I think the idea of unions is good on a small scale. If union dues were illegal they would be kept to their original purpose which is collective barganing in a single shop. It's the collection of dues that allow unions to grow uncontrollably and become the entities they should not be. But, try and get the Democrats to support the idea of NO UNION DUES. Of course, government employee unions should just be illegal.
LOL...... From your article: The Los Angeles Department of Water and Power had the highest-paid public employees in the city, earning on average 40 percent more than other municipal workers, even those with identical job titles. The utilityâs 10,782 employees earned an average of $96,805 annually in 2010, the most recent year for which data was available, according to compensation statistics provided by state Controller John Chiang. The cityâs 44,781 other employees took home $68,822 on average.
$10k here and $10k there and pretty soon you're talking real effective demand. These guys are creating/perpetuating more jobs than Romney ever did.
Are you serious? Keep in mind this is government, it isnt Goldman Sachs, so there is no one skewing these numbers higher with multi million dollar salaries..... If they are averaging 96k that means they are starting at atleast 60k-70k to work for the utility company..... Thats like someones idea of a bad joke....
Unions were created to help level the playing field between management and labor. They served that purpose pretty well. But, as in most bureaucracies, they outgrew their function. After negotiating with management for several decades, the unions themselves began to dictate policy, especially wage and benefit policy, and became something akin to what they were trying to eliminate. Thus the underdog became the 'overdog' as it were. In today's world of instant and constant communication, I think we see many examples of proper negotiations between labor and management without the need for, especially 'mandatory' union membership. c
Any government anywhere at any time can legislate some good working conditions and guidelines. We can get online and rate companies, how they are to work for, very easily.. Lots has changed since workers were treated like throwaway slaves.
I'm pretty much ok with that approach so long as government is not, practically speaking, owned by companies, corporations, management, and Capital. It can work, the history of Wal-Mart's legal beatings, for example, indicates this (and also indicates that human nature hasn't changed from Dickens's day, only law has).