Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union *UPDATED*
Bookworm on Feb 18 2011 at 6:44 pm | Filed under: Unions
As I understand it, Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, faced with a $3.6 billion biennial budget deficit (for the years 2011-2013), had the choice of raising taxes in his financially beleaguered state or firing up to 6,000 state employees. He chose a third route, proposing that Wisconsin’s public sector employees start carrying a small portion of their pension and benefit load. The Heritage Foundation summarizes Walker’s proposal as follows:
Walker’s proposal would limit collective bargaining power and reform public employee benefit plans. For the first time, state employees would be responsible for making a 5.8 percent contribution into their pension plans and pick up the tab for 12 percent of their health care benefits. As it currently stands, Wisconsin taxpayers bear 100 percent of the costs.
Even with this change to the status quo, the employees are still better off than the average Wisconsin employee. First, as noted, taxpayers are currently paying all of those costs. Second, even under the proposed change, the public sector employees would still be paying a significantly lower percentage of these costs than are paid by similarly situated private employees.
Keep in mind, too, that the average teacher in a Wisconsin city Milwaukee – including benefits — has a salary a total compensation in excess of $100,000:
This salary annual compensation package is one half the average sale price ($200,000) for a home in Madison, Wisconsin. The average salary in Wisconsin overall is less than $60,000. To summarize, Wisconsin teachers, who are state employees receiving their income from taxpayers, get higher pay and better benefits than many of their taxpayer employers.
Aside from the money issues, Gov. Walker proposes trimming union wings a bit, so that the unions lose some of their coercive power over their own members:
Walker’s budget removes the special privileges that give government unions their outsize influence. His plan allows workers to quit their union without losing their job. He requires unions to demonstrate their support through an annual secret-ballot vote. He also ends the unfair taxpayer subsidy to union fundraising: The state and local government would stop collecting union dues with their payroll systems.
In a dreadful economy, in a state with a huge debt load, you’d think that the public sector employees would be sanguine about the proposal. After all, they get to keep their jobs, they get to keep their benefits, and they still have salaries and benefits that exceed those given to their taxpayer employees. In addition, the unions that they are currently to which they are currently forced to belong would have to be run more fairly.
If you were looking for reasoned thought from unions, however, you’d be looking a long, long time. The unions and their Democrat consigliores have gone absolutely ballistic. The Democrat politicians have gone into hiding and the teachers have gone on the march.
With regard to the teacher protests, you’ve already heard about the illegal strike; the ill-informed and indoctrinated students dragged into the fray; the vile signs likening Walker to Hitler or Hussein or Mubarak, or placing gun sights on Walker’s face’ and the filth these protesters left in their wake. What I’m more interested in is why the teachers? Other public sector employees are also subject to these budget proposals, but it’s the teachers who are leading the way.
Part of the answer, of course, lies with New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. In a state in which the teachers’ union has been likened to the fourth branch of government, it was he who first made Americans aware of the way in which teacher’s unions, more than any other single employee group, are putting a pinch on state government coffers. Suddenly, teachers aren’t the sweet-faced little ladies teaching Johnny and Janie to read. Instead, they’re well-paid cogs benefiting from the union’s depredations.
Christie is always careful, in his speeches, to distinguish individual teachers from the unions themselves, and he’s right to do so. It is the unions that are rapacious. The teachers benefit, of course, from the union demands. They’d be absolute idiots to say “No, I don’t want the salary you’re handing me; no, I don’t want the benefits that are coming my way; and, please, forget about that tenure that makes sure I’ll have a job forever.” Each individual teacher knows that if he should decide unilaterally to be honorable and turn down the salary and benefits headed his way, it would change nothing. The situation would continue the same, but he’d be poor.
The problem for teachers is that, having taken these benefits, they’re stuck with the consequences. They’re stuck with the fact that, because of tenure, too many incompetent teachers occupying America’s classrooms, bringing the whole profession into disrepute. And they’re stuck with the fact that the unions have stuck their collective bargaining noses in the curriculum, teaching information and values that offend their taxpayer employers. And they’re stuck with the fact that ordinary taxpayers (and teachers are taxpayers too, but their numbers are small compared to the rest of America’s taxpayers), think that it’s obscene for someone to get paid twice their own salary, with much better benefits, for seven months work.
Oh, yeah! Did I forget to mention that? Most people work about eleven months of the year, with approximately one month off for official holidays and vacation. Teachers, however, work on average seven months of the year, except that they make more money than those eleven-month workers do.
How did we get to this point with teachers? I certainly remember a time when it wasn’t this way. From about 1966 until 1987, my father was a public school teacher in a San Francisco Bay Area school district. Those were not the glory days. Our family lived only slightly above the poverty level. We made ends meet only because, in addition to his teaching job, my father taught summer school and gave private lessons. Eleven months a year, my father worked five to six days a week. He left the house at 7:00 every day to teach school and returned home at around 10:30, after his private lessons ended.
The only good thing about my father’s job was the benefits. He didn’t get life insurance, and he got a minuscule pension (about $5,000/year when he retired), but he got great medical and dental. The dental was especially good: if we had our teeth cleaned and checked twice a year, the insurance company would pay for all major dental procedures. My parents, though, had to dig into their own pockets to get our crooked teeth straightened.
The whole situation stank. There was a reason, though, for teachers’ lousy compensation. Before women’s lib, the bulk of teacher’s were women. Before women’s lib, you could therefore pay these female teachers a very low salary. The thinking was that women who taught were wives and mothers who were bringing in a little extra. They didn’t need a top salary because theirs was the second salary in a household. (My mother, a draftswoman, was told precisely this back in 1958, when she learned that the man sitting at the table next to her, with the same training and job description, received twice her salary.) That this wasn’t always the case — that the women was sometimes the primary or sole breadwinner — didn’t prevent it from being true often enough for the system to work fairly well in an era before women started realizing that the job itself, not their marital status, should determine the salary.
Incidentally, women’s lib also changed the caliber of teacher we see in today’s classroom. In a pre-liberated era, one of the only jobs for bright, college-educated women, was teaching. Classrooms therefore got a lot of teachers who would, by today’s standards, be considered over-educated.
I don’t say this to denigrate today’s teachers. I know that most of them (and most are still female, although there are a fair number of men), are qualified for their jobs. But the fact is that many of them don’t come from the top third of their own graduating classes. When it comes to women, many in the top third now go to the cachet jobs: doctors, lawyers, architects, investment bankers, etc. This means that the current crop of teachers, with obvious and many exceptions, lacks the breadth of knowledge and education that characterized pre-women’s lib teachers. What all this means is that we pay more now for teachers than we did a generation ago, but we get less educational bang for the buck.
The kind of starvation wages my father was paid were offensive. Also, people realized that their children are in the teacher’s hands. If they don’t get decent teachers, they don’t end up with decently educated children. Ironically, it was the Leftists who argued most stridently what is an obvious free market principle: if you don’t pay good salaries, you don’t get good workers. Salaries for teachers had to go up. It’s just that, as the unions gained more and more power, salaries went up disproportionately to the service being offered. This fact wasn’t obvious during the flush times, but it sure is obvious now.
Worse, no matter how good the teachers, at precisely the same time that the unions were getting more demanding, people were noticing that their children were getting less educated. Some of it, as I pointed out, was due to the change in educational level of those teaching. Some, however, was due to the increased politicization of the classroom. Educational colleges because less concerned with the Three Rs and infinitely more concerned with indoctrinating students. Reading, writing and ‘rithmetic got swept away in ebonics, climate change, multiculturalism, identity politics, self-actualization and self-realization. A six hour day just didn’t give enough time for everything, and academics suffered.
But no matter what, teachers’ unions clung to that moral high gr0und: “It’s for the children! Give us more money and, even though we won’t change the way in which we operate, we promise that we’ll produce a better product.” After twenty plus years of being fooled, the taxpayers are finally wising up.
It’s this moral high ground, though, that sees the teachers in the forefront of the battle against Governor Walker. No one is going to be sympathetic if the tax collections or auditors or motor vehicle employees rise up to fight the cuts. It’s the teachers who have put themselves on the high moral pedestal, and it’s they who are falling furthest and fastest, although I don’t think they’ve quite realized either their speed or trajectory just yet.
The last thing I’ll say here, speaking directly to Gov. Walker and the Wisconsin Democrats, is a Margaret Thatcher quotation: “This [is] no time to go wobbly.” This is one of those turning points in a war. It’s the public sector’s Gettysburg or Midway or Battle of the Bulge: whoever wins this battle, wins the war.
Cross-posted at Right Wing News
[Updated to add video with $100,000 compensation info.]
UPDATE: Larry Kudlow gives some useful information that helps put all the numbers in context:
Wisconsin parents should go on strike against the teachers’ union. A friend e-mailed me to say that the graduation rate in Milwaukee public schools is 46 percent. The graduation rate for African-Americans in Milwaukee public schools is 34 percent. Shouldn’t somebody be protesting that?
Governor Walker is facing a $3.6 billion budget deficit, and he wants state workers to pay one-half of their pension costs and 12.6 percent of their health benefits. Currently, most state employees pay nothing for their pensions and virtually nothing for their health insurance. That’s an outrage.
Nationwide, state and local government unions have a 45 percent total-compensation advantage over their private-sector counterpart. With high-pay compensation and virtually no benefits co-pay, the politically arrogant unions are bankrupting America — which by some estimates is suffering from $3 trillion in unfunded liabilities.
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In Japan, their education system is set up to be intensively competitive in junior high and high school, with less requirements for grade school (1-6).
High school students are required to attend school on saturdays. It isn’t a full day, but attend they must.
Those who are failing or who require remedial attention, are also required to attend summer school. Meaning, go to school for lessons in the summer, where the rest are supposed to be on break. This is a requirement set by the teachers, not the parents or administrators of the school board. Given that this would make them lose out on a lot of time with their friends, there is an intensely strong social and competitive desire not to fail tests and to do everything to study for them.
Japanese high schools contain only 3 grade years. Yet many students know each other from their elementary days. They stay in the same class room, while the teachers rotate around. This makes it more inconvenient for the teachers, but far more socially stable for the students. For example, the class room elects their own representative, who handles such tasks as helping new transfer students or getting all the kids to stand to attention when the teacher comes in. If the class wishes something done in relation to the teacher, they look towards their class representative, who has a job because they either volunteered for it or because nobody else wanted it and voted them to have it. Because the students stay together, they know each other, and have created their own social circles. They have a double reason to obey the rules set by the class rep and by the teacher. One is an institutional authority, invested in the class rep by the school system and the other is a friendship or social relationship. This has the result of providing the teacher a suitable tool to use if they need to influence the class. These days, teachers attempt to influence their students’ discipline with either ineffective “mass” punishments or nauseating “bribes”. Neither create a stable discipline system. In Japanese high schools, because a lot of the “discipline” is distributed and handled by lower level individuals, like the student council or the class representative rather than the teacher, the teacher’s authority is preserved, reserved, and kept in store for a time when it really needs to be used.
So, instead of the class having to stay silent because the teacher yelled at them, the class rep does it. This divides authority and discipline into a non-unipolar setup. Meaning, if the sole authority is the teacher and that’s the only reason why the students obey the rules, what happens when a substitute is there? What happens when the teacher just goes out the room? What happens when the students get randomized and go to another teacher they don’t respect or fear as much?
You see the difficulties that may be created when students don’t have their own social circle they must obey and adhere to for discipline and boundaries.
If people may recall, education here in the US was often like what Japan’s system is right now. We used to have students stay in one room all day as well, until they “modernized” it. So why did it change over time? Look towards unions and the Left for that answer. They changed it, on purpose. As I have said often wise to Danny and Tonestaple, much of what the Left destroys isn’t due to an “accident”. It was due to intentional sabotage.
[...] Room: Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union Share and [...]
Bookworm: Keep in mind, too, that the average teacher in a Wisconsin city Milwaukee – including benefits — has a salary in excess of $100,000
That’s compensation, not salary. You may want to correct that. Also the difference between the salary of $56,000 and the $100,000 is primarily due to legacy costs. That’s the pension and healthcare costs of retirees.
That’s compensation, not salary. You may want to correct that. Also the difference between the salary of $56,000 and the $100,000 is primarily due to legacy costs. That’s the pension and healthcare costs of retirees.
Nope, it’s not the “costs”: it’s the value of the salaries plus pension and healthcare benefits to the teachers.
I see Bookworm fixed the salary/compensation problem. The point is that it costs the taxpayers about $100,000 each for those teachers. How many taxpayers have a total compensation package that big? How many taxpayers have a pension at all, never mind having to pay a tiny percentage of their salaries into it? How many wish they could be taxpayers, if only they had jobs??
Those teachers have kept right on collecting on their compensation packages this week while they falsely called in sick and shut down the schools for three days in a row. I assume the legislators who are refusing to do their jobs are collecting pay and benefits too, though I don’t actually know (does anyone?) There is nothing noble, admirable, or even honest about this. The teachers are stealing sick days in order to force the taxpayers to finance their supposedly-so-noble insistence that the taxpayers keep paying them more than they can afford or earn themselves into perpetuity, and more and more every year.
What’s more, the reason they can get away with falsely calling in sick is that those same evil voters elected legislators who passed laws that gave the teachers tenure, so it’s really hard and incredibly expensive to fire them, even for intentionally bilking their bosses. The Wisconsin voters know that if they called in sick to their private-sector jobs three days in a row, couldn’t produce doctors’ notes, and then showed up in photos from those days down at the Capitol waving signs depicting the Governor as Hitler, they’d be fired — and they should be!
I cannot believe the unions thought this was a good idea. If I were a Wisconsin taxpayer I’d be beside myself with fury at the teachers and even more at the legislators — heck, taxpayers all over the country are angry at them and getting ready to take it out on their own public-sector unions. And did Obama really need to weigh in against yet another state government, on a local budget issue? Doesn’t he have anything better to do, like, say, maybe notice that the Middle East is blowing up?
Liberals see government is the guarantor of fairness: government officials play the role of an idealized parent.
That being the case, why would people who work for the government–the very fount of goodness–need a union to protect themselves against their employer?
Ditto what Mrs Whatsit said.
Also, I don’t know if anyone else here reads Prof. Bainbridge; but he has a couple of interesting posts on the WI teachers and a very interesting post against public-sector unionism.
David Foster, you are right.
It’s even better when the child can dictate the terms to the parent, don’t you think?
Zachriel: That’s compensation, not salary. You may want to correct that. Also the difference between the salary of $56,000 and the $100,000 is primarily due to legacy costs. That’s the pension and healthcare costs of retirees.
Danny Lemieux: Nope, it’s not the “costs”: it’s the value of the salaries plus pension and healthcare benefits to the teachers.
We used the term “primarily”. The accuracy of that statement depends on the ratio of benefits to current employees with legacy benefits. Our understanding was that the legacy benefits were the largest portion, but don’t have the exact numbers. I’ll retract the term “is primarily due to legacy costs” and substitute “includes significant legacy costs”. If you have those numbers, just let us know.
I see Bookworm fixed the salary/compensation problem.
Thanks.
Mrs Whatsit: The point is that it costs the taxpayers about $100,000 each for those teachers. How many taxpayers have a total compensation package that big?
It would depend on comparable education and experience.
But isn’t the issue union-busting, not just compensation? Didn’t the state just cut taxes?
“It is necessary for making true apples-to-apples comparisons to control for worker characteristics such as education in order to best measure a worker’s potential earnings in a different sector or industry. Controlling for a larger range of earnings predictors—including not just education but also age, experience, gender, race, etc., Wisconsin public-sector workers face an annual compensation penalty of 11%.”
http://www.epi.org/economic_snapshots/entry/wisconsin_public_servants_already_face_a_compensation_penalty/
The “average” value for teacher’s compensation is misleading, as incoming teachers are paid very little until they secure tenure. Later teachers, who approach retirement and have been given many opportunities to boost their pay scale (by getting Masters degrees, for example) see their income shoot up dramatically.
Consequently, the distribution of teacher compensation packages is probably a two-humped distribution. It would not surprise me that the compensation packages for the Milwaukee teachers approaching retirement are closer to $150-$175,000. That’s pretty much the case for teachers in my area.
Whether their pension funds can pay the monies promised, however, is a totally different question. The teachers’ pension fund in Illinois (to which they contribute 9.5% of the salaries up-front) is pretty much broke, having been underfunded and looted by the politicians and their cronies in the financial industry. It is likely that my spouse (a teacher) will have to accept a significant haircut in her/our retirement income, once the Illinois teachers’ pension funds go broke and are bailed out by the U.S. taxpayer at large.
>>But isn’t the issue union-busting…>>
Ah yes. The old “union busting” theme. It’s only union busting if you prohibit unions. In this case, the unions would no longer have a lock on mandatory union membership and dues collection. In other words, belonging to the union and paying the dues required in order to belong to the union would become optional. People would be free to join, but they’d also be free to _not_ join. They do not presently have that choice.
So if you consider that making membership voluntary will bust the unions, then I guess that it’s union busting. On the other hand – what right do the unions have to _demand_ that a person must belong to a union in order to work?
Of course, then you sort of have to wonder why – if unions are so terrific – membership is mandatory in the first place.
suek: In this case, the unions would no longer have a lock on mandatory union membership and dues collection.
Unions work through collective bargaining. All workers benefit from collective bargaining, even if they would prefer to sit it out. Hence, once the workers vote on unionization, everyone has to participate. Otherwise, unionization would be powerless.
…unions would be powerless. Hey, that’s a good idea, Zach!
The issue is not workers benefitting from collective bargaining. The issue is what happens when union perks bankrupt a state.
>>Hence, once the workers vote on unionization, everyone has to participate.>>
But the worker population is not a constant. That is, workers change from year to year. So even if I agreed that what applies to the majority must apply to the minority, we may not be considering the same people.
So I assume the unions offer the option of unionization each year? or even every couple of years? And of course, I assume those elections are fair, and the workers can cast secret ballots? Oh wait…wasn’t that a law that got defeated? I mean the one that would eliminate the secret ballots in unionization elections?
And don’t unions contribute a lot of money to politicians? I thought that it was considered corrupting to be able to influence elections with monetary contributions. So of course unions are limited in what they can use in the way of union funds?
Zachriel…re the compensation survey that you linked: Do you really think a doctorate in education is equivalent to a doctorate in biochemistry? Or that a bachelor’s degree in education i equivalent to a BSEE or a BSME?
Danny Lemieux: …unions would be powerless.
Suek, there’s your answer. The policy is designed to undermine the union.
suek: So I assume the unions offer the option of unionization each year? or even every couple of years? And of course, I assume those elections are fair, and the workers can cast secret ballots?
Under current law, if at least 30% of workers sign in support of unionization, then they can call an election by secret ballot. If more than 50% of the workers sign, even if 100% of the workers sign, then the employer can force an election. This has led to abuses in the past with union-supporting workers often losing their jobs during the interim period.
Also under current law, if at least 30% of workers sign to decertify the union, then an election is called. If 50% sign to end unionization, then the union is decertified.
The proposed law would eliminate the requirement of an election if at least 50% of the workers sign for unionization. It would also increase penalties for employer retribution.
suek: And don’t unions contribute a lot of money to politicians? I thought that it was considered corrupting to be able to influence elections with monetary contributions. So of course unions are limited in what they can use in the way of union funds?
Many of those restrictions were struck down by the Citizens United decision.
I have no problem with private sector unions contributing to campaign funds of public officials, as long as other public interest groups are accorded the same rights.
The recent “Citizens United” decision was about whether the government had the right to restrict any group from running ads promoting their positions during political campaigns. The Supreme Court decided that it didn’t. It was a First Amendment issue, it had nothing to do with restricting union contributions to politicians.
As Book’s earlier post alluded, I have a big problem with public sector unions being able to contribute to the campaign coffers of politicians that vote on the benefits and salaries of said union members (i.e., their/our employees). I call that bribery and corruption.
>>Many of those restrictions were struck down by the Citizens United decision.>>
Except there have been _no_ restrictions on unions to be struck down…
More on union stuff:
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/02/brief-illustrated-history-of-public.html
suek: Except there have been _no_ restrictions on unions to be struck down…
That is incorrect.
“As amended by §203 of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), federal law prohibits corporations and unions from using their general treasury funds to make independent expenditures for speech that is an “electioneering communication” or for speech that expressly advocates the election or defeat of a candidate.”
http://www.law.cornell.edu/supct/html/08-205.ZS.html
So basically Zach is for Unions, the Democrat party, Obama Care, and how Democrats are better representatives than Republicans at governing.
Remind me again why Zach thinks he can speak for conservative ideology? That is the point of why he keeps attempting to control the narrative here, is it not.
So unions have been breaking the laws by their donations??
http://directorblue.blogspot.com/2011/02/when-special-interests-put-their-thumb.html
If not, perhaps you can explain to me just exactly what’s happening to their donations, and how they’re legal, if what you say is true?
It’s even better when the child can dictate the terms to the parent, don’t you think?
The child is the father of the son.
All workers benefit from collective bargaining, even if they would prefer to sit it out. Hence, once the workers vote on unionization, everyone has to participate.
Everyone has to participate, Zach says. MIchelle said Obama will make you get off your couch and work. For the unions she meant.
And I remember Zach telling us that the Left does not equal totalitarianism. Yet right here, Zach is talking about forcing people to work, forcing people to belong to organizations they don’t want to belong to.
And Zach thinks his Leftist buddies are not fascist, not totalitarian.
As usual, Zach is smoking something called Leftism here. An illegal drug in some parts of the world.
I call that bribery and corruption.
I guess Zach would call it business as usual in a democracy. This is the “free market” Zach wants to build. Clever and sweet sounding words, yet as usual, the reality of Leftism is pretty ugly.
suek: So unions have been breaking the laws by their donations??
Normally, corporations and unions set up PACs (Political Action Committees). These organizations then raise funds from their shareholders, officers or members. Other contributions can be made to non-affiliated PACs, but the operating funds have to come out of contributions.
There’s a problem with their graph. They group labor unions together, but separate industry, to give the impression that unions outspend corporations. That is highly misleading.
“Business interests as a whole contribute far more money to candidates and political parties than do labor unions or ideological groups. You can be sure it will echo through the right-wing blogosphere. The truthiness marches on.
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
Ymarsakar: Remind me again why Zach{riel} thinks he can speak for conservative ideology?
We’re happy just when people represent the facts correctly, without equivocation. For instance …
Ymarsakar: And I remember Zach{riel} telling us that the Left does not equal totalitarianism. Yet right here, Zach is talking about forcing people to work, forcing people to belong to organizations they don’t want to belong to.
If you consider workers organizing democratically to be totalitarianism, then yes. Just like people in democratic countries have a voice in their governments, but have to pay taxes to support programs they may not personally want, need or approve.
Lost a quotemark above.
“Business interests as a whole contribute far more money to candidates and political parties than do labor unions or ideological groups.”
Just like people in democratic countries have a voice in their governments, but have to pay taxes to support programs they may not personally want, need or approve.
And this is Zach’s ideas of a democracy. Do whatever the government tells you to do. I suppose that’ll work, for a dictatorship.
So basically Zach is claiming that unions are a foreign government. So they get to use violence to extort cash from people because… they’re like a government, dontcha know.
In case people hadn’t noticed, there are no recognitions of foreign government’s power on US soil. If they aren’t a state nor the federal government, they do not have the power to tax nor the right to use violence to coerce people into doing so.
The US Constitution is the only fundamental bedrock for government power and citizen rights. Unions don’t come under the US Constitution. But Zach thinks he can create a so called “democracy” if he tears up the document and replaces with the Leftist Utopia.
>>They group labor unions together, but separate industry, to give the impression that unions outspend corporations. That is highly misleading.>>
Not mislieading. Different industries have different interests, which very frequently are conflicting. Unions have the same goals – they are unified in their interests.
Ymarsakar: So basically Zach{riel} is claiming that unions are a foreign government.
Not sure what country you are in, but modern, democratic countries have passed a variety of laws allowing for, and regulating unionization. That includes the U.S.
Ymarsakar: The US Constitution is the only fundamental bedrock for government power and citizen rights.
Yes, and U.S. elected representatives have passed laws allowing workers to organize.
suek: Not mislieading.
Of course, it’s misleading. It purports to represent the relative influence of unions and business, and it does so by dividing and leaving off most of the business interests.
suek: Not mislieading. Different industries have different interests, which very frequently are conflicting. Unions have the same goals – they are unified in their interests.
Unions often have competing interests, and businesses often have common interests. In the U.S., corporations have far more political influence than unions.
So, it’s the corporations that are driving state governments bankrupt with their pension plans? Wow, Zach is there nothing you don’t know? !
>>Unions often have competing interests, >>
Examples, please.
>>and businesses often have common interests. >>
For example??
>>In the U.S., corporations have far more political influence than unions. >>
Proof, please. If that’s true, how is it that there are xx,xxx union members (well, actually, some unknown number of union members, plus an unknown number of non-union members hired by unions) demonstrating in Wisconsin, but nowhere do we see _any_ similar demonstrations by business?
Yes, and U.S. elected representatives have passed laws allowing workers to organize.
Which are now going to be rescinded by Tea Party Republicans. The Democrats prevent this by locking down the government of Wisconsin. ANd you back them in such attempts.
So it means, you basically spewed out a bunch of crap that doesn’t mean anything. To sum it up.
suek, the graph left out the vast majority of business’s involvement in politics, so it was prima facie misleading. There’s no way to salvage the claim.
Zachriel: Unions often have competing interests,
suek: Examples, please.
Throughout modern history, labor unions have often had conflicting goals and methods. For instance, in WWI, the AFL strongly supported the war effort and encouraged its members to enlist, while the IWW was anti-war. Unions have often competed for membership and political influence. For a more recent example, public and private unions in New York are on opposite sides of the recent budget battles.
Zachriel: and businesses often have common interests.
suek: For example??
Gee whiz. Most businesses want low corporate taxes and minimal regulation.
Zachriel: In the U.S., corporations have far more political influence than unions.
suek: Proof, please.
According to the very data *you* cited through secondary sources above!
http://www.opensecrets.org/overview/blio.php
Ymarsakar: The Democrats prevent this by locking down the government of Wisconsin.
Funny thing about that. In the Illinois legislature of 1840, the Whigs bolted to prevent a quorum. The opposition locked the door, so Abraham Lincoln and his fellow Whigs climbed out the window.
Don’t worry, the Wisconsin legislature won’t be shut down permanently.
>>Throughout modern history>>
WWI as an example of unions in modern history???
Wow. How about something within the last 30 years or so.
I tried to copy and paste – may have made a mess. First line is Business “all contributions”, with the percentages going to the Democrats at 48%, to the Republicans, 47%. Approximately equal. The second line is Union donations. 69% to Democrats, 5% to Republicans. Since the Business donations are split about equally, the Union donations are the tie breakers, even though the dollar amounts are not – in toto – as large.
Business
$1,317,974,729
$637,107,580
$612,940,796
48%
47%
Labor
$92,355,686
$63,563,023
$4,319,172
69%
5%
The second set of numbers represent the Business PAC donations, with the second line representing the Union donations. Again, the last two number equal the percentages, with the first being the donation to Democrats, the second to Republicans. They are 50%/48% for Business, 93%/6% for unions. Again, the business donations are almost evenly split, making the Unions – again – the tie breakers.
Business
Labor
$67,513,377
$62,994,755
$4,297,572
93%
6%
So I disagree with your conclusions that business has more influence.
I can’t _wait
$942,417,365
$471,952,469
$451,441,049
50%
48%
I can’t wait to see how this prints.
What a mess! Sorry.
The numbers below “I can’t wait” should be under the Business heading.
suek, notice, too the sleight of hand that equates businesses lobbying for their legitimate interests with government employees, who are already fully protected by law from unfair labor practices, lobbying to have states suck some more largesse from producers in the form of gold-plated pensions and health plans.
suek: WWI as an example of unions in modern history???
Modernity has several meanings, in this case post-industrial. The context should have been clear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_history
The history of labor is a history of strife, both with management, and within the unions. You were also provided an example that is currently in the news, where there is a division between public and private unions.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/10/nyregion/10unions.html
suek: I tried to copy and paste – may have made a mess.
Not a problem. Here’s the breakdown by political party.
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php?cmte=&cycle=2006
Most donations are not by unions, so your original point, and graph, missed the mark. Businesses tend to hedge their bets, so they often support friendly members in both parties—which is most of them. Republicans have traditionally had a funding advantage, but this trend has reversed since Obama.
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php?cmte=&cycle=2010
Charles Martel: government employees, who are already fully protected by law from unfair labor practices
Unions were intrinsic to the battle to win those rights. Compensation is in line with the private sector, when adjusted for education and experience. However, it is reasonable for everyone to make some sacrifice during a time of austerity.
Be sure to selection the correct year.
http://www.opensecrets.org/parties/index.php?cmte=&cycle=2010
Moderation queue, please.
[...] Bookworm Room – Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union [...]
[...] Bookworm Room – Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union [...]
Watcher’s Council nominations…
* Rhymes With Right A Texas Teacher Looks At Wisconsin * The Colossus of Rhodey Students see the world and keep your head on straight * Joshuapundit – Supporting regime Change In Libya: A Powerful opportunity……
Watcher’s Council Nominations Posted…
Here are the new nominations — make sure to drop by and read important news about changes in the Watcher’s Council and how to get your post selected as an honorable mention — or even a nominated non-council post. Council Submissions Rhymes With Righ…
[...] no surprise that this week’s winner, Bookworm Room carried off the prize with her fine essay Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union. Here’s a nice [...]
[...] no surprise that this week’s winner, Bookworm Room carried off the prize with her fine essay Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union. Here’s a nice slice: In a dreadful economy, in a state with a huge debt load, you’d think that [...]
Watcher’s Council results…
First place in the Council category was Bookworm Room with Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers union. (Colossus finished in 2nd this week.) First place in the non-Council category was Pajamas Media/Zombie with Death Channels. Full results are here…..
Can someone enlighten me: What is the objection to public service employees organizing into a Union, whereas for private sector employees it is acceptable for them to organize into a Union? I don’t understand why it would be acceptable for one group, but not the other.
I’ve never had a philosophical objection to employees organizing into Unions, per se. The problem, I’ve found, is that the Unions stop representing the legitimate issues that caused the formation of the union in the first place, and they become corrupt – just as our Representives and Senators in Washington D.C. have stopped representing us and have become corrupt.
I also have no philosophical objection to employer collusion. But if you make employer collusion illegal, you must make employee collusion – unions – illegal too. At least, to me. It’s only fair.
The big problem as I see it is that public sector compensation is GUARANTEED, including pensions. That has allowed them to operate free of market risk. And that has led to nothing but trouble. They should be subject to the same risks and penalties that private sector employees are subject to. If the managers of their pension funds screw it up, they lose their pensions, just as those in the private sector do. That’s how it ought to work. Instead they are on the gravy train, the government – with its power gun pointed at the taxpayer – is the ladle that guarantees the delivery of their gravy. And the gravy is the money coming out of your wallet, no matter what.
What a nice little extortion system on the taxpayers.
In the private economy, they have real jobs of economic net worth. In government, it’s a total drain. The salary they get paid, is nothing but a drain on the treasury and produces no economic output greater than the cost.
Thus public sector unions have no net worth to bargain for. They aren’t producing anything of worth.
It is never accepted for private unions to deduct payment from salaries of people who don’t want to be in the union.
Ymar: In the private economy, they have real jobs of economic net worth. In government, it’s a total drain.
I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that. Fire all the teachers who are public sector employees and shut down all the government schools: Then who will teach the kids that were being taught and what schools will they attend?
You will have to replace those schools and replace those teachers. I’m not saying that’s a bad idea! But the point is: I claim that government services are inefficient compared to the private sector, not that they are a total waste.
Quite a few government services meet an actual sector need. They just tend to meet it poorly. A claim that they are a total drain – that they meet no sector need at all – I don’t think can hold up.
There’s a reason why, when the government takes over more and more responsibilities, that the country does not crash overnight. It is a long, slow bleeding process. It takes time for the inefficiencies to mount. It takes time for the lack of risks to lead to mistake after mistake. It takes time for corruption to set in. Government employees have no personal vested interest in the success of their endeavor – they have to personally care, and maintain a high level of integrity entirely on their own initiative; this runs afoul of human nature itself and as time passes, you see the uncaring, unmotivated bureaucrat rise to the fore and the collapse accelerates. I would claim the only reason the collapse is so slow is that a surprising number of these people DO personally care and do continue to perform their jobs professionally and well. But not enough of them, never enough of them.
When the government moves into a sector, the private sector cannot compete. The government has the power of the gun via law, and it will always protect its own, at the certain expense of the private sector. I’ll repeat: They *do* serve the market niche, but they serve it poorly, and decline sets in and continues.
I like to phrase it as: The more the government takes over, the more everything around you starts to go gray. By gray I mean dull, uninspired, stagnant, uncreative, unmotivated. Go so far as complete socialism and/or totalitarianism, as in Russia, and you get everyone living their entire lives under a universal pall of suffocating grayness.
And then there’s the fact that government intrusion leads to the citizenry becoming dependent on government and losing all self-initiative. Losing the ability to take care of their needs and their family’s needs. Losing the ability to make decisions for themselves! Having been trained to rely on the government, that’s all they end up being able to do: Rely on the government. Being dependent on government reduces people to the status of children, and sucks all the joy out of life. Gray, gray, gray… lives of unending grayness.
That is a certain recipe for civilizational collapse. But again, it takes time. Start with a nation of do-ers – the old American can-do spirit. I would claim it takes a few generations before the collapse becomes apparent. (America is not a Can-Do nation anymore. Not anymore. It’s sad. But it’s inevitable as your government grows and grows, and generations are raised under that effect.)
Ymarsakar: In the private economy, they have real jobs of economic net worth. In government, it’s a total drain.
Mike Devx: I don’t think it’s as cut and dried as that. Fire all the teachers who are public sector employees and shut down all the government schools: Then who will teach the kids that were being taught and what schools will they attend?
That’s correct, and thank you for pointing out the gross overstatement. Government workers certainly do provide valuable services, such as education, police, fire and roads. You introduce a very articulate argument concerning why governments may tend to be less efficient than the private sector, and how it can lead to a downward spiral in efficiency and accountability.
Mike Devx: Government employees have no personal vested interest in the success of their endeavor – they have to personally care, and maintain a high level of integrity entirely on their own initiative; this runs afoul of human nature itself and as time passes, you see the uncaring, unmotivated bureaucrat rise to the fore and the collapse accelerates. I would claim the only reason the collapse is so slow is that a surprising number of these people DO personally care and do continue to perform their jobs professionally and well.
So how do you explain the generally high levels of services provided by government police and fire services?
“So how do you explain the generally high levels of services provided by government police and fire services?”
Cites, please.
New York City.
EMS Response Time
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/stats/graph_ems_resp_times.shtml
Police Response Time
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07EEDD1139F935A1575AC0A9649C8B63
Fire Response Time
http://www.qgazette.com/news/2010-01-20/Front_Page/Fire_Response_Time_Falls_To_Record_Low.html
New York City.
EMS Response Time
http://www.nyc.gov/html/fdny/html/stats/graph_ems_resp_times.shtml
Police Response Time
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F07EEDD1139F935A1575AC0A9649C8B63
New York City.
Fire Response Time
http://www.qgazette.com/news/2010-01-20/Front_Page/Fire_Response_Time_Falls_To_Record_Low.html
Zach, thank you for carrying out my assignment. However, your “cites” only cover New york City, which according to the National Academy of Sciences has only 2.7 percent of the U.S. population and 1/30,365th of all fire departments in the United States.
Again, could you give us some cites that back up your contention?
So how do you explain the generally high levels of services provided by government police and fire services?
Local control and local accountability!
Contrary to the popular beliefs of certain quarters, conservatives are not opposed to “government”. We are, however, opposed to centralized government. The further away the accountability, the lower the quality of service.
Charles Martel: However, your “cites” only cover New york City,
Yes, it’s an example. Are you arguing the New York City is exempt from the Mike Devx’s argument somehow? New York City is special, but is it special in that way?
Danny Lemieux: Local control and local accountability!
That’s right. That’s why we cited articles where government officials were taking credit for the improvement. Mike Devx’s argument breaks down at that point. Though government is often less efficient than the private sector, there is a countervailing influence in political accountability that normally prevents a complete collapse in services.
Danny Lemieux: We are, however, opposed to centralized government. The further away the accountability, the lower the quality of service.
That’s also right. However, some projects and oversight can only be accomplished at a larger scale; space exploration, military defense, regulation of international commerce. Again, that’s why the most successful modern societies have institutions working at different levels, from neighborly clubs to international law.
Danny Lemieux: Contrary to the popular beliefs of certain quarters, conservatives are not opposed to “government”.
And again, we agree.
And that is exactly the point. Conservatives understand that society is comprised of important institutions that have developed over time to become an integral part of the fabric of culture. Pull a thread, and the fabric may unravel. Consequently, reform should be carefully considered, especially with regards to unforeseen consequences.
(Martel hits his head against the Zach wall yet one more time.)
Zach: “So how do you explain the generally high levels of services provided by government police and fire services?” (Italics mine to emphasize Zach’s assertion that police and fire services [not just New York City's] in general are provided at high levels.)
His response was to cite statistics for one fire department, out of more than 30,000 in the United States, that serves less than 3 percent of the U.S. population. Zach defended his answer as presenting “an example” when what I had clearly asked for was proof that his assertion applied to a vastly greater number than just one example.
Once again, a demonstration of why people in this room don’t take his arguments seriously.
Charles Martel: His response was to cite statistics for one fire department, out of more than 30,000 in the United States, that serves less than 3 percent of the U.S. population.
As we already explained above, according to Mike Devx’s argument, government services, such as fire suppression, should be necessarily deficient and in a downward spiral. Unlike yourself, Danny Lemieux addressed the argument when he pointed out that there is accountability through the political process, though he suggests it may work more effectively at the local level.
In any case, structure fire response times are generally less than 5 minutes half the time, and the 90th percentile is less than 11 minutes. U.S. Fire Administration, Structure Fire Response Times, 2006.
There does appear to be a correlation between funding and response time. Funding cuts in some cities have resulted in fire station closings. Consequently response times have increased due to the increased travel time.
Watcher’S Council Results…
Here are this weeks full results from the Watcher’s Council weekly exercise in blogging excellence:Council Winners *First place with 3 1/3 votes! Bookworm Room–Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ unionSecond place with 2 2/3 votes The Coloss…
[...] Council: Bookworm Room–Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers’ union [...]
[...] Bookworm Room » Thoughts about the Wisconsin teachers‘ union *UPDATED* [...]