If you search G2A for Wisconsin or Union, you will see that this is one of my favorite topics. Though I see some benefits in Unions having influence, to me they have too often gotten carried away in supporting their own needs at the cost of their customers and employer. This seems to lead to ineffectiveness, high costs, keeping poor performers employed, etc.
Also, I absolutely can not understand the concept of forced membership and dues paying. I realize that I could never work in a union shop, I am way too selfish. I want to get results, make a difference and get well rewarded for the effort. Also, I want to work long hours when needed to ensure that I satisfy my customers. I appreciate flexibility way too much...
So tomorrow we will find out if the citizens of Wisconsin have seen the light. Will they vote for the Democratic candidate, higher compensation for public workers, higher job security for questionable employees, higher taxes, etc? Or will they vote for the Republican candidate, more competitive compensation, promotion of the most effective, lower taxes, etc.
I for one am very curious to see how it turns out. If MSNBC and CNN are thinking Walker is good to go, it likely does not bode well for Barrett. Thoughts?
MSNBC Labor Stares Down Possible Loss
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I absolutely can not understand the concept of forced membership and dues paying.
It's forced dues paying but not forced membership. The argument is that everyone benefits from the union, everyone should pay for it. Taxes work on much the same principle.
--Hiram
Unions lead to higher costs because they mean higher wages for working people, and that includes lots of nonunion working people. And that's a good thing. 47 percent of working Americans don't even make enough to pay federal income taxes. American wages have been stagnant for decades now. We simply don't make enough, and improving the bargaining position of the American worker as happens when they negotiate collectively would improve that.
American workers need to work together in unions for exactly the same reason shareholders form corporations, because they are stronger when they work and bargain together than they are when they bargain separately.
--Hiram
It seems we are back to the RAS Bus driver puzzle. Should the local community pay $1,000,000+/yr in extra taxes so the local bus drivers can make more than market wage? And so the poor performers can have higher job security?
It reminds me of a dog chasing its tail. While we are at it, we should raise the minimum wage to $14/hr... At least this would help the majority, and not the minority who are union members. At least until the costs all increased to cover the new wage...
The new $10 quarter pounder meal anyone?
Should or shouldn't is one issue. Turns out they didn't have to reach that issue because the bargaining position of the working people of 281 was so weak.
Oh well. I hear Staples is hiring.
--Hiram
I think we should pay people who perform useful services like drive our kids to work more, and that we should pay those who perform less useful services like looting America's economy less. But that's just me.
--Hiram
Of course they "reached" the issue. Our elected board compared the costs/benefits and decided that paying above market rates by taking money out of the classroom seemed wrong. Makes sense to me.
That is funny, I heard First Student is hiring at the market rate for good, safe, responsible, etc bus drivers...
I don't disagree that our compensation priorities are more than a bit warped in America. Look at the professional athletes...
However I don't think Union members being paid higher than market rate is the answer. Especially when the non-Union citizens are paying the bill/difference.
So another loss for working people. Fewer burgers sold.
--hiram
I don't disagree that our compensation priorities are more than a bit warped in America. Look at the professional athletes...
Why are baseball players paid well, and the bulk of the football players paid badly? It's because the baseball players have an effective union, and the football players don't.
--Hiram
It's all well and good that union workers receive above-market wages for their work, until that point where their jobs disappear entirely. The sheer folly of watching union workers threaten to strike if management closes their plant and has no jobs for anybody is truly something to behold.
J. Ewing
Freakonomics Baseball vs Football Pay
Looks like more than just a Union thing.
NFL football owners are better organized than baseball owners. In effect, they have a better union, another factor in why they do so well in their negotiations with the much weaker players' union. But if the players' union were stronger, they would do better.
--Hiram
By the way, the freakenomics guy never quite gets to a point. Both baseball and football are both national and local businesses. But in the case of baseball, I don't see how that localism matters much. The owners are unified on labor issues. What is surprising in baseball is that the players are unified. In football they are not.
Baseball is much more badly run than football, at least historically. But I suppose it's also the case that the well run franchises are the profitable ones. Only a few teams really matter in baseball, the Yankees, the Red Sox, the Dodgers and the Angels. The rest are there merely to give those teams someone to play.
--Hiram
What RAS bus and Wisconsin show is there is a limit to public employee union largess, even in normally solid blue territory, even when their political friends are in charge. Refusal to change and poor "old school" messaging aren't helping the union cause, either. Indeed, to survive, the rank and file must rise up and oust their comfortable, overpaid, incompetent, and entitled leadership.
I've always said that the union movement went astray the moment they decided to pay their leaders. After that, these leaders got paid whether their members worked or not, were on strike or not, or even had jobs or not. In fact, they had to create an adversarial system with management to keep those often-plush jobs, which leads immediately to a business becoming less competitive and, eventually, losing everybody's job except for the union boss.
J. Ewing
It seems that the Republicans got a pretty strong mandate from the citizens of Wisconsin. 4 incumbents holding off recall and 1 race undecided at this time. And Walker winning with an actual majority and turnout was great.
Think Progress 119% Turnout
CNN Wisconsin 1
CNN Wisconsin 2
So will this carry into the Presidential race? Rationale?
CNN Implications?
cccWhat seems to be overlooked is that Democrats took control of the Wisconsin senate last night. But yes, on the whole, the results from yesterday's election border on the catastrophic for the Democratic Party in general and President Obama in particular. The negative impact simply cannot be overestimated.
By the way, the capcha lettering is getting more challenging all the time. It's just getting impossible to deciphere.
--Hiram
Jury is supposedly still out on that one.
Senate Seat
Anyone up for a recount...
I was afraid of that result in one of the Senate races. It's most likely the result of massive voter fraud, but at best it's only a symbolic victory since the WI Senate has adjourned for the year and half of them are up for election in November. If the Republicans can sustain their gains in convincing people, raising money and getting out the vote, the Senate will be safely in GOP hands. I would suspect there are several "fleebagging" State Senators who will lose their jobs over that little profile in courage.
J. Ewing
Excellent point !!! I wonder how many of the "running/hiding" Legisaltors are running for office and how "the people" will reward or punish their atypical behavior?
I wouldn't be very supportive of my rep if they pulled that stunt. No matter their party.
Walker outspent his opponent 10 to 1, and even then, won by a relatively small margin.
Had both sides spent the same (i.e. public financing only)?
It likely would have made no difference in my opinion.
"Exit polling suggested that most voters had made up their minds on the contest by April - before the main onslaught of ad spending - and labor unions and other pro-Democratic interest groups were able to roughly match expenditures by Republican groups outside of the Walker and Barrett campaigns." Herald net: Power of Spending
Since I carry a belief that 40% of the vote is locked in on both sides. (ie 40% DFL, 40% GOP) My rationale is that this 80% will almost never vote for anyone but their party. That means Walker took 13% to Barrett's 7%, I think that is a pretty huge margin.
Well, your "40%" is pretty flexible on both sides. Right now you still have Republicans (about 15% of them) saying they won't vote for Romney and something like 30% of Democrats say they won't vote for Obama (or won't vote at all). Also, nationwide there are about twice as many "conservative" voters as there are self-identified liberals, and in some states the percentages of R's vs D's is lopsided.
J. Ewing
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