Response to Brian S. post on unions
By Brian Kirwin | Friday, March 11th, 2011 | PolicyYou might have heard of this rather well known speaker
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Brian Kirwin
The right wants to jeer him. The left wants to censor him. Moderates usually want both. Brian Kirwin is a political consultant and public relations strategist in Virginia Beach with a lightning-rod flair. Brian also serves on the VB Arts & Humanities Commission and frequently appears on Hampton Roads theatrical stages, if only to prove that all actors aren’t liberals. Kirwin’s columns stir up debate and hit the political scene with no punches pulled.
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10 Responses to "Response to Brian S. post on unions"
Striking is not the same as collective bargaining.
Reagan was right to do what he did.
Walker is no Ronald Reagan.
Government workers are government workers.
Private sector is NOT the same as public sector, although Obama is making great strides in making it so.
Collective bargaining without a strike is a conversation over coffee. If workers can’t strike, what do they bargain with?
You think the NFL “collective bargaining” would be any big deal if all the games got played anyway?
Kirwin, it is called binding arbitration. Both sides submit their case to a neutral third party and both sides agree to abide by the decision. That’s what happens when you can’t strike.
If collective bargaining with not strikes is a conversation over coffee, why are so many people so hell bent to stop it?
It depends who the conversation over coffee is with. If its with someone who has gotten into office with taxpayer money funneled to them by you with the shared goal of using tax payer money to fund govt growth and union growth then its a pleasant conversation. Neither has skin in the game or “at risk” money to take a phrase from the IRS.
As long as the ability to bargain is there you can ride out a little Republican winter and reappear when a Dem comes in. You will make up lost time and then some. Sticking with the FAA example, look up what happened to the air traffic controllers under Clinton appointee Jane Garvey. ATC union redux.
If Reagan had eliminated their collective bargaining rights that finagle would have been blocked and they would have received the standard civil service pay and benefit package no matter how much Clinton and Garvey wanted to help.
I thought that the reason Walker was insistent about the collective bargaining on benefits was that over the years the unions had arranged dozens of corrupt and spendthrift benes such as a union shop medical plan far more expensive than other options, VIAGRA supplies etc. The state and localities couldn’t touch any of that as long as the collective bargaining was intact. I don’t believe that Walker would have gone after that so hard if the unions hadn’t royally abused it. They would never give up those benes voluntarily.
Hey, I know that guy in the video! Didn’t he run a union once?
Again with the silly non sequiturs. It was a PRIVATE sector union.
One of the problems with public sector union collective bargaining is that every time the government majority changes, management changes. The public sector unions, like the private sector ones, expend great resources in campaign funds, call banks, etc to support Democratic politicians. When the Democrats get in, they repay that support from the public sector unions with generous management positions at the bargaining table. When the Republicans get the majority, they are stuck with those CBAs in many if not most cases.
As anyone who has been around the labor movement will tell you, collective bargaining units can conduct job actions that do not qualify as a strike. PATCO was infamous for their “work-to-rule” slow downs prior to the Reagan strike and there were persistent reports that many of the ATC computer problems in those days were induced errors by controllers. First responders have been known to conduct job actions using sick leave, the so-called “blue flu.” Even the Wisconsin school teachers were conducting a job action during the Madison protest. CNN showed sympathetic doctors circulating in the protest crowds writing bogus sick slips so that the teachers could not be disciplined for shutting down the schools.
The bottom line here is that when there is a job action then collective bargaining has failed. The Republicans in Wisconsin were determined to push back the gains that the public sector unions had made under Democratic administrations and they over-reached. They wanted ensure that future Democratic administrations could not reward the unions for their support. This will not stand and, frankly, I think that both sides lost in this dispute.
I can’t believe I actually agree with “Hisrock”…
Nobody won and the sleeping giant is awake again. The new law will not stand for long…
Valentinus: I want to congratulate you on writing a comment without any demeaning lables. I guess you must be becoming mellow in you old age
HisRoc,
Will it stand in Indiana where Gov Daniels ended public sector collective bargaining? Walker may have been tactically gauche but I think its going to be tougher than Dems think to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. Historically gov service had low pay and high benefits. I can see higher pay and less benefits but the idea that taxpayers will pony up endlessly for public sector unions to get everything they want is highly debatable unless 51% work for the state. In that case, you will see little Greeces. What happens if leftist IL sinks and the surrounding Republican led states rise relative to it as seems all but certain? Also even Dems with kids have minimum high regard for the teachers unions. I would suggest a bit more caution in forecasting this situation.
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