The union thug-mobiles agree.
Posted on 09/03/2015 11:56:30 AM PDT by reaganaut1
This country has made a lot of terrible financial blunders. Easily among the top ten would be the decision to allow public employees to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. Only a little more than 50 years old, that mistake has done prodigious harm to us both economically and politically – and the worst is yet to come.
In the summer of 2015, the former mayor of San Jose, California, Chuck Reed, launched a ballot initiative. Several California cities have already gone bankrupt and more are teetering on the brink, causing Reed to take a step that’s meant to stop the fiscal bleeding that results from the state’s excessively generous pension system.
Key provisions in the measure would require local governments to obtain voter approval if they want to continue giving new employees defined-benefit pensions after 2019 and to require voter approval for increases in existing pensions. Further, the initiative is designed to prevent the state’s gigantic public employee pension system, CalPERS, from undermining its impact, something it has been known to do.
It’s important to note that Mr. Reed is a Democrat. As mayor, he struggled with the budgetary troubles caused by the tremendous and growing cost of public pensions.
And it’s also important that CalPERS is working behind the scenes to block Reed’s initiative. A union-friendly member of the State Assembly requested a legal opinion about the effects the initiative would have if it passed from CalPERS, which duly produced an alarmist “analysis.” The Wall Street Journal opined in August that this “appears to be a test-run for the political attacks unions are likely to wage should Mr. Reed’s initiative qualify for the ballot.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
Yet another DemonRAT blunder!!
Not a blunder. A deliberate Kennedy strategy to deliver permanent hegemony to the Dems. Teddy’s immigration “reforms” came in at around the same time.
Government employees used to get less money but more job security and maybe a stable retirement on the low-end.
Now they get:
- The most money
- The most vacation days
- The most benefits (child care, health...)
- The easiest and fattest retirement packages
- The best medical packages
- Almost complete immunity from accountability - it is IMPOSSIBLE to fire them
- AND ALL THE VOTES.
Look how we scrimp and save so they can have more of our tax dollars to put into their national ad campaigns telling us to give MORE! MORE! MORE!
And oh how they SERVE!
THANK YOU, ALL OF YOU,
THANK YOU FOR YOUR SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY!
I remember when sort of Republican Governor Bob Ray did this in Iowa. Now, spend 20 years in state employment and collect 70 percent of your top salary for ever.
Genius.
What exactly happens when a city goes bankrupt? Do they lose the mayors house? Do the police have to turn in their cruisers?
To a union member, the owner of a business is your enemy. To a public employee union member, the American taxpayer is your enemy.
They dig a trench around the city about 10 ft below the deepest underground structures. Then they cut through and lift the entire city up as one giant unit. Then they move it to a deserted island chosen by the highest bidder who gets to have his way with the property and the inhabitants.
Agreed.
It’s an Executive Order that allowed this.
Any “Republican” President could rescind it.
Have they?
It's hard to follow the thread of this blunder, but here is the opinion of FDR in 1937...
FDR Opposition to Federal Workers Unions
It is most educational to read the entire letter from FDR.
The union thug-mobiles agree.
Maybe that is what happened to Atlantis?
I think that is correct, but I would love to see a graph or a table charting public vs. private sector total compensation since, say, WWII. I imagine its out there if one knows where to look, and I figure someone here might.
To simplify the answer, see the zombie government employees and laid off government employees of Greece. Imagine Greece without nations to shovel more debt to it. That’s us in the near future.
Yay!
“What exactly happens when a city goes bankrupt? Do they lose the mayors house? Do the police have to turn in their cruisers? “
Well, in the case of Stockton, CA although a federal judge gave them the “authority” to give their unions a haircut, they didn’t, they just screwed all their bondholders. So now, when they need money, they will not have any resources for it. But what the hell, all “our beloved city employees” have been taken care of ( for the moment). California cities generally “devote” 75 to 80% of their tax incomes to cops and ffs.(doughnut munchers and those who eat till they’re sleepy and sleep till they’re hungry). I see our ff’s shopping in the most expensive market in town for food “for the house.”But when you’re making $200k a year to sit on your ass, you need good food, right?
As a County Commissioner and member of the counties negotiating committee, I highly and totally agree, public employees should NOT be unionized. Gov. Walker took care of part of the problem when Act 10 was implemented. The problem still exists in that non-management law enforcement personnel are still unionized. Our negotiations begin in two weeks.
“The problem still exists in that non-management law enforcement personnel are still unionized. Our negotiations begin in two weeks.”
I applauded Wisconsin for what they did for their schools, but as you rightly point out, the real crux of the union problem lies with the ‘public safety” employees. They are the big hogs at the trough and they will fight tooth and nail to keep what they thing “they’ve earned.”
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