The Shameful Attack on Public Employees

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 5, 2011
In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned.

But now the right is going after public employees.

Public servants are convenient scapegoats. Republicans would rather deflect attention from corporate executive pay that continues to rise as corporate profits soar, even as corporations refuse to hire more workers. They don’t want stories about Wall Street bonuses, now higher than before taxpayers bailed out the Street. And they’d like to avoid a spotlight on the billions raked in by hedge-fund and private-equity managers whose income is treated as capital gains and subject to only a 15 percent tax, due to a loophole in the tax laws designed specifically for them.

It’s far more convenient to go after people who are doing the public’s work - sanitation workers, police officers, fire fighters, teachers, social workers, federal employees – to call them “faceless bureaucrats” and portray them as hooligans who are making off with your money and crippling federal and state budgets. The story fits better with the Republican’s Big Lie that our problems are due to a government that’s too big.

http://robertreich.org/post/2615647030

...he is being a rightwinger.

DAMN THE RIGHTWING

How did we lose our sense of solidarity?

It is being done to go from public to private. Lessening over site, transparency, and accountablity.... This hidden agenda is just a shameful.....

That is the case that has to be made. In the past it was justified as public workers got paid less, but now with private sector salaries on their way down, that often isn't the case.

It's a sale that has to be made to the public. The question is, will my paying extra taxes to pay your pension benefit me? We often ask why poor whites don't vote their economic interests. Same thing here.

you are anti-pension :eyes:

Do people without pensions compromise their own ability to retire to fund public workers ability to retire. Paying higher taxes means less can saved for someones own retirement.

And the fact is that if you don't have a pension you need to save even more because you need a cushion just in case.

On a job to job, seniority to seniority scale, apples to apples, public employees are still getting paid about four percent less than private sector employees. Olberman had that little statistical fact on the other night.

But hey, keep spreading that public employee disinformation.

Furthermore, why are you working so hard to tear down the gains of public sector employees rather than working to raise up the plight of private sector employees?

Public sector unionization is an inherent conflict of interest with the same people allegedly serving the public while bargaining against the public. The character of such an enterprise is entirely different from that of a private sector union, where there is no such conflict of interest (absent a bailout GM-style which effectively brings them into the public sector).

You can be a public servant, or you can be an out-for-your-own-best-interest mercenary, but you can't be both. Unionization of public employees has led to perverse situations where, for example, union boosters are perfectly happy to have TSA employees routinely molest innocent members of the general public, with all abuses in plain view, because they hope to unionize them and thereby gain power. In other situations, less senior members of unions end up paying to get themselves terminated, when negotiators aim to protect the perks of seniority over the continued employment of the junior membership.

That really exemplifies what has gone wrong with modern unionism - instead of a quest to better the condition of labor, the leaders of today's unions are far more interested in accumulating power and perks. It has pitted them against the general public in many different ways and across a large swath of the economy; no one should be surprised to find that there is ZERO sympathy in the general public for the complaints of public sector workers - at whose hands the general public is more and more subject to heavy-handed abuse all the time.

Unions need to return to their roots, and that means principled and correct stands for just treatment for all workers, not mere plays for power. In terms of policy it means that equalizing the playing field for global trade has to be #1 on the agenda, as that is the #1 factor hurting American labor today, by a huge margin over any other factor, and arguably more of a factor than all other issues combined.

I never looked at it quite that way. Resentment by the general public towards public employee unions was likely a factor in Gov. Christie's election in NJ.

I don't know why you are so bent against public sector unions.
Considering the "broad brush" and assumptive nature of your post would it indicate a negative personal experience?

I am a Union Chief Steward in the public works sector working for a ciy of 50,000 population. The cutbacks and continuing 3 year pay freeze have been profound and difficult. Other citys and their organized labor groups are all trying to just hang on like us. We have CalPERS in lieu of Social Security, We have no medical retirement. No merit pay. No bonuses. No stock options. We have guys driving Class A vehicles, operating excavators, backhoes, and other equipment for less than $20 per hour.

I am offended that you accuse me of "bargaining against the public".
Absolute nonsense.
The public is getting a damn good deal from our service. If we were contracted out to the private sector the tax paying public would be getting screwed royally.

An union is not just about bargaining for a contract.
It is about day to day representation of individuals to protect their rights in the workplace. It's about putting language in the contract that defines our rights.
Being unionized is about having a legal equality with management when representing a coworker.
We have saved people from the prejudice and excesses of rogue Supervisors and Managers.
A non organized workplace has no contract and the individual is alone and essentially an "at will" employee.

Your opinion is offensive to me on so many levels.

When you are operating the backhoe or driving that Class A vehicle, you are acting in the the public's interest. When you are sitting across the table negotiating a contract, you are acting in the union's interest. That is the essence of a conflict of interest.

Your statement "I am offended that you accuse me of "bargaining against the public"." is ridiculous. Collective bargaining is by its very nature an adversarial process. Whatever you gain at the bargaining table has to be paid for by taxpayers. You tell me: When you negotiate the union contract, are you looking to get more money and benefits for union members or are you looking to save the taxpayers money?

there is already a very substantial mechanism for correcting abuses against workers. It is called the ballot box.

Which brings another conflict of interest, by the way, when a public sector union is also engaged in political activities (which all are). How effectively is the public's representative going to bargain with people on whom he/she depends for political support?

If you can't see why the public might resent people who make more than they do demanding they pay for benefits they don't have... I don't see how I can help you see the light.

Do you even read what you wrote? On two consecutive lines:
"An union is not just about bargaining for a contract."
"It's about putting language in the contract that defines our rights."

If there was anything more than narrow self-interest involved, the first thing on your plate would be organizing all the unions to fight together against offshoring jobs and importing new labor into an environment of high unemployment. Even if it's only your own self you're interested in, that's still the most important long-term factor that needs to be addressed.

You can be offended all you please, but as long as you keep that attitude you can continue to expect the election of Chris Christies all around the country. Your offense demonstrates that you have totally lost sight of the public's will, which should be integral to the duties of a public servant.

I'm positive I am not the only one who dreads standing in a DMV line waiting to be told to come back a brazillion times with different paperwork to just get something simple done.

after dealing with a government office wish that they had the power to arbitrarily terminate government employees.

This is what you are fighting.

To the citizenry at large, government employees are seen as lazy and officious running their offices for the convenience of the employees and not for the convenience of the public. Huge lines at the DMV, only two windows open, and a host of guys just sitting at desks in the back drinking coffee.

When I worked for the federal government, we often described certain offices as "self-licking ice cream cones" where little work was done and they had written their missions, functions, and job descriptions so that they only "coordinated, oversaw, or reviewed" stuff, never anything like "work".

The sad thing is as one unionized sector fell, the other circled their own wagons...instead of standing firm with other unions, many have become havens of their own self preservation and interest and this had done the labor movement tremendous damage. Rushpublicans and corporates know they can bust unions one at a time and the others will look the other way. Replace American jobs with outsourcing? Fine...as long as its not affecting our local. One by one unions are chased out of one sector and then another and little is said and done except for some selective outrage...then nothing.

A strong showing of union solidarity is long overdue. Shutting down a corporate or industry may just jolt this country awake to the true plight of our depressed labor market and infrastructure and the class warfare that has been waged for the past 30 years against the middle class. Instead of fretting about the next round of union busting...it's long past time to be standing up.

But how do we overcome with the continued and powerful brainwashing affect the radio and TV have?
It is so insidious that many public sector union members vote Republican as they listen to Rush, Beck, Hannity, and FOX Network nonsense.
I work with them.

That is how bad it is now.

And there's no real easy solutions...and that's the problem. We have a nation of self-interests that only see/care what's in front of them and there's little communications and information among unions. There's been very little recruiting over the past 30 years so many don't understand the benefits of a well-run union as opposed to the propaganda they've heard. There's little accomplishment to show...thus the value has diminished.

It's easy to blame the media...and you have a very valid point, but those who built the unions over a century ago went against some heavyweights as well. Information was controlled by the Pulitzers and McCormicks and Chandlers but the unions created their own presses, their own means to communicate. I saw similar things during the anti-war movement of the 60s...it was a message that was appealing since it was spread far and wide, not within.

I wish I could give a simple answer, but this one require a lot of moving parts being synched to move in the same direction. And, sadly, I see people pulling further apart rather than together as their special interests get attacked or fight with others as to which cause is more important. McLuan aptly said the medium is the message and right now there's not a common message...despite the many new mediums that are available.

Cheers...

I wish we were like France and could get the entire nation to shut down. Wishful thinking, I guess. We've never had our own Bastille-storming.