http://channel-surfing.blogspot.com/2011/03/public-sector-unions-are-not-problem.html
http://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=28006963&postID=8825237058296843302&page=1&token=1299496788732
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ANONYMOUS:
Well, of course a libertarian would be on the side of our corporate overlords and against unions because libertarianism is the creation of billionaires who don’t want to pay taxes and who hate their workers and regard them as a nuisance to be crushed.
Teachers’ unions negotiate with school boards not the legislators, police and firefighters negotiate contracts with their supervisors, not the state legislators. According to right wingers and libertarian millionaires, public employees have no rights, should be barred from forming unions or being able to negotiate for their wages and benefits. In other words, public employees should be compliant and obedient serfs who know their places and should just shut up and go away. In other words, you lose your first amendment rights in the workplace. Sounds very un-American to me. Unions level the playing field and allow for some say of workers in their place of employment. The unionization rate for the US is about 11.9% and falling because of rampant union busting and laws which throw up road blocks to unionizing. The unionization rates in Canada and western Europe are more than double our rates and in some countries like Finland (80%+), the unionization rates are off the charts compared to us.
Union PAC money is dwarfed by corporate PAC money; the corporations can spend many times more than unions on political campaigns, especially after the Supreme Court ruling which has allowed corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns. Exxon-Mobile alone could outspend all the unions. Corporate America has thousands of lobbyists to assault Congress, it has billions to fund politicians’ campaigns, it has direct access to the politicians, it gets invited in to write the legislation for bills (such as Medicare Part D) and it can blackmail congressmen by threatening to move their businesses out of state or out of country.
Christie and Walker want to bust unions, end of story, it has nothing to do with state budgets or deficits.
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“Teachers’ unions negotiate with school boards not the legislators, police and firefighters negotiate contracts with their supervisors, not the state legislators.”
While technically correct about teacher’s unions versus school boards, you overlook that the fact is that it’s all about politics. And, the “rules” of the negotiation are set in the various legislative bodies. The legislators are beholding to the unions for contributions, free labor on campaigns, and ultimately votes.
Police and firefighters also negotiate with basically the politicians that they elected.
You can put whatever costumes and lipstick you want on it; it’s still a corrupt process that sticks the taxpayer with the bill.
“According to right wingers and libertarian millionaires, public employees have no rights”
I can only speak for one little L libertarian and no one should have more rights than any one else. No more and no less.
Permit me to ignore all the prattle about how wonderful unions are.
“Union PAC money is dwarfed by corporate PAC money; the corporations can spend many times more than unions on political campaigns”
I’m no fan of corporations. They too are a creation of the Gooferment and the system that allows them to contribute to politicians is corrupt also. “Regulatory capture” and “Political de facto bribery” are well documented.
The root cause of almost ALL problems is the Gooferment.
So why do we allow this to happen?
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Posted by reinkefj 
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