Sad and too true.

[Kimby]

A public union employee, a tea party activist, and a CEO are sitting at a table with a plate of a dozen cookies in the middle of it. The CEO takes 11 of the cookies, turns to the tea partier and says, "Watch out for that union guy. He wants a piece of your cookie.'"

[Kimby]

So who do you sympathize with? The union workers who have accepted lower wages in exchange for promises of great pensions and medical benefits? Or the governors who have inherited bloated budgets and face deficits while states - unlike the federal government - are required by law to have balanced budgets? I fear that in the rush to balance the books, corporations will be the big winners, once the unions are denied collective bargaining.

[mich64]

I am not sure how it works in Wisconsin for unionized workers, but my husband is a unionized municipal employee and here in Ontario they have to pay for Long Term Disability Insurance from their paycheque, they also have a large deduction for their retirement. We are fortunate that our health care is paid for so we do not pay for that.

Do the unionized workers pay into or pay a portion of their retirement or disability insurance or is it all paid for by the municipality or State.

They pay the expense of being a union member, but it does not include arbitration costs that happen with every contract because the City never agrees to a contract and takes it to arbitration every time because they have a non-strike clause due to essential service. The last contract took 6 years before the arbitration process was complete. A decision that included a statement that the City bargains in bad faith and recognizes that it has a history of non-negotiations to force arbitration to cost the members and suggests that they rethink their bargaining process before coming back to arbitation. The arbitrator agreed on all requests made by the union (which were few due to understanding the economic situation) and refused all requests made by the city.
Mich

[fumobici]

The union workers are generally getting the shaft. The string of state and federal "budget crises" are essentially just concocted theater to force crisis to provide cover for enacting policies reappropriating wealth from the middle class to the wealthy that would never pass muster in a calmer and more considered environment.

I think this was the ultimate aim from the beginning of all the various tax cutting measures, to create an artificial crisis that could be exploited to benefit the rich at everyone else's expense. You have to admire the pluck of the ultra-rich like the Koch brothers, they are nothing if not tireless- I can't see them relenting until they live in solid gold palaces while the other 99,9% are housed in shacks and begging for alms (from private charity run by the beneficent and public spirited rich needless to say).

[mich64]

In addition all Canadians have Canada Pension Plan deductions from their paycheques equally based on income amount. However, when you turn 65 and it is time to collect your pension, if you also paid into a private pension, they deduct from your CPP, even though you paid the same deductions as everyone else. It is a way to keep more money to pay the people who were not saving extra.
Mich

[Deleted]

Everybody can come up with some tales of "union abuses," but they are microscopic compared to "employer abuses."

Now that I have been a union member a grand total of six months (in the least unionized country of the developed world), I am just beginning to learn the value of solidarity and also the fact that I unfortunately do not have a magic wand as union delegate to defend my colleagues. However, one advantage that I do have is from bygone days where certain union rights were written into the labor code in France. Now that the layoff program has been presented by management, I am slapping them with a certified accountant to check all of the figures that they have presented to justify this decision. He has 21 days to make his report, and the 21 days start only from the time that the company provides him with the data that he requests, whether they take a week, 10 days or two months. And the company must pay for this verification out of its own funds.

If that is the only thing that I have managed to do, it is a great achievement, and everybody is already congratulating me for keeping them on the payroll at least two months more.

[hwinpp]

You think France is the least unionized country in the world? Or are you kidding? I always thought the unions in France are pretty strong.