Gyp, the discussion was about Wisconsin, obviously. The problem being the corrupt model of collectively bargaining the tax payer money and in return getting huge checks back from those unions to get re-elected. I'm pro union. I'm just against government unions and collective bargaining, as I have always been.
There are a ton of sources. Here's a simple one from wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Wisconsin_protests
The Walker-backed bill proposed taking away the ability of public sector unions to bargain collectively over pensions and health care and limiting pay raises of public employees to the rate of inflation, as well as ending automatic union dues collection by the state and requiring public unions to recertify annually.[29][30] The bargaining changes exempted the unions of public safety officers, including police, firefighters, and state troopers.[31] Walker stated without the cuts, thousands of state workers would have to be laid off.[32]
The Wisconsin state pension plan requires a 6.8% employer contribution and 6.2% from the employee. However, according to collective-bargaining agreements in place since 1996, the districts pay the employees' share as well, for a total of 13%. One district also contributes an additional 4.2% of teacher salaries to cover a second pension and teachers contribute nothing. Under collective-bargaining law at the time, a school district pays the entire premium for medical and vision benefits,
Zan is clueless about 401K laws, what workers currently contribute, and how things are handled in the private sector and in non government union entities. I'd be surprised if he's ever even heard of a 401k. They are far different and far less generous than the government union ones. Anyways, everything I said from March 2011 still pretty much holds regarding my opinion about this:
Lyion wrote:Not public unions, public employee government unions. There are no issues with regular unions. There are no regular union changes in any of the state bills. Regular union leaders battle shareholders for better benefits which is as it should be. The problem is when government union workers lobby and get their local government to give them obscene benefits by sending millions of dollars in campaign contributions their way. All of these fights are being done at the local/state level, and aren't really national issues. Federal union government employees cannot collectively bargain. At the state level they tend to be more devastating due to the turnover of politicians and the fact once you promise someone something, especially pension wise, it's tough to go back. Essentially, most states are trying to do what you recommend and close the loophole.
New York City has policemen retiring in their mid 40s with 100k pensions guaranteed for the rest of their lives. There are tons of other examples similar to this. It's tough for cities to support their constituents needs when many of them pay half their tax base due to political public union promises. This is an extreme example but many cities are in dire straights financially due to promises made by elected officials who are helped to be elected by strong union support.
Unfortunately power, be it from corporate lobbying or union lobbying is notoriously difficult to fix. Politicians love to promise things and reward their friends, but those bills end up on the middle class backs. The problem with our two party system is while they use wedge issues to generate cash, collectively they are going to protect their money sources. The real fix is for constitutional amendments to fix a lot of the loopholes at the federal level, but it takes a lot to get those passed.
