DeWalt wrote:[First of all, there is a big difference between Private Sector Unions and Public Employee Unions. And we all know why.
What, exactly, is that big difference? I don't know why.
DeWalt wrote:[Second, unions bring both good AND bad. It is great to provide employee protection, and very necessary. But when - especially with Public Employee Unions - salaries and benefits become exorbitant, taxpayers have a right to revolt. There is a point at which "public servants" is a completely self-contradictory term. It's more like "public racketeers."
I'll agree with the good and bad.
DeWalt wrote:[Third, the longer Unions are in place, the more extreme their demands become. When you're talking 5% raises, that doesn't sound like much - until you factor in the automatic cost-of-living increases, the ladder scale for pay, and increased benefits. There are Public Employee Union members who are making double what they made just 5-10 years ago.
Firstly, just using the rule of 70, it would take 14 years of 5% increases to double one's salary. Second, who has received 5% raises for the last 5-10 years? No one I know of, private or public. Now, there may well be those who've doubled their salary in 5-10 years, but only through promotion to a higher grade/pay scale/position/whatever-your-organization-calls-it, but that happens in both the private and public sectors.
DeWalt wrote:[Fourth, when all the loud hyperbole has blown over, there needs to be a fair and equitable balance. Not extremes, but balance.
I don't think anyone would disagree there needs to be balance, but who's definition of 'balance' are we going to use?
DeWalt wrote:[Nobody really pays much attention to Public Employee Unions during economic booms. But when down-turns come, and people are being laid off & losing homes, they start saying, "Holy |expletive|! OFD Captains - in their early 40s - are making almost $100,000 per year, and my taxes are paying for it!"
And therein lies the problem with American culture today, nobody pays attention to what goes on in governance when the good times are a-rollin', and suddenly when they do, they focus so narrowly on what they perceive to be a problem, that they often miss the forest for the trees.
"Destiny is not a matter of chance, it is a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing to be achieved."
--William Jennings Bryan