B-1 83 said:

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American Hardwood said:

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B-1 83 said:

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Who?mikejones! said:

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Where do you suppose these unions get the money to pay the lobbyists, or anything else, they want to do?

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Members pay with their own money, not taxpayer money.

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Where do members get their money?

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From their bank accounts. Are you suggesting that you can tell Fed employees what to do with their own money because taxes paid for it? My, oh my. Can I still donate to the RNC or Ted Cruz campaign?

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The source of the funding is still taxpayer dollars. Which was the subject of the post to which you responded.

I will assume that your membership in the union is mandatory and that you do not have direct control over how the union funds lobbyists or specific campaigns as would be typical of most unions. If this is true then yes, there is a direct line from taxpayer funding to political campaigns without your control. Which I believe was the point of the post.

MouthBQ98 said:

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Someone pointed out there is a relatively high likelihood many federal employees who are still work from home may be double dipping employment. I have to image a lot of federal work remote jobs don't require all the work hours allocated. Some of your resistance will come from these types not wanting to give up being paid twice for some of the same working hours.

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Bingo

B-1 83 said:

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American Hardwood said:

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B-1 83 said:

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Who?mikejones! said:

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Where do you suppose these unions get the money to pay the lobbyists, or anything else, they want to do?

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Members pay with their own money, not taxpayer money.

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Where do members get their money?

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From their bank accounts. Are you suggesting that you can tell Fed employees what to do with their own money because taxes paid for it? My, oh my. Can I still donate to the RNC or Ted Cruz campaign?

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Its your money. But, unlike the private sector, you didn't create some product or service that's sold to recover the cost of your labor. The tonly revenue raised is by force, also known as taxes.

So, yes, it's your money. But, it's derived from taxes of which the taxpayer might not receive a single benefit from paying and have no option to forgo payment.

A union then takes they money who's source is the taxpayer, paid to the govt employ, donated to the union, and hires union reps, lobbyists, etc to do the unions bidding.

And to be clear, every benefit given to the govt employee is an additional cost to the taxpayer since the govt doesn't create anything.

If taxpayer dollars directly paid lobbyists, you'd have a point. They don't. When my paycheck is in my account, it is no longer any of your business how I spend it, and the concept that you think that is ludicrous. Guess what? I pay some of my own salary and benefits with my own money! And yes, that taxpayer got a more efficient service (that they REQUESTED - that's how my outfit worked).

And no, it was never mandatory. Not all are the same. What is that……about 47 times I've said it?

Logos Stick said:

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Unions are trying to get new agreements in place to AVOID being fired.

One good way to reduce the size of the federal government is to require all employees to work in the office full-time. Anyone who refuses will be laid off. Reduction through attrition. https://t.co/GOnQvSylA1

— Christopher F. Rufo ⚔️ (@realchrisrufo) November 18, 2024

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The fact that this is even an issue with federal workers tells you all you need to know. While the rest of the country went back to normal, federal workers are special and so 80% plus are still working from home, probably double dipping and getting paid for two jobs.

Make every one come into the office for 40 hours per week and watch the federal workforce drop by 15-20% overnight.

Move federal agencies out of DC to other parts of the country and watch another 15-20% drop out.

Our federal government has grown out of control. Trump needs to start swinging the axe on day 1.

I don't care how you spend your money.

But, you didn't create a product or sell a service to get that money. That's fine. You're from the govt and you're here to help.

All that said, it's still tax payyer derived money being donated to a fundamentally anti taxpayer organization that will use it to lobby for anti tax payer policies.

Who?mikejones! said:

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I don't care how you spend your money.

But, you didn't create a product or sell a service to get that money. That's fine. You're from the govt and you're here to help.

All that said, it's still tax payyer derived money being donated to a fundamentally anti taxpayer organization that will use it to lobby for anti tax payer policies.

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And you'll still have to explain to me how getting to work early, still being covered by all my work "coverages", and getting out to help the taxpayer early or late (at his request) is "anti-taxpayer".

The morals by which you personally perform your work=/= the ethicality of the existence of public unions

Who?mikejones! said:

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The morals by which you personally perform your work=/= the ethicality of the existence of public unions

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I wish that were true, but at the end of the day you're still at the mercy of management no matter the profession. Some of them are concerned with only themselves and not rocking the boat.

B-1 83 said:

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AgResearch said:

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Step 1 - make federal employee unions illegal.

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Why?

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There is an inherent conflict of interest in government employee unions.

geoag58 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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AgResearch said:

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Step 1 - make federal employee unions illegal.

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Why?

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There is an inherent conflict of interest in government employee unions.

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Haven't read the thread, have you? The wide paintbrush is always a bad take.

There are many reasons that I think government worker's unions should be banned, but the biggest one for me is spending. At the end of the year whenever there is a surplus in the accounts and the managers decide to go on a spending spree to make sure their budget is not cut is being fiscally irresponsible. There are plenty of responsible employees and managers in government programs, but as a whole when you are spending money that was not earned but taken from people at the threat of imprisonment, there is no reason why your job should have any extra protections compared to the people you are taking it from.

aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

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I don't know man. The 40-hour work week and children in schools instead of factories are not all bad.

You're the only one making that argument and that's because you apparently belong to a public union.

Bocephus said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

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I don't know man. The 40-hour work week and children in schools instead of factories are not all bad.

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Those have nothing to do with unions.

B-1 83 said:

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Who?mikejones! said:

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Where do you suppose these unions get the money to pay the lobbyists, or anything else, they want to do?

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Members pay with their own money, not taxpayer money.

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Umm.. Better check again:

www.forbes.com sites patrickgleasonTexas Could Soon Be The First State To End Taxpayer-Funded ...

bones75 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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Who?mikejones! said:

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Where do you suppose these unions get the money to pay the lobbyists, or anything else, they want to do?

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Members pay with their own money, not taxpayer money.

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Umm.. Better check again:

www.forbes.com sites patrickgleasonTexas Could Soon Be The First State To End Taxpayer-Funded ...

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Umm…..when did Texas become Federal? That's what the thread you didn't read was about, and once a paycheck is in an employee's pocket nobody can say **** about what they do with it.

aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

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This isn't true. When there were zero workplace regulations, unions actually had a purpose.

I would be ok with getting unions back if we eliminated 98% of federal regulations related to the workplace.

The idea of unions is actually purely capitalist, it's odd how so many people think the opposite. There's nothing anti-capitalist about workers collectively leveraging power assuming no compulsion. If they are unreasonable with their demands, their jobs can be filled by people who want the trade off. I have free will to demand whatever I feel is appropriate for my labor. The mere act of me leveraging my power with others who feel the same doesn't make it any less capitalist. And the employee has free will to tell me to go kick rocks and hire someone else. That's literally what capitalism is.

Public sector unions, however, are an ENTIRELY different ballgame.

All sorts of companies added flex time arrangements. It didn't take a union to do that lol

91AggieLawyer said:

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agracer said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

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False.

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No, its absolutely true. It is a fallacy that unions themselves have accomplished much of anything productive in this country. Perhaps some labor laws have, but not unions.

The irony/inconsistency/hypocrisy (call it what you want) underlying unions is that they are what they claim to be against: centralized power preying on the backs of their rank and file. A union is nothing with just workers who signed up and organized. They need so-called "leadership" to make any petition to management for whatever they're seeking -- higher wages, better working conditions (however they define that), etc. Thus, they're conceding that management -- in this case, they're "leadership" -- is necessary, yet that's that they try and suggest is the "enemy" in negotiations. Or that management is too powerful. They don't seem to give a damn if union "leadership" is too powerful, even in things like politics where the union membership isn't benefitting.

Sorry, but unions are a net negative on the economy and always have been. We abolished slavery a hundred and ten years ago. If you don't have the wage or hours you want, quit. If working conditions are truly bad, reasonable statutes can be put in place, otherwise tort law is available in most cases. I don't have an issue expanding either, if necessary.

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Upton Sinclair would disagree. I tend to agree with Sinclair about unions / working conditions at the beginning of the 20th century.

The first statement above in bold is, in most cases, true. But, sometimes, things are bad enough that the net negative on the economy is actually better than the exploitation of the workers that are driving the economy. If working conditions are so bad that people are regularly committing suicide by jumping off the roof, the best thing for the economy is to install nets to catch would-be suiciders on their way down.

That doesn't mean that doing the very best for the economy is the right thing to do.

You are taking as an assumption that the second bold statement is, and always has been, true. That is a false assumption. Without that assumption, your case that unions are ALWAYS bad falls completely apart. In the past, when those remedies were not really available, unions served a purpose.

Mark Stoops said:

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The idea of unions is actually purely capitalist, it's odd how so many people think the opposite. There's nothing anti-capitalist about workers collectively leveraging power assuming no compulsion. If they are unreasonable with their demands, their jobs can be filled by people who want the trade off. I have free will to demand whatever I feel is appropriate for my labor. The mere act of me leveraging my power with others who feel the same doesn't make it any less capitalist. And the employee has free will to tell me to go kick rocks and hire someone else. That's literally what capitalism is.

Public sector unions, however, are an ENTIRELY different ballgame.

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Agree completely.

However, when the government passes laws that protect unions, it is no longer entirely capitalist. When a union has the weight of the government protecting their existence, things get thrown out of balance.

I think that private sector unions that can survive in right-to-work states are probably addressing a problem that needs to be addressed.

BusterAg said:

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Mark Stoops said:

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The idea of unions is actually purely capitalist, it's odd how so many people think the opposite. There's nothing anti-capitalist about workers collectively leveraging power assuming no compulsion. If they are unreasonable with their demands, their jobs can be filled by people who want the trade off. I have free will to demand whatever I feel is appropriate for my labor. The mere act of me leveraging my power with others who feel the same doesn't make it any less capitalist. And the employee has free will to tell me to go kick rocks and hire someone else. That's literally what capitalism is.

Public sector unions, however, are an ENTIRELY different ballgame.

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Agree completely.

However, when the government passes laws that protect unions, it is no longer entirely capitalist. When a union has the weight of the government protecting their existence, things get thrown out of balance.

I think that private sector unions that can survive in right-to-work states are probably addressing a problem that needs to be addressed.

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Agreed. I was talking the concept of of unions, not generally how they operate in the practical world. Once you put the power of the government on one side, it's no longer a free market negotiation. That, and there obviously unions that just bilk their members for little benefit, government involvement aside.

B-1 83 said:

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samurai_science said:

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B-1 83 said:

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AgResearch said:

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Step 1 - make federal employee unions illegal.

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Why?

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Private union negotiate with the companies, public unions negotiate with the people the help get elected and NOT the tax payers.

See the problem? The tax payers are getting screwed because the money they pay in taxes gets funnled to candiattes by the Unions who give them better contracts and deals.

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They're not all the same, which is why I asked the question. My piddly ass $3 a month Fed Union negotiated for such horrific things as compressed work schedules and Flex Time. It let us hit the field EARLY to avoid Texas heat (or get out when the ground was frozen in Dumas) and let me leave the office at 6 am to get to my far outposts. They can't strike (NO PUBLIC UNION SHOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO DO THAT), and can't negotiate salaries and such like the private ones. That being said, there are apparently those out there (especially in DC) that swing far too big a stick and need to be slapped down.

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Not to pile on B-1 and someone else touched on this but why couldn't a competent manager make the decision (without Union pressure) all by himself to adjust work schedules to make his/her employees more productive, AND potentially much more safe due to heat, etc?

I don't get that part. In the private sector that would be a 10 second decision.

Jack Squat 83 said:

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B-1 83 said:

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samurai_science said:

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B-1 83 said:

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AgResearch said:

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Step 1 - make federal employee unions illegal.

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Why?

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Private union negotiate with the companies, public unions negotiate with the people the help get elected and NOT the tax payers.

See the problem? The tax payers are getting screwed because the money they pay in taxes gets funnled to candiattes by the Unions who give them better contracts and deals.

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They're not all the same, which is why I asked the question. My piddly ass $3 a month Fed Union negotiated for such horrific things as compressed work schedules and Flex Time. It let us hit the field EARLY to avoid Texas heat (or get out when the ground was frozen in Dumas) and let me leave the office at 6 am to get to my far outposts. They can't strike (NO PUBLIC UNION SHOULD EVER BE ALLOWED TO DO THAT), and can't negotiate salaries and such like the private ones. That being said, there are apparently those out there (especially in DC) that swing far too big a stick and need to be slapped down.

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Not to pile on B-1 and someone else touched on this but why couldn't a competent manager make the decision (without Union pressure) all by himself to adjust work schedules to make his/her employees more productive, AND potentially much more safe due to heat, etc?

I don't get that part. In the private sector that would be a 10 second decision.

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You do get that part, and I bolded it. It's the government, and it is a huge bureaucracy with nearly 400 individual agencies with vastly different jobs and needs (10,000 employees in my old organization from Maine to Guam). Hell, in 1983 when I came on full time the "compressed" schedule was new and just amazing to an organization that had rigidly adhered to 8-5 M-F for 50 years - management hated it. Ultimately, I'm guessing the Office of Personnel Management and Civil Service Commission gives the go ahead for such things government wide, but that's not my area of expertise. Perhaps Elon and Vivek can find room for improvement, but I doubt they delve into such things in their brief stint.

I jumped in this thread honestly curious as to what people thought Fed unions do, and I was not disappointed. While f16 notoriously paints issues with a broad brush I attempted to illustrate that no, all unions are not the same and they aren't run by Jimmy Hoffa. Mine was, for me just a voluntary cheap investment for bringing better working conditions to the field by negotiating the bureaucracy for the masses, and did zero harm to the taxpayer.

B-1 83 said:

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AgResearch said:

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Step 1 - make federal employee unions illegal.

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Why?

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Even the OG socialist FDR knew public sector unions were a bad idea.

https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2011/02/18/the-first-blow-against-public-employees/fdr-warned-us-about-public-sector-unions

Didn't create a product or sell a service? I need to load you up and drive you through some of the countryside I've worked to look at all those ponds, waterways, flood control structures, wildlife buffers, brush management jobs, range seedlings, grazing systems, wells, pipelines, troughs ……. that I didn't "sell" to the producer, design, layout, and checkout.

Government jobs, like government unions, are not all alike.

BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

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This isn't true. When there were zero workplace regulations, unions actually had a purpose.

I would be ok with getting unions back if we eliminated 98% of federal regulations related to the workplace.

---

Wrong. Factories today would be more safe and pay more workers a good wage if unions and OSHA had never existed. Factories were already getting safer before them and would have continued to do so.

Why? Because natural market forces push reasonable workplace safety on their own. If factory X is dangerous as hell and factory Y is safe, then workers would naturally prefer to work for factory Y, unless factory X offered a ridiculously high wage. Factory X, not wanting to blow a crap-ton of money on employee wages, will naturally make their factory safer to entice employees to work there.

Just like there is price equilibrium, there is also safety equilibrium. We could make the workplace ridiculously safe just like we could ban motorcycles and force every car to be a tank. But just like tank-cars would be very expensive, over-safe factories would cost employees in the form of lower wages.

The equilibrium amount would be perfect balance of safety and wage to make employees happy. OSHA pushes worthless safety measures like color coded ladders and crap, and employees lose out on wages. The factories could have used that money to make their factories actually safer or pay their employees more (whatever the employees prefer). The same is true when unions push for excessive safety. Those costs come from somewhere. Nothing is free.

Mark Stoops said:

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The idea of unions is actually purely capitalist, it's odd how so many people think the opposite. There's nothing anti-capitalist about workers collectively leveraging power assuming no compulsion. If they are unreasonable with their demands, their jobs can be filled by people who want the trade off. I have free will to demand whatever I feel is appropriate for my labor. The mere act of me leveraging my power with others who feel the same doesn't make it any less capitalist. And the employee has free will to tell me to go kick rocks and hire someone else. That's literally what capitalism is.

Public sector unions, however, are an ENTIRELY different ballgame.

---

To say that "unions are capitalist" is like saying "investing in screen doors for submarines is capitalist". Capitalism doesn't keep people from making stupid decisions, and unions are collectively stupid decisions for both the workers and the factories that sign on.

Workers would be better off if they never joined a union, worked at a factory, gained experience, and either moved up in the factory or moved on to higher paying jobs elsewhere. Everything would be cheaper, they would get more purchasing power. Likewise, factories would be better off as they could continue to compete with foreign factories. They wouldn't be going under left and right.

Did the people you did that for have another option?

aTmAg said:

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BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

---

This isn't true. When there were zero workplace regulations, unions actually had a purpose.

I would be ok with getting unions back if we eliminated 98% of federal regulations related to the workplace.

---

Wrong. Factories today would be more safe and pay more workers a good wage if unions and OSHA had never existed. Factories were already getting safer before them and would have continued to do so.

Why? Because natural market forces push reasonable workplace safety on their own. If factory X is dangerous as hell and factory Y is safe, then workers would naturally prefer to work for factory Y, unless factory X offered a ridiculously high wage. Factory X, not wanting to blow a crap-ton of money on employee wages, will naturally make their factory safer to entice employees to work there.

Just like there is price equilibrium, there is also safety equilibrium. We could make the workplace ridiculously safe just like we could ban motorcycles and force every car to be a tank. But just like tank-cars would be very expensive, over-safe factories would cost employees in the form of lower wages.

The equilibrium amount would be perfect balance of safety and wage to make employees happy. OSHA pushes worthless safety measures like color coded ladders and crap, and employees lose out on wages. The factories could have used that money to make their factories actually safer or pay their employees more (whatever the employees prefer). The same is true when unions push for excessive safety. Those costs come from somewhere. Nothing is free.

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There are about 50 million Chinese slave laborers that would disagree with you.

How do you explain that?

AgResearch said:

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Step 1 - make federal employee unions illegal.

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Agreed, but I hope you are also including the federal law enforcement agencies that have unions as well.

The amount of waste created by BP is astounding when you take a peak under the hood. From agents get away with being insubordinate to them, to consistently half-assing their duties (there's a reason so many illegal drugs, etc. get through the checkpoints), yet they can't be touched because they run straight to their union reps.

BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

---

This isn't true. When there were zero workplace regulations, unions actually had a purpose.

I would be ok with getting unions back if we eliminated 98% of federal regulations related to the workplace.

---

Wrong. Factories today would be more safe and pay more workers a good wage if unions and OSHA had never existed. Factories were already getting safer before them and would have continued to do so.

Why? Because natural market forces push reasonable workplace safety on their own. If factory X is dangerous as hell and factory Y is safe, then workers would naturally prefer to work for factory Y, unless factory X offered a ridiculously high wage. Factory X, not wanting to blow a crap-ton of money on employee wages, will naturally make their factory safer to entice employees to work there.

Just like there is price equilibrium, there is also safety equilibrium. We could make the workplace ridiculously safe just like we could ban motorcycles and force every car to be a tank. But just like tank-cars would be very expensive, over-safe factories would cost employees in the form of lower wages.

The equilibrium amount would be perfect balance of safety and wage to make employees happy. OSHA pushes worthless safety measures like color coded ladders and crap, and employees lose out on wages. The factories could have used that money to make their factories actually safer or pay their employees more (whatever the employees prefer). The same is true when unions push for excessive safety. Those costs come from somewhere. Nothing is free.

---

There are about 50 million Chinese slave laborers that would disagree with you.

How do you explain that?

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Slavery != free markets and is the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism is the free and voluntary exchange of goods and services.

aTmAg said:

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BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

---

This isn't true. When there were zero workplace regulations, unions actually had a purpose.

I would be ok with getting unions back if we eliminated 98% of federal regulations related to the workplace.

---

Wrong. Factories today would be more safe and pay more workers a good wage if unions and OSHA had never existed. Factories were already getting safer before them and would have continued to do so.

Why? Because natural market forces push reasonable workplace safety on their own. If factory X is dangerous as hell and factory Y is safe, then workers would naturally prefer to work for factory Y, unless factory X offered a ridiculously high wage. Factory X, not wanting to blow a crap-ton of money on employee wages, will naturally make their factory safer to entice employees to work there.

Just like there is price equilibrium, there is also safety equilibrium. We could make the workplace ridiculously safe just like we could ban motorcycles and force every car to be a tank. But just like tank-cars would be very expensive, over-safe factories would cost employees in the form of lower wages.

The equilibrium amount would be perfect balance of safety and wage to make employees happy. OSHA pushes worthless safety measures like color coded ladders and crap, and employees lose out on wages. The factories could have used that money to make their factories actually safer or pay their employees more (whatever the employees prefer). The same is true when unions push for excessive safety. Those costs come from somewhere. Nothing is free.

---

There are about 50 million Chinese slave laborers that would disagree with you.

How do you explain that?

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Slavery != free markets and is the antithesis of capitalism. Capitalism is the free and voluntary exchange of goods and services.

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Those Chinese workers voluntarily agreed to those jobs, though. They voluntarily agreed to exchange their freedom for the piddly wages they get.

aTmAg said:

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BusterAg said:

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aTmAg said:

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Unions are bad and have ALWAYS been bad. Anybody who tells you otherwise is ignorant of economics.

---

This isn't true. When there were zero workplace regulations, unions actually had a purpose.

I would be ok with getting unions back if we eliminated 98% of federal regulations related to the workplace.

---

Wrong. Factories today would be more safe and pay more workers a good wage if unions and OSHA had never existed. Factories were already getting safer before them and would have continued to do so.

Why? Because natural market forces push reasonable workplace safety on their own. If factory X is dangerous as hell and factory Y is safe, then workers would naturally prefer to work for factory Y, unless factory X offered a ridiculously high wage. Factory X, not wanting to blow a crap-ton of money on employee wages, will naturally make their factory safer to entice employees to work there.

Just like there is price equilibrium, there is also safety equilibrium. We could make the workplace ridiculously safe just like we could ban motorcycles and force every car to be a tank. But just like tank-cars would be very expensive, over-safe factories would cost employees in the form of lower wages.

The equilibrium amount would be perfect balance of safety and wage to make employees happy. OSHA pushes worthless safety measures like color coded ladders and crap, and employees lose out on wages. The factories could have used that money to make their factories actually safer or pay their employees more (whatever the employees prefer). The same is true when unions push for excessive safety. Those costs come from somewhere. Nothing is free.

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You sound like someone who's never worked in manufacturing or ever been inside a manufacturing facility in Asia.