of public sector unions is a ridiculous one.

Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

He wasn't talking about public employees.

[egbert]

Which is exactly why His Progressive Majesty Franklin Delano Roosevelt himself said that the idea of public sector unions is a ridiculous one.

Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.

- Dwight D. Eisenhower

He wasn't talking about public employees.

I'd appreciate a citation to this calumny you present other than your rectal sphincter, if you've got one.