Are Unions REALLY Working For Their Members?

It sounds like thuggish, Chicago-style gangster tactics. Why would anyone in their right mind support a flawed system like that?

 

Boy, those unions have done wonders for the Illinois budget? How about for California? And then there is Stockton, Mammoth Lakes, and San Bernardino? What killed GM and Chrysler? Yep. those unions are really helping those unemployed workers.

 

I have no illusions that you three could possibly learn anything. You simply adhere to the most extreme ideology the Right-wing echo chanmber has to offer and that is why you are going be in a world of hurt come November. I look forward to your pain.

 

Learn what? Maybe you can name me a single right to work state that is not doing as well (let's say unemployment) as the average non-right to work state. Off the top of my head with no proof whether this is one, I wish you luck finding that one.

 

Why do you think when given the opt out option, so many of todays union workers are leaving? Lok what happened in Wisconsin after all. Unions are dead, you can see it in the desperation of the leftys.

 

You can learn alot from unions. Just look at all those citys in California that ae basking in the warm union glow of bankruptcy. Look at Detroit for Gods sake. Unions rock !!!!! LOL

 

I agree that Unions have done a lot for workers rights but here is the rub, my 1st encounter with a union big boy was in the 70's and he was trying to pursuade us to go on strike for more pay (sounds ok but we were happy with our pay and conditions)
Our local union rep was against the strike so they tried to fire him (did not work) then they sent a Big boy down to show us the error of our ways
This guy turned up in a Chauffeur driven car for god sake!! He was not impressed when I asked him could we have a car n driver as well LOL, tried telling me my view did not count as I was only 16 (paid my dues every week)

Needless to say we did not go on strike and we still got a good pay deal from our employer but had no choice at that time about been in the Union.

 

Unions, pensions drove Stockton, California to bankruptcy

STOCKTON, Calif. — California officials must now assign blame to Stockton’s bankruptcy as mandated by its state law.

But who is to blame?

According to one analyst, it was cumbersome pension promises and public union salaries that sent Stockton under, not the housing crash.

“Union pensions wrecked Stockton,” said Mike Shedlock, investment advisor at Sitka Pacific Capital, in his article at Business Insider. “The only way to escape the death-grip of inane pension promises is bankruptcy.”

Shedlock said the U.S. should expect to see more cities file for bankruptcy.

The investment adviser also offered some potential solutions other than bankruptcy, including halts on defined benefit pension plans and collective bargaining for public union workers.

Stockton plans to default on $10.2 million in debt and cut $11.2 million in employee pay and benefits. The cuts have led to high crime and unemployment rates.

“The city is fiscally insolvent and must seek Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection,” Stockton said in a statement toBloomberg. “In addition to the bankruptcy petition, the city will file a motion with the courts to share information from the confidential mediation.

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/...Stockton-California-to-bankruptcy.html?pg=all

 

To hear those hanging on to old-style union idealism you'd think they were talking about every other liberal entitlement.

 

California, look to Wisconsin

Now that three California cities have declared bankruptcy, perhaps it's time to consider the lessons of Wisconsin.
One of the reasons Wisconsin Democrats couldn't unseat Republican Gov. Scott Walker in the state's recall election was that his challenger exemplified how Walker's narrowing of collective bargaining privileges for government workers benefited the state.

As mayor of Milwaukee, Tom Barrett had relied on Walker's reforms to balance his city's budget. And Barrett wasn't alone among Wisconsin officials. Walker comfortably defeated Barrett in large part because in the 11 months that the governor's reforms were in effect, Wisconsinites got a good glimpse of how they worked, even in Milwaukee, where the savings allowed government to remain solvent and avoid widespread layoffs.

PHOTOS: California cities in bankruptcy

When Walker introduced his so-called budget repair bill in February 2011, he argued that the biggest beneficiaries of his plan would be cities, towns and school districts, which would gain the flexibility to cut costs without having to negotiate every change in compensation or work rules with local unions. His legislation specifically eliminated collective bargaining by government workers for benefits and required greater contributions from them toward pensions.

How local officials employed those changes to cut costs proved revealing. The state's teachers union, Wisconsinites learned, had used its power to collectively bargain for healthcare benefits to demand that local school districts provide coverage through a nonprofit insurer affiliated with the union. Once the state ended bargaining on healthcare, school boards began competitively bidding out their health insurance.

By the opening of the new school year in September, just two months after the budget bill went into effect, 23 districts had rebid their contracts, saving $16 million, or an average of $211 per student. The MacIver Institute, a Madison-based think tank, estimated that if all the state's districts were able to negotiate similar deals once their contracts with the union-affiliated insurer expire, schools could save $186 million.

As mayor of Milwaukee, Barrett employed Walker's reforms before he knew he'd be facing the governor in the recall election. In mid-August 2011, barely a month after the changes went into effect, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that the city would save as much as $36 million in its next budget from "healthcare benefit changes it didn't have to negotiate with unions" as a result of the new state legislation. When asked whether Walker's reforms should be credited for the savings, Barrett brushed aside the question and asserted that virtually everyone was in favor of having workers contribute more to their healthcare.

Local governments that couldn't immediately employ Walker's savings faced dire consequences. The Milwaukee public school system, for example, had negotiated a new contract with its teachers union right before Walker's budget reform bill was passed. In the wake of Walker's bill, the school system went to the union and tried to work out concessions in line with the savings that would have been possible under the new legislation. But the union refused to negotiate, and two days later the district laid off 519 employees, including 334 teachers. The school system had estimated that if employees agreed to contribute 5.8% of their salaries toward pensions, as mandated by the new state law, that would have saved $20 million, enough to avoid 200 teacher layoffs.

Walker has said he was motivated in part because the cost of employing a public sector worker in Wisconsin (and many other places) has soared thanks to rising pension and health costs in particular. Without the flexibility to move quickly to control those costs, local governments faced a long-term budget pinch in which employee compensation squeezes out other spending and drives taxes higher.

Californians should understand those fiscal pressures. Average annual pay for a local government employee in the state rose by 60%, to $61,185 (excluding benefits), between 1999 and 2008, according to the Little Hoover Commission on California State Government Organization and Economy. That's about 70% more than the increase in private sector wages in the state over the same period. Average pay for cops and firefighters climbed 69%, to $89,056, again excluding benefits, in the same period.

Benefit costs have soared even more than wages. The annual cost of funding pensions in California's 20 largest municipalities has grown from $1.3 billion in 1999 to $5.1 billion last year, according to a study by Stanford University professor Joe Nation. That's an annual growth rate of better than 11%.
Faced with such increases, municipalities in California haven't had nearly the flexibility to mend their budgets that officials in Wisconsin have.

In San Jose, where the average cost of employing a city worker, including benefits, has soared to an extraordinary $142,000 annually, Mayor Chuck Reed had to fight long and hard for a ballot measure to reduce pension costs that was passed by voters in June. In the three years before the vote, the city had to lay off about 2,000 employees and cut back on parks, libraries and other services.

In Stockton, which declared bankruptcy in June, for every dollar the city spent on salaries, it spent another dollar on employee benefits. Facing unsustainable employee costs and an intransigent police union that was demanding the city pay retired officers about $300,000 for unused sick and vacation time, Stockton cut a quarter of its public safety forces and still couldn't meet its obligations.

No wonder that state and local government employment slumped nearly 6% in California from the beginning of 2009 through the close of 2011. That's nearly double the rate of decline among state and municipal workers nationwide in the same period.

Without pension reform in Sacramento, and with local contracts that make it impossible to cut costs without concessions from unions, cities and school districts in the Golden State are left with few good choices to balance their budgets. That was pretty much the case in Wisconsin too until Scott Walker came along.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...ifornia-bankruptcies-20120717,0,5879241.story

 

If guilty, these union workers should be fired and have criminal charges brought against them:

Nursing home operator wants probe after union workers stage walkout, alleged sabotage​

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The owner of several Connecticut nursing homes is calling for a criminal probe after union workers staged a mass walkout earlier this month, allegedly vandalizing and sabotaging the health care facilities in the process. Among the allegations is that the workers, supposedly disgruntled over protracted labor talks, switched around the IDs of Alzheimer's patients.​

The alleged sabotage, which also purportedly included tampering with medication records and removing patient identification bands, occurred in three of the company’s five Connecticut facilities in the overnight hours before the July 3 strike, according to police reports and the complaint HealthBridge Management filed Thursday with the Chief State's Attorney office.​

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Company officials suspect the acts were committed by some of the employees who went on strike. Those employees are represented by a chapter of the Service Employees International Union, the largest healthcare union in North America with roughly 1.1 million members.​

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“It’s especially heinous to do it to somebody with Alzheimer’s,” said a HealthBridge spokesman, adding that dietary information also was compromised. He said the acts put patients' lives at risk and if somebody had a medical emergency in that window "they could have been in grave peril."​

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In the formal complaint, company executives also point out similar incidents reportedly occurred in 2001 at several nursing homes involved in labor negotiations with the chapter, New England Heath Care Employees Union District 1199.​

“These (recent) incidents posed a serious risk of harm to HealthBridge residents,” the complaint states. “Based on the timing of the recent HealthBridge incidents and the striking similarities between those incidents and the illegal conduct uncovered in the 2001 investigation, HealthBridge believes that these actions are linked to the strike and that the perpetrators could have been connected with the union.”​

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Top Connecticut Democratic lawmakers including Sen. Richard Blumenthal, Gov. Dannel Malloy and Attorney General George Jepsen have throw their support behind the union in the protracted labor talks, with Malloy and Jepsen joining picket lines.​

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Company executives said Jepsen originally rejected their request for an investigation, saying they should instead call the local police. Jepsen has since recused himself from the investigation, his office confirmed Friday with FoxNews.com. The complaint has been filed with Chief State’s Attorney Kevin T. Kane.​

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Pinpointing the individuals involved is unlikely because the facilities do not have video cameras, in part because they would violate federal patient-privacy laws.​

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The sides are deadlocked in a roughly 18-month contract dispute involving such issues as pay, medical insurance and retirement plans.​

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HealthBridge argues that cuts were necessary as a result of a “very difficult” economic situation that includes increased competition in senior care and big cuts in Medicare. The company in April made its so-called “last, best, final offer.”​

Organizers for the local union chapter have said the workers voted in June to strike because HealthBridge acted unlawfully by ending negotiations and implementing the final offer. They said changes will result in at least 500 employees, including nurses and medical technicians, losing roughly $10,000 annually over the next six years.​

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“By their outrageous, inhumane and unlawful actions, HealthBridge has given workers no other alternative,” chapter President David Pickus said after the vote. “This is yet another instance of the wealthy 1 percent waging war on the 99 percent of us who work for a living.”​

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The union did not return requests Saturday to discuss the alleged vandalism and sabotage incidents but has reportedly said members are not involved.​

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The HealthBridge facilities offer rehabilitation services, in addition to long-term care for seniors. The company also alleges several other incidents in the complaint, including that equipment such as stethoscopes and wheelchair lifts were hidden.​

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Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/21/firm-wants-criminal-probe-on-allegations-seiu-backed-employees-sabotaged/#ixzz21In8CC7b​