cerebus23 said:
Destroying unions or trying to hardly seems the best way to going about gaining their support, and just seems would cause unions to dump more money into left wing campaigns.
I have 2 aunts in the teachers unions and they are thoroughly corrupt, and stagnate any meaningful reform in education most of the time, more money more money and more money, both my aunts will make more money retired than they make while working.
I have worked at places where union was trying to get in, one woman in my department filed a restraining order against them for harassing her outside work.
I mean i would love to support unions, the whole better pay better benefits workers rights thing sounds great but how they go about stuff just sits with me wrong. Nevermind that government employees already have benefits and pensions, why do they need collective bargaining? Collective bargaining just says if you do not give us what we want we can shut you down, that is way too much power for state and federal employees to have, especially when it is our tax dollars paying for their salaries, benefits etc, not a private corporation, state workers and federal should get what they get a decent and fair wage and decent and fair benefits but stop trying to leverage our tax dollars into more for you.
I do have a problem with some unions. And honestly think they need a balancing factor. For example... Teachers ultimately serve parents and work for the state (for the most part, I realize private schools are different.) So, while a teachers union should be worried about working conditions and the like, something like I guess the PTA should be worried about and working together on recommending reform. And honestly, teachers should be talking to parents anyway about their salaries. I'm sure many parents would help them get higher salaries.
As far as state and federal employees, well, I was in the federal employee system for a bit. And its true that the union there didn't cover collective bargaining. It mostly was about worker safety and the like. That may or may not have been because it was federally sponsored. Either way, I think if people in federal or state jobs want a pay raise, they should be honest about what their salaries are, what they want, and go to the people. With the people's support, it will mean more voices to hear their petition in the state or federal legislature. And even down to the city level, there are often some places that can use this. I know fire stations are well funded. They often have amazing, durable equipment. However, in a lot of places, the lion's share of the money given to fire stations goes exactly there, and not to the firefighters. Some places in the US, firefighter salaries average between 20-28 thousand a year. For people paid to go through rigorous training regularly, and put their lives on the line where concepts like workplace safety are laughable, and especially anyone with a family, that's not a lot. Especially in places like Southern California, where half of what they have to deal with is a tinderbox of a forest going up again, often dangerously close to dry kindling-piles of towns.
Of course, I'm personally in favor of honest government. And I mean completely honest government, especially when it comes to the budget. In Japan now, and I get the fun of hearing about "normal" city level corruption. Basic example: there is a rule that cities and/or prefectures have to lower their tax income the next year if they end up not using up all of their budget in the current fiscal year. You know, instead of putting some aside in case something big brown and stinky hits something sharp fast and spinny. So, when there is a surplus (which, ironically, there often is,) people in government have to think fast and get a lot of spending done. The big reason why a long time ago, there were things like bridges connecting the Imaginary Highway to the great city of Valhalla across the eternal abyss of A Hill In A Flat Plain. Now, I suspect they spend it on snack bars and karaoke. But, there is another rule that at any time, any citizen can ask to see the budget paperwork, and the city hall or prefectural office has to show it to them. Thus, leading to the widest publicly accepted use of a black marker to censor government records I have ever seen.
