really disturbs me.

1) Employers are usually antagonistic to unions their employees are in

2) Many voters think of themselves themselves the employers of public service employees

Thus many voters are antagonistic to public service unions

It ain't right, but it is what it is

Most people don't realize that public service employees long ago agreed to earning less in salary in exchange for good benefits...particularly pensions. It seemed like a good bargain in the days when most everyone was making a living wage and so many had employer subsidized pensions. Then the outsourcing began, wages became stagnant for so many people and employers switched from "stated benefits plans" to 401Ks. Now some guy, whose wages haven't kept up with inflation, is watching his property taxes going up, sales taxes increased or even state income taxes imposed and his 401K (if he is lucky enough to have one) took a bath in 2008 from which it still hasn't recovered....He sees the public worker as a "fat cat" no different from those fat cats on Wall St. I understand the sentiments of the individual voter....I can't forgive what the politicians have done to this country...sadly from both parties....If you trace the history of the decline in manufacturing jobs and unions in the US, you'll find it predates Reagan and began at a time when Democrats were in control of the congress.

I was one of those public employees who was prepared to accept lower salaries in exchange for paid health care and excellent defined benefit retirement plan.

Over the years I watched as public salaries began to rise to the point where they were competitive with those in the private sector. But the benefits never got cut or even rolled back. Then in the late 90's at the height of the dotcom bubble, the politicians bought the support of public employee unions by adopting some very unrealistic pension formulas and allowing retiring employees to pad their retirement benefits by adding things to their salaries like unused sick and vacation time, auto and cell phone allowances, etc. I retired just as these new standards were coming into effect but did not benefit from them because I worked for a very conservative local government agency. But even then it was possible to foresee that these levels of pension expenditures were unsustainable.

Sure enough, just a year or two later the dotcom bubble burst, tax revenues went down and those public employers who had made the big increases in pension allowances began to see the crap hit the fan. The City of Stockton, for instance is now facing bankruptcy due in part to loss of tax revenue from foreclosures, but also to overly generous retirement costs.

Unforutnately, what could have been dealt with by simply returning to the original norms for public sector employment (lower salaries but great benefits) can no longer be fixed by any other method than drastic cuts to current and new employes up to and including the end of defined benefit retirement plans in favor of things like 401k's.

I'll say this - no matter who you worked for or what you did you should not be allowed to retire at a higher rate of pay than you earned in your final year of employment. And this has happened in numerous public agencies in California.

Had private sector wages kept pace with GDP/Productivity the median household income in 2008 would have been $92,000 and not the $50,200 it was...so there would probably not been as much parity between public and private income. Social Security would be in much better shape as well.

yes the Democrats must have a better message

I work alongside nurses who are in the MNA union. They pay 60 per month for union dues while their union does nothing for them with regard to the un=safe staffing they encounter daily/nightly. The union has had thousands of unsafe staffing forms filled out to no avail. How do I know that? The hospital pushes patients on the nurses when they are already overloaded with patients. I have seen 12 patients to one nurse!! It's profits before healthcare in the USA and the UNION SITS ON THEIR ASS DOING NOTHING to bring fairness!! Wonder why the union members in Wisconsin voted for Walker? I just told ya.

60 bucks a month could go towards the ridiculous healthcare premiums they pay. My colleague pays $650 per mth in premiums for insurance on her and her 2 daughters. The union says they are fighting for them. BS!!!

I am an independent man with a yearning to tell the truth.

Tom Koop from Fridley Mn on Facebook tells it like it is as well!!! See ya there.

universe of organized labor.

You need to start your post with "I don't have any evidence to back this up but" .

On edit: I am in the SEIU and our dues go to support Dem candidates who supposedly are out to help you! So don't bite the hand that feeds you.

If you watched Rachael Maddow's show lately you will see that union dues are just about the only real money to go to Dem candidates.

I see the union at work do nothing for the hard working nurses. "I" see them doing nothing, period!! 7 to 12 patients per nurse is very safe. One of the patients falls to the floor does anyone hear it?

SEIU, MNA need to get off of their butts at the hospital where I work. The not for profit hospital sure pushes them around.

Hahaha!!!

I am an independent minded voter that speaks the truth.

O and the rest of the gang had better start fighting with guns in this battle or it's back to the great depression days for the whole wide world!!! Ya can't bring bows and arrows to a gun battle...

Seems like a fairly poor reason to have a problem with them.

"60 bucks a month could go towards the ridiculous healthcare premiums they pay."
Without a Union it is far more likely that they wouldn't have that $60 and they would have to pay much more for health care.

The feeling is overwhelming on this one... even in liberal California. Public sector employees better get prepared to have pensions cut.

The sad truth is you don't want someone to have what you don't have.

Until private sector unions were decimated the same benefits that public sector employees have today were way under what private sector employees got.

Instead of hurting your own kind why not work for better conditions for all of us.

I am pretty sure right wingers put those measures on the ballot.

And that was not always the case. In fact it wasn't until companies began gutting their pension plans by going over to 401Ks that public sector pensions became more valuable. Today we have more people working past retirement age than we've had in decades and recent college grads are having trouble finding jobs partly because of that....Cutting pensions will only make that problem worse. But heaven forbid Americans stop to think about something more long term than tomorrow.

to enter government service. So now we should screw over the people who've been accumulating pensions just because the private sector has already screwed most of its employees out of their pensions? The idea that "public pensions are out of line" sounds like some bullshit straight off of Fox News.

and voted for pension reform. I think that's pretty overwhelming evidence for what the public believes about gov't pensions.

retirement money if there's a chance it will lower their taxes.

They don't want someone who occupies roughly the same position in society to have anything that they don't have. The only reason to have animosity toward public workers is because a person is jealous of them.

Every move to a fascist or corporate state must have it's scapegoats. That is the only way people will vote to screw themselves for the 1%.

the reason.

And there's no significant push-back from either union leadership or the democratic party, just concessions.

When you go along with the right-wing storyline, this is what you get. And reading DU tells me there are plenty of dems singing the same song. Like on this thread.

to lure the Oakland A's

So they pensions can't be paid.

Public employes buy groceries, pay rent/mortgages, go to movies, sports events, everything the private sector employes do.
Cutting the pay and benefits in the public sector has the exact same affect on the economy that cutting the pay and benefits of people in the private sector.
Less money on main street, more people laid off, more businesses fail and the further down the drain we go.

At one time, it was the public sector that was always behind the private sector. Now that it is the other way around, we are told the public sector is the problem and need to be cut.
All that will do is raise the number of unemployed and underemployed, as the former public sector people compete with the already unemployed from the private sector, for the available part time minimum wage jobs.
The cut, cut, cutting of Living Wage Jobs is what is destroying this nation. There is no way we can cut our way out of this rescission. The only way out is to RAISE INCOME TAXES!!!, cut our grossly inflated Defense Budget in half, then cut that in half again. Use the money saved to nation build THIS nation, paying Living Wage for the jobs created. Reverse the spin down the drain.
What is so hard to figure out?