Posted on 01/03/2011 7:47:58 PM PST by Baynative
It all started back in high school when I took a part-time job bagging groceries. When I received my first paycheck, my jaw dropped. Between union dues, the largest culprit, and FICA taxes, my paltry wage of $5.50 per hour fell to about $3.50 for each 60 minutes of labor. Thus began my skepticism of unions.
My suspicion grew worse when, as a graduate student at the University of Washington, I served as a teaching assistant and was heavily pressured to participate in a strike in support of TAs who felt they did not receive adequate benefits for their part-time jobs. To me, free tuition and a stipend were a pretty good deal for approximately 20 hours of work per week.
Several years later, while working for the House Democrats in Olympia, I again found myself on the opposite side of union activists who insisted that they receive the same pay increases voters had approved for a select group of public employees, namely teachers. At the time — this was during the recession of 2001-2002 when Washington and Oregon led the nation in unemployment rates — I felt fortunate to have a job.
(Excerpt) Read more at crosscut.com ...
Whether it’s chipping in more for health care costs or forgoing a few workdays per year, sacrifice is the only way out of this fiscal mess. For the sake of our economic future, public employees' unions need to adapt to this reality.
Adam Vogt is a former political speechwriter and a 2000 graduate of the University of Washington Evans School of Public Affairs. He currently lives in Washington, D.C.
This bugger don’t learn too quick, do he?
Typical libtard, I’d say...
An anti-union Dem strikes me about as plausible as the whole rock stars against drugs thing from the eighties.
THAT’s what I THOUGHT.....and he’s STILL a Democrat? The brainwashing must be extremely well done....or this guy is very dumb.
Yup, esp since he’s still a democr@p.
The cognitive dissonance and stupidity is string with him...
I worked at a grocery store back in the 70’s. I belonged to the grocery clerk union. I had to quit in 79 because I moved out of the DC area. I was part time, and after 4 years was making $8.20 an hour, medical, dental and eye exams. I think my union dues were $4 a pay check. Course my memory isn’t what it use to be. It could have been more. It was a good job for the wages an all. When I moved to the south I don’t remember grocery’s being any less and they weren’t union.
Um, strong, not string. PIMF
You can add me to one who is fed up with unions, public unions in particular.
I was in a union too years ago and watched as a business agent talked the membership into a strike. We were told it was not about money, but that we deserved benefits and such. After 10 weeks out, it was settled for 50 cents more an hour, no change in benefits.
Later on, in the early 80’s, when I was laid off and there were no jobs to be found, I moved back to Florida and contacted the union in Portland asking for a withdrawal card, as I was hired there in a non-union job. Several weeks later, my letter was returned in an open envelope, stuffed inside another envelope.
No note, no letter, just returned.
I resent it adding that I had now been working a couple months and at a much lower wage and just wanted a withdrawal card, in case I found another union job.
I received the reply that since I was in the union those months and worked, I owed them full union dues for those months in order to receive a withdrawal card.
I didn’t bother to reply and have never had anything to so with unions since.
In Washington State, 70% of our state budget is “protected,” meaning it cannot be touched during this economic crisis. A little better than 50% of that is for “education,” which you can bet is mostly salaries.
The comments are very enlightening to how the Libs have no defense to their trouble here. They don’t seem to realize that everyone has finally pinpointed their largess as the root of most of the states financial headaches. They are done and they know it.
Weekends and federal holidays off is the only thing they can cite for their importance. Amazing.
He dared to question the ‘tard kool-aid on unions so the other ‘tards think hes a pubbie. That’s too rich!
The guy is still a Democrat after Obama? If so then he is SCUM.
Off with the scum's head!!
Local guy belonged to the painters’ union for awhile - says they were periodically required to attend demonstrations for their own union benefits as well as in support of other union causes - says members could opt out of attending by coming up with a hundred dollars which had to be in cash and was paid to the union president - who would use it for such investments as taking his family out to dinner at an AC casino - most of the benefits these days go to union leadership - as soon as the membership get smart and throw these thugs out, unions may begin acting and negotiating for the good of the members - and the public - in general......
"I recognize that my union managed to get me a pay increase a few years ago to bring my salary to within 25% of the salary I would get in the private sector, and I am grateful for that."
Oh really? Suck it, private sector.
Grand Funk Railroad....to mention another band.
The Mom and Pop company had recently been bought by a corporation which put it on the union's radar for organizing and did not have any resources at that point to restructure the pay-scale. The pink-slips went out within a few weeks and at that point I already had a slot to go into the USAF on delayed enlistment.
It was a sad thing to see the production lines at a virtual stand still. The plant never made it back to one quarter the output that it previously had an closed within a year.
The union organizing rep looked and acted like the worst organized crime thug that you could have ever seen from every Hollywood movie. I could even sense that hew had me pegged for the squealer but he didn't care because he knew he already total control of the situation. When the union redefined all of the pay-grades my job was at the very bottom level even though I worked one of only a couple of administrative records positions requiring far more than the most rudimentary skills of all the production line jobs.
Unions should have been outlawed in the same legislation that put an end to company stores, sweatshops, child labor and Dickensian working conditions.
“In Washington State, 70% of our state budget is “protected,””
I saw this mentioned in an article in the Seattle Times and I didn’t bookmark it. Do you know of an article or maybe a WA state web site that explains this?
The way I understand this is that this 70% is for protected public union wages. Therefore, the voters in WA no longer have control of their government. WA state simply exists to collect taxes and distribute it to the unions.
This may an overly simplistic view and I may not be making my point very well, but do you see what I mean?
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