I'm not the op, but it certainly does for me. I'm a strong supporter of unions and a strong opponent of public sector unions. Private sector unions are a critical counterweight to the power that private employers have over their employees. Taxpayers are the employers of public sector employees, which makes public sector unions nothing but political lobbying organizations.
I think that's a valid opinion. But I also appreciate that in some regards the public is the most fickle of employers, the most punitive, the most likely to use their power for evil. If we want to attract well qualified people to work for the public, we need to offer something -- at this time it isn't salary, for sure, so I guess it must be the stability provided by the union representation.
Most public sector workers have benefits, pensions, paid time off and a variety of other means of compensation aside from their salaries - unlike many private sector workers. All of them have the opportunity to vote for the politicians who come up with the policies that govern their public sector jobs. They are also free to form their own associations, coalitions and lobbying groups to further influence whoever they want in their capacity as private citizens. But when it comes to collective bargaining and other, specific legislated rights we have legally granted unions, it is a bridge too far.
I have indirect personal experience with what it's like to be a public employee. My own mother worked for the local community college for most of her career. She went for many years without any raise, instead the politicians improved the retirement perks. So she stuck with it. Just before it was time for her to retire, the voters made a serious attempt to destroy the retirement system for public employees, nevermind all the promises made over the years in lieu of actual cost-of-living increases.
Luckily, they failed to destroy her retirement. With her pension along with social security she is comfortable enough. Nobody's ever going to call her wealthy, not even close, but voters would have stripped her of that pension and made her scrape by on social security.
It's easy to hate on public employees, but I don't think they automatically deserve fewer protections than private company employees enjoy.
No matter who does it, it's absolutely filthy to motivate people to work based on promises of retirement benefits and then try to take those away after the work has been done. It's astounding that such a thing could be legal.
One silver lining of the shift from defined benefits to defined contributions. At least you're putting in your own money and can expect it to be there when you retire.
The issue with public sector unions is they are a monopoly on top of a monopoly. If a private company goes to shit because of its union, people can patronize another company. Not true of the public sector.
Yeah, it's hard to do a direct comparison with private companies and the public sector, given the differing priorities and metrics. Companies put efficiency as the highest metric, governments [should] put effectiveness first.
The public sector has the government as an employer. Taxpayers are not the employer of the public sector.
Lobbying government is one of the functions of unions, regardless which sector they represent. Better pay and conditions don’t come from employers just playing nice.
