Strong unions negotiate good wages. Good for them.
Yes--firefigheters, electricians, plumbers, cops, etc. make a very livable wage.
I've been in a San Francisco union, and never felt so--what's the word--protected.
No--I didn't like the fact that everyone was paid the same, but in retrospect I was wrong. There will be a day where you are not the best in the room. You won't be the Rock Star. You will thank the socialists for that union.
To be honest, I think certain sectors of tech would benefit from a union. So many of you go to that fun place. You get free food. You get free sodas. You get the fun office hootenannies. And a salary that's barely livable.
We're still in a bull market in tech. All the Ayn Rand/Rebublican mantra will get very old when it gamblers decide to pull that money back in.
Sorry, I'm a fan of unions. Worked too many non-union jobs; jobs that were worse than not working. For some reason, owners only like to pay just what they get away with.
So, I guess I would say that I am a fan of unions, but I believe that, while a unions primary goal should be protecting their workers, they should also be cognizant of the needs of the business(es) to which their workers sell their labor.
Unions can only protect the living wage employable in the long term.
Public sector unions operate in a way analogous to private-sector unions where the union members are mostly also shareholders of the corporation for which they are employed, and work together to lobby other shareholders for action as well as engaging in the usual collective bargaining approaches. This is rare (though not impossible) in the private sector, though there is a private-sector business model (the union co-op model) in which the union more power than in any public union situation, because the union workers are the entirety of the ownership group, not just an important and active subset of the constituency [0].
[0] http://www.geo.coop/story/unions-and-worker-co-ops-working-t...
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To the extent that's true, its less true (or entirely, flatly untrue, depending on the relation of the government issuing the rule to the one employing the workers) in the case of laws giving them such monopolies in public employment, which in fact withdraw the capacity of the government employer to apply violence or its threat in certain ways, like all laws restraining government.
They also ought to have the common sense that it's better to pay a living wage, than pick up the bill in welfare.
Yes, unions can metastasize and block their own effectiveness. But a properly bounded union isn't a terrible thing.
But in a public employee union, labor is organizing for leverage against ownership, which in a democracy is everyone under the government's jurisdiction. In this case, ownership is investing in the union without the same choice.
If we live under a government that is of, by, and for the people, collective bargaining via unions is oppressive. Labor negotiations should take place at the ballot box, and public employees should live with what's decided there.
You're expecting a majority to care about a livable wage for their fellow man or woman more than an extra dollar in their pocket saved from taxes. That's not a very realistic expectation and taken to conclusion, damaging for the country and the services provided by those employees (no expecting Ritz treatment at Walmart salaries).
I included a caveat about how unions need to be bounded, and there are additional needs in the public sector, but the same tensions that drive their necessity exists for public employees as well. Just because you choose a government job shouldn't mean you sign your rights away.
We vote for representatives to negotiate with their labor force and contractors.
Skill-wise, I would expect they are comparable in skill level if not skill set.
It's a dystopian hell only a libertarian could love.
Privatize essential life safety services? Because that has worked oh so well for healthcare.
The standard line always is, "we will do it better than X" - well fix current government run healthcare first
The NHS in the UK has its problems, but they are not nearly as bad.
(I don't know which country's system is the best to look at as a good example of private health care. Perhaps the best parts of India? (India ostensibly has government healthcare, but it's so bad that everyone who can afford it gets private health care. I don't know how bad the interference is.)))
Not only that, but fires spread, they need to be caught early, and they're preventable. It's not just a matter of performing a service for one home at a time if they catch on fire, it's a matter of performing a public service to reduce the risk of fire, enforce building codes, minimize damage caused by fires, and save lives. This is something that requires a community effort, and needs to cover the entire community uniformly.
Before being concerned about firefighters, it seems to me that we should be more concerned with improving the conditions for loggers and garbage collectors which have much greater work related risks.
Addendum: for God's sake, your precious karma score is a number on a website. If it matters to you so much that you create new accounts to say something people might not like, you need to take a long hard look at yourself.
So it's not all magic internet points.