Originally Posted by justin

I think this highlights the absurdity of blaming the budget crises on the teachers unions. these teachers are getting paid too much? Lets say private sector employment is $35k a year. Well neglect the idea that the certification requirements in private sector are far below the public sector's and that simply by being there the public sector has driven up wages in the private sector. So, we take 35k at it's value. You want teachers to make 35k a yr. That's about 28k after tax. Gas is likely to hit well over $4 a gallon. Real inflation numbers are over 5-8% in all categories that matter( I want to say 8-20%). Maybe a married couple without children could survive on 2 teachers incomes. How do you expect a family of 4 to survive on such income? But lets not stop there, lets propose 80 billion in cuts to the social state on a federal level targeting low income families. We need to be frugal with social spending as we create the fiscal year 2011 deficit of over 1 trillion on who knows what kind of corporate handouts. If 40-50$ hr including benefits is creating our deficit problem, given the current cost of living, then we have a much more serious problem to deal with.

Surprisingly enough the answer to the problem isn't lets keep lowering wages, it's lets start balancing the budget on a federal level. It also will require us raising taxes on the state level. Once everything's in order we can have a legitimate discussion of how we want to subsidize both the private and public sector. I mean it's crazy talk with wages stagnant in America for over thirty years and income inequality reaching third world levels, we're sitting here arguing about 40k-50k a year being an unfairly high wage.

Originally Posted by suzzer99

I worked at a union shop, the KC Metro bus company, for like half of one summer when I was in HS - doing landscaping and general trash cleanup. I have never been around a lazier group of people. If they got 2 hours of actual work done in a day it was a miracle. There were 2 of us doing that summer job and it was the same for us. Our punishment if we got our work done too fast was either sheer boredom or they'd find some nasty job for us to do. We actually had a guy half-jokingly coach us in how to do everything (working, walking, talking about stuff) really really slowly.

Instead we just found places to sleep all over the compound. Until we got caught one day completely passed out on one of the big airport shuttle buses, then the job was no fun after that.

Personally for me having to go to a job like that day-in-day-out would be a living hell. I don't think most people start out looking to slack off 80% of the time. But a few years of a job like that, where everyone else is doing it, and a lot of them adjust. Either that or the truly lazy people gravitate towards stuff like that.

My Mom worked for them and ended up doing arbitration for management side. She would come home with horror stories. I remember one about not being able to fire a union driver who literally got caught walking off the premises with an entire fare box full of coins.

Anyway I do think public sector unions are a bad idea. You take away the profit motive, combined with the downward pull on productivity of a union, it's just a recipe for disaster.

Originally Posted by jgrimmer44

Anecdotal evidence is anecdotal.

Originally Posted by jgrimmer44

Edit: Wall of text, my general thoughts on the entire situation below:

Teachers don't make much money typically, and their benefits are very important to them. What makes zero sense to me is why Wisconsinites are standing with Walker on this, when this is such obvious abuse of power using public policy. This bill has nothing to do with the budget, if you want proof of this note that Unions offered to take all of the costs (pension/health care), if in exchange the governor would remove the collective bargaining clause. Scott Walker rejected the offer, obviously, because this is simply political.

Worse still, Walker pushed through 140 million in special interest spending in January, giving tax breaks to corporations and the wealthy who put him in power. Funny, if the deficit was such a big issue why would he spend that much money? If you're a person who is saying they don't want to be taxed, you should understand that you're getting taxed when Scott Walker pushes through spending like he did. Or in this case, the teachers, prison guards, snowplow drivers, etc, are the ones being taxed. Furthermore on top of the tax he is asking public workers to pay he is also destroying rights that they have had in Wisconsin for over 60 years, their right to collective bargaining.

He deliberately tried to push this through the legislative process without anyone stopping him, and even when thousands came to speak about the bill, given 2 minutes a piece, the republicans cut them short and many were unable to voice concerns. This Governor is so unwilling to compromise that it really makes me wonder what kind of person would support him.

He has obvious ties to big money, and corporations in Wisconsin, notably the Koch brothers, oil and coal tycoons. The Citizens United decision enables this to happen, and some of us question the true motives of this bill when it involves such obvious political attacks.

Any rational person can see what Scott Walker was trying to accomplish:

Pit the middle class against each other, (He exempted 3 types of public workers who would lose collective bargaining rights; firefighters, police and state troopers.) it didn't work. The police and firefighers are down at the capitol protesting, an official from one of the largest police unions issued a statement apologizing for endorsing Scott Walker, and that they did not want to be associated with him.

Destroy workers rights, rights which have been established for over 50 years in Wisconsin, rights that help our state get great public service.

Look good for "stopping the deficit problem"

It's hard to look good at stopping the deficit when nobody knows you're the same person who spent us there.

People that are protesting see the situation for what it is, an unnecessary attack on the middle class that helps the corporations continue to profit, while at the same time destroying institutions that make it harder for said corporations to profit, and institutions that are largely democrat backers during election time. If it was about the budget this would have been over long ago in compromise, but since Scott Walker refuses to budge you will continue to see protesters, and hopefully the 14 democrats stay out of state until they cave.

Originally Posted by suzzer99

No. Anecdotal would be one person. A major city-run institution in a fairly large city is a little more significant than that.

Show me some anecdotal evidence of city workers not behaving like that. Do you really think it's any different anywhere else?

Originally Posted by rjoefish

I have worked for a city government and represent other public employees and I can tell you that if one of them was caught sleeping they'd be fired instantly (its happened before) and I have never heard of anyone getting in trouble, or harrassed by coworkers, for working too fast.

Originally Posted by ikestoys

Democrats are being extremely foolish to:

1) Support the protesters so strongly
2) Let this have gone on so long

This is an issue that the public strongly disagrees with the Dems and their position will get them slaughtered in 2012. Best thing that could happen for the Dems is snow and a complete cluster**** in Libya to get attention away from Wisconsin.

Originally Posted by ikestoys

Best thing that could happen for the Dems is snow and a complete cluster**** in Libya to get attention away from Wisconsin.

Originally Posted by 22riverrat22

its not entirely baffling that unions take some heat, theres definitely horror stories but thats inevitable with bureaucracy

but bottom line tho destroying unions is going to be detrimental to the vast vast majority of the people in WI whether they "get it" now or not

(maybe the koch bros and their progeny will benefit in the LR)

Originally Posted by suzzer99

a) Sleeping is obviously verboten, we got in a lot of trouble for it. Our supervisor wrote us up (I think) then sent us over to clean out a nasty fence line at the old bus yard. As he drove away he warned us to be lookout for poison ivy. Neither me nor the guy I worked with had ever gotten poison ivy, nor did we even know what it looked like. So we were pulling this stuff down, getting it all over our faces, etc. Neither of us showed up for work for a couple of days because we were covered with rashes from head to toe. No one questioned us, they expected it. To this day I even look at poison ivy I get a rash. 100% true story.

b) I never said they pressured us into slowing down. They just gave us tips on how to drag out the work so we weren't left with nothing to do for half the day. I watched all of them do the same thing. They were really good at it.