Judge tosses much of Wis. collective bargaining law

[The Comrade]

how is a county judge doing this though? didn't a higher court already say the bill was a-okay?

[Ben Huh]

[exploited]

I think restricting collective bargaining rights is a bad thing only because I'm glad that somebody is making some goddamn money these days. It seems that bribery, extortion, threats and sabotage are the only way for people to earn a living, whether they sweep floors or control Corporate America.

Unions are coercive, and because they are coercive, I oppose them.

I own a farm, I work way more hours than the average person, and alot of it is labour-intensive. So to say to me that my farm hands should be able to stop working and keep their job makes no sense. If I stop working, I don't keep my job, and neither do they. If they are free to come to me and say "Unless you pay us more, we are all going to quit," I ought to be able to say "I'm not going to pay you more, go ahead, quit." It is one thing to allow people to collectively organize, it is another to give them more power as a group than any of them have individually. The reason I oppose unions is the same reason I oppose "corporations" and "limited liability." Targeting one without targeting the other is useless; being "pro" or "anti" union misses the point entirely.

[spacemonkey]

If not for unions, we would probably still have child labor. Upside to child labor today, we could compete with China. Both sides needs a voice, the trick is to keep both voices reasonable.

[The Dharma Bum]

[The Dharma Bum]

Money+Benefits+Representation=frequent online complaints about crappy benefits.

[The Dharma Bum]

I believe the term you used was "worked to death for pretty unacceptable compensation". Those unacceptablewages become a little more acceptable when you compare it to sticking your neck out for your fellow workers.

That is why unions are dead in this country. They have become co-opted into a tool of continued aggression against workers on the part of finance capital.

[Sandman]

[Medius]

Unions can be very beneficial in the private sector. In the public sector, they are quite frankly, undemocratic.

The people should always have the final say in what a public employee makes. Unlike the private sector, where a person will make more money for a company than it costs to pay them, a public sector employee exists only by the removal of funds from private workers. That is to say, in private employment there is a clear indication and limit of pay that simply doesn't exist in the public sector. Walmart would go out of business if it payed each employee 110% of what they brought in to the company. A public school, however, could pay every teacher a million dollars, so long as there were enough tax revenues to cover it.

In the private sector, if you aren't making enough and can get more through collective bargaining, by all means do so. In the public sector, if you aren't making enough, convince the voters or get out of the public sector.

[jurupa]