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Comment by unpopularop | Hacker News Reader

Good for them. Bad for the taxpayer.

The taxpayer ought to be ashamed of short changing people.

They also ought to have the common sense that it's better to pay a living wage, than pick up the bill in welfare.

This. I've never understood the convoluted logical gyrations required to get through "unions are bad" -> "free market should be allowed to set wages (without workers having freedom to collectively bargain)" -> "non-livable wages spread for workers without capital" -> "griping about welfare and lazy people who should just work more".

Yes, unions can metastasize and block their own effectiveness. But a properly bounded union isn't a terrible thing.

There's a major difference between a public employee union and a private sector union. In the private sector, a union organizes to put leverage on management, who represents ownership (i.e. the stockholders, the partners, etc). Ownership made a choice to invest in the company, and was able to weigh factors like labor rates and work environment before they invested.

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.

We live under a government where oppressive discrimination by the majority is also illegal.

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.

Wait but why?

We vote for representatives to negotiate with their labor force and contractors.

Thank you. It is astonishing how few people understand the distinction (public/private).

Can you explain the relevance of the distinction?

Christ. Just look at all of western europe to see unions working well for the most part.

Yes, and also the economy is in big trouble when people with full time gainful employment (yes even with the government, which is a major employer) have no money to buy things.

There is a big difference between paying a "living wage" to government workers, and paying them far above the market salary for people with similar credentials.

Who are these people you speak of that have similar credentials to a fire fighter?

Loggers and fisherman?

Interesting. I was wondering how accurate this was, and in terms of the risk of the job, it more than checks out according to my first result. http://www.cultureofsafety.com/2013/01/your-odds-of-dying-at... Of course that doesn't cover medical risk like cancer.

Skill-wise, I would expect they are comparable in skill level if not skill set.

Fire service could be privatized and government provided welfare does not have to exist to begin with.

Result, slums, city destroying fires, people dying in the street. You do realize also, that chronically sick malnourished sweatshop serfs do awful work?

It's a dystopian hell only a libertarian could love.

It's not a libertarian ideal. It's more of an Anarcho-syndicalist ideal.

I'm always shocked when such terrible ideas are put forth for consideration in a public forum.

Privatize essential life safety services? Because that has worked oh so well for healthcare.

healthcare is the state it is in because of government interference in the insurance markets at Federal and State levels. When you cannot cross state lines to offer competing insurance how can anyone expect a good system. Before anyone points to government run healthcare in the US being good please explain away the VA

The standard line always is, "we will do it better than X" - well fix current government run healthcare first

Arguably, U.S. government interference in healthcare markets has been heavily influenced by insurance lobbyists for the purpose of increasing insurance profits. Although there is often a trade-off between availability and quality, other countries have managed to provide decent healthcare without exorbitant cost.

If you don't just to want beat up a strawman, the US interference in health care is not a good argument against government interference in health care in general.

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.)))

You realize that firefighting is a job that requires a great deal of training and education, and it's a job that's very easy to do badly?

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.

Most jobs provide some important service. The person that bags groceries at the supermarket is part of the system that feeds all of us. Firefighting is a job; one that is widely respected. However, the workers on farms and ranches and fishing boats work under riskier conditions and are paid less. Firefighting isn't a particularly dangerous job (although several times riskier than programming). With respect to training, I'm not a firefighter and I'm sure it varies by department, but I believe firefighting requires a highschool degree, EMS training and a few weeks of training on firefighting methods.

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.

I wasn't expressing concern about the position, I was explaining why it would be a bad decision to privatize it. None of the things I listed mention anything about it being "dangerous" or "risky" One of the biggest arguments against privatization, I think, is that they're responsible for enforcing building fire codes, and that's a very non-dangerous task. I have no idea what your response is supposed to mean.

Strong unions are symptoms, not causes. Blaming unions because rich/powerful people have a tendency to fuck over the powerless is exactly what the rich/powerful want you to do. The rich and powerful benefit far more from low taxes than the stereotypical "tax payer".

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.

Reply to addendum: Pseudonymity is not anonymity - a lot of people post here under a handle known to friends and/or coworkers (or generally prefer to post without hiding their identities.) They may be posting under throwaways in order not to be judged for their opinions IRL (or fired for them.)

So it's not all magic internet points.

Always remember that public employees are taxpayers, too.

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