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Originally Posted by wdmso
I agree.. But sadly those benefits were once only afforded to the private sector..
That's not true. Public employees had pensions and health insurance, etc. before they became unionized. Even better, they had far more job security than private sector employees. And many, if not most, of the private sector employees at the time did not have company paid benefit packages.
public unions fought to bring their members in line with the private sector who were giving it to their employees at that time..
No, they fought to bring their members in line with the unionized private sector, not with the average of private sector compensation. And because of their support of and affiliation with the leftist political class, they not only maintained their far superior job security than even private sector union employees, but were then able over time to get even better benefit and wage packages. This was even more so in Democrat municipalities which had a symbiotic relationship with public workers and their unions. Their so-called collective bargaining was, essentially and politically, with themselves. So, because political power was more important than fiscal reality, they were able to get compensation which their communities were not able realistically to sustain. Franklin D. Roosevelt, the great Democrat hero who was responsible for "collective bargaining" in the first place, realized the danger of public sector unions and insisted that public employees must not be unionized.
but private companys decided to change or just went belly up leaving employees with nothing or just stopped providing good benefits
Exactly . . . the private sector is not secure. And because of the necessity for the private sector to maintain at least the semblance of fiscal responsibility, it has to adjust its workforce either in number or in compensation.
Government doesn't just go "belly up." It persists and its employees stay on and it takes a massive crisis to cut back on their compensation.
once that happened we (union ) benefits started getting undo scrutiny from businesses conservatives
No, the scrutiny is not undo. The public sector depends on the private sector. The public sector, for the most part, does not produce wealth or goods. It is basically a service sector which is supposed to serve the private sector (the public at large). The private sector pays the public sector to do so. When public employees demand compensation which is unreasonable compared to average private sector compensation, and when they get compensation packages which are unsustainable without draining the resources of the public at large, it is not undo to scrutinize that compensation.
With U.S. private sector union membership sharply reduced, the right is training fire on public sector unions, seen as critical rivals.
http://www.scholarsstrategynetwork.o...-sector-unions |
There should not be a rivalry between public unions and the public at large. If the private sector wealth waxes and wanes, so should that of the public sector that serves it. When it reaches the stage of rivalry, something other than compensation squabbles is going on. In my opinion, that something is politics.
The battle (rivalry) is not between Public unions and the "right," it is between socialistic form of government and free market form. Your article demonstrates that. That is the proper argument we should be having.