Rochard

I know this has been discussed before....

My local city union is out on strike. Seems their contract is up and the city came back with a new contract - including no raises for the next two years, and they now have to pay 10% of their medical costs. The city union went on strike.

Keeping in mind we are a small town.... The city employees handle the bus / transit system, the water and sanitation, garbage collection, and maintain the city parks. We are now on week three of the strike, our garbage is still being picked up (by an outside company), the water is still flowing, and the bus system (which most kids use to take to school) never skipped a beat.

Who's right or wrong here? Our city is flat broke and is laying off police officers and firemen. Is it asking too much to freeze raises for the next two years, and ask them to pay a bit for their health benefits?

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sperbonzo

Never ask a government union to have the same deal that private sector workers do. It's just not fair!!!! They DESERVE to have a better deal than the average guy. After all, it's just government money. There is always plenty of that, and it's not like the poor and middle class taxpayers have to pay local taxes.....

Oh.... wait.



....

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ottopottomouse

Local government pensions are a significant % of expenditure here. Wouldn't surprise me if there are a lot of people being paid one for longer than they worked.

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Lucy - CSC

Government workers on average get paid less than Private workers. Keep watching Fox and the Murdoch media as they love to vilify the government workers from teachers to police.

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Sly

That seems pretty typical of what many private companies have been doing.

The bad economy is now starting to hit local governments hard. There will be more of this coming soon I am sure.

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PR_Glen

no this is just simply not true, in Canada or the US...

Are you assuming that everyone in the 'private workers' sector work at ford or what?

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Rochard

According to the union, their wages are from $45k to $85k a year. Keep in mind that most of these positions are for garbage truck drivers, bus drivers, and parks maintenance people.

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Sly

You are blasting one talking point while laying down another, while neither address the simple issue of... no money.

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Lucy - CSC

I love it how you are taking out your anger on people that just want fair pay as opposed to the bankers who ultimately stole the money in the first place.

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MikeFold

Sorry Lucy...this is not from Fox but USA Today....

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L-Pink

There you go, when there is no money the choices become very limited.

.

Sly

Now you are just deflecting.

Next up: Afghanistan War

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TheDoc

Bitch at the city & state.... they're the ones that invested your tax dollars in the scam market and lost it all.

So now the people should pay the price?

Hell no! Cut the wages of the politicians to ZERO and give it to the people that actually deserve it.

The people didn't screw this up, punishing them is freaking retarded.

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DaddyHalbucks

In an extreme act of rebellion, you could move to a place that is non-unionized. I did that in 2007, and life is ALOT better now. Taxes are much lower and the quality of services provided is far superior. I am much much happier.

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TheDoc

So you moved to Texas?

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Lucy - CSC

Well I will believe you. Strange that as in the rest of the world it is the other way round.

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Rochard

Oh, this has come up. Turns out our City Council are "well paid" AND get "lifetime medical benefits"? I've never heard of a such a thing.

Recently it was discovered our our library administrator was making $160k a year - to manage 12 employees and two libraries.

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Rochard

We are "deeply embedded" into the local city here at multiple levels, so moving isn't an option.

However, the city moved on without skipping a beat. The strike is now on it's third week and it seems everything is working as normal. Seems to me that our city employees have been replaced and for the most part, no one noticed a thing.

I found it funny this past weekend that some of my neighbors were unaware that a strike was taking place. Their garbage is still being picked up so they didn't notice anything wrong.

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Vendzilla

State employee's get paid health insurance for life when they retire, name a private sector job that can say that?

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Nydahl

well nothing like doing politics on GFY.com

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Lucy - CSC

The best part is this. People responsible for the monitary crash they get government bailouts on top of their already ludicrasly high wages. The people just doing their jobs have pay cuts, wage freezes.

Fair in the land of the free?

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12clicks

yes fox, those american grapes really ARE sour.

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MikeFold

Lucy, I like you, and you seem like a nice girl...but you are somewhat ill-informed...

I do agree that Wall Street are generally a bunch of crooks but...

Two of the larger monetary bailouts were for the Unionized Auto Industry (excluding Ford which declined government aid)...

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EZRhino

In California government works make way more then they deserve for the most part. There are some sectors in government that should get paid more. But not once in my entire life have I ever met a cop that was hurting for money. Here in LA County Sheriffs Dept. it is very common for the last 3 or 5 years of cops career is spent doing a lot of overtime because those last years determine his pension benefits. Some cops retire making more then their base pay when they were working. So for every one cop that gets retires and one gets hired onto the force to replace him, we are paying the same amount of money for two but only getting one on the streets.
Unions are all about entitlement not about whats fiscally responsible. Look at the mess unions created with the Airlines, grocery stores and police.

Jel

lofuckingl

I blame footballers on 200k a week, btw

Rochard

This isn't the case here at all. This is the local city government, not the federal government. My local city government didn't hand out any money to anyone, instead, it was just the reverse.

My town here lives on the outer edge of the suburbs outside of Sacramento. It was prime real state for building, and they built out a lot over the past ten years. In fact, in the recent past our town was one of the ten fastest growing towns in the US. Developers agreed to pay for and build roads, parks, community centers, and even fire stations to encourage the city to allow the building to take place. So the city took in money, not gave it out.

The reason the city is broke is because we were growing, and along with the growth came massive expansion - and an increased tax base. When the economy took a dump, the city was unable to quickly adjust. Case in point is the union contract - When the tax base shrunk, the city was unable to renegotiate the contract with the city employees.

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baddog

Wrong again.

GregE

Them and a whole slew of bankers too.


This is true, but given that the auto industry was in no way responsible for the crash in '08, I didn't mind so much that the gov bailed them out. Plus, they employ lots of taxpaying American consumers, so that money at least stayed in the country (or most of it anyway) instead of going overseas.

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MrBottomTooth

Exact opposite around here in our industry (healthcare). Government run facilities ring up deficits into the millions of dollars that tax payers have to come good for, while privately run facilities like our own make a profit with the regular amount of funding we receive. (our business is partially government funded as well, but privately owned, unlike the municipal facilities.)

Some of their deficits are probably from being poorly run, but most of it comes from the extremely high wages they pay out which are totally out of line with all the privately run companies in the same business. It's like when it comes time for them to negotiate contracts with the unions they just give them whatever they ask for.

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kane

If we are being totally honest the banks and Wall Street were handed truckloads of free money. The auto companies were bailed out, but they had to trade stock for that money, turn control of their companies over to the government and pay that money back. So really, it was more of a loan.

kane

There was a similar situation where I live about five years ago. The city went on strike, but they kept most services going and I think most people didn't notice a difference. Eventually the workers caved and accepted the deal they had been offered.

DudeRick

Fire them all!

Rochard

I don't think the offer on the table is that bad. They get to keep their jobs, no reduction in pay, and the only downside is no raises for the next two years and they need to pitch in for their benefits - a grand total of $110 per employee.

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kane

That was very similar to what was offered in my city. Pay freezes for 2 years and they had to start paying a small amount for their health insurance. If I remember correctly at the time they paid nothing towards their health insurance and the new deal would make the average person pay around $50 per month towards it which is still a hell of a lot less than many people out there pay.

One good thing that happened was the city planner that everyone hated ended up not keeping his job. His department was rife with waste so when he went on strike then decided to take the offer they withdrew the offer for him and he was gone. Had he taken the offer in the first place he would have kept his job, but deciding to strike cost him.

Doctor Dre

No they don't. And on top of that they have more benefits then the private sector. The cost is exorbitant. It's not the public sector having to compete with the private sector, it's the other way arround. It drives up the wages of whole industries sometimes.

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Sly

Considering many people are losing their jobs, that seems pretty fair to me.

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SilentKnight

In our small city (pop. 79k) - a starting level constable makes $82,000 plus full benefits. A large number of those constables voluntarily sign up for "special duty" assignments and boost that salary to over $100k/yr. (they make $70/hr. on "special duty").

I've yet to see private sector workers make anywhere close to that.

The "sunshine list" (gov't workers who make over $100k) for our region has grown by 70% in the past three years.

Meanwhile, our manufacturing industry has been completely decimated in the past decade. Every major manufacturing company in the area has closed shop and gone south. Former factory workers are now working 2-3 service/hospitality industry jobs at barely minimum wage to barely make ends meet - those fortunate enough to even find jobs.

Barry-xlovecam

Property values and property tax revenues are down -- something has to give ...

Jakez

No raises for the next two years, what's the big deal there? They act like they're losing money?? Have to pay 10% of medical costs? Boo hoo! Tough it out you babies. Make some personal/family spending cuts elsewhere like everyone on the planet is having to do right now.

When we are going through "times like this" we're supposed to cumulatively make some spending cuts here and there to overall make a noticeable impact and help everyone and ourselves through the situation. I think it's called life. These people want to just suddenly burden the entire community just because their small circle has been affected. It's pretty clear who's in the wrong.

All of this reads like a game of Sim City tbh haha.

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Shotsie

I can't speak for public sector unions but if you're implying that the private sector unions drove our manufacturing overseas i'd have to disagree with you. There's no competing with countries where manufacturing is completely unregulated in terms of polluting and destroying resources(no enviromental laws), exploiting workers(no labor laws), and no tax laws.


German and Japanese auto workers are both organized and both make more than American auto workers, yet all their auto manufacturers are doing fine while America's auto industry is near collapse. Why is that? America doesn't make cars for the global market for one, the best selling US car is a Ford F-150, i've never been to Europe but i'm sure not too many people are driving pick-up trucks over there. They also have nationalized healthcare which means that the companies aren't forced to bear the burden of healthcare costs. Don't believe the bullshit that right wing media likes to push about unions, most of it's false. The Southern states offer tax incentives for businesses to move down there, the land is cheaper and cost of living is cheaper. These so called business friendly states are in the same predicament as the northeast and midwest though, can't compete with the third world as far as manufacturing so the corporations use the unions as a scapegoat, and people eat that shit up because their jealous. So people say "fuck this guy, why is he making 65$ an hour and i'm only making 25$?" But instead of going after managament they go after their co-workers. It's a scab's mentality.


You can always hire one half of the working class to kill the other half.


When free enterprise profit begins to affect the health of a country, where should we draw the line between businesses' rights to do as they wish, and limiting them when they wish to perform actions that will damage the country? If you are an American corporation drawing upon the excellent resources coming from being in America, you owe it to America and its citizens not to drain us by sending all the manufacturing and jobs to other countries. To do otherwise is cynically exploiting the US as a base while exploiting the cheap labor elsewhere. All around exploitation, while the CEO gets a $30 million golden parachute and ex-workers end up living in the streets. That's got to stop before we have nothing left.

We need to start putting up protectionist walls.

pornguy

Did the Town Manager/Mayor take a pay cut yet? How about the other top brass??

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MovieMaster

Unions have no place in public sector / govt jobs.

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Rochard

No, and that's becoming one of the issues.

I believe in leading from the top, and the before the first fireman or police officer was let go, they should have taken a pay cut. Seems they have not. And it's odd that we are asking our city employees to pay more of their benefits when the city council gets unlimited benefits for life. That's screwy.

But it's an unrelated issue. Right now in front of us is the union issue. We are no on week three of their strike. Three weeks ago the city issued it's "last and final" proposal. The union seems to think this is a starting point for discussions, and the city is standing firm saying "That's still our final offer". In the mean time my garbage was picked up yesterday, and my kid's bus is still running on time.

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Rochard

Seems they had a meeting last night. The city stood firm and refused to budge.

One guy passed out and was taken to the hospital.

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PornHustler

The cost of living keeps going up so pay should continue to keep up with inflation. Doesn't matter if they are union or not.

If the city is broke its not the workers fault. It starts with the elected officials, both current and past. I promise they probably make more than the union workers

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tranza

You should learn how to read. That text talks about FEDERAL employees, no city employees.

BIG difference.

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MikeFold

besides the fact the dog warden here makes 75K a year (along with 17K in taxpayer paid benefits and pension per annum)....LOL

point taken, but there is not that big a difference.....


Source

carefully "read" page 3


there's even a nifty chart showing state/local

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Rochard

So your saying keep the bus drivers and the guy who maintains the parks, but let go of the police officers and firemen? Because that's what happening here. We've laid off police officers, laid off fire men, and even gone so far as to close down entire fire stations. But heaven forbid should the fucking garbage man not get his fucking 100% paid medical benefits?

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Barefootsies

Whenever I see one of these 'union' threads I have to wonder how many posters have actually any real life experience with unions? By that, I mean directly from either side of the aisle that is. Union or management (other than baddog).

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Rochard

I was in a union for five years. In fact, I think it was the same union Baddog was in - CWA, Communications Workers Of America. (Phone company.)

To be honest with you I didn't give it much thought back then. Seemed like a huge waste of time to me. Anytime there was any kind of disciplinary the union had to sit in on it. On top of that, thanks in large part to the union, we had employees who worked there for twenty years who performed at the bare minimum. It was sick really.

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