2011-02-26, 11:07 AM
lolwut. I'm sorry, but you're the one who is ridiculously misinformed.
First off, those who are against the bill are not in the minority, but the majority. 61% of adults in the United States oppose the elimination of collective bargaining rights for state unions.
Second, and I can say this from personal experience, your attempts to paint public, union employees as overpaid and overbenefitted when compared to the private sector is laughably ludicrous. To explain, I'll use my parents as the perfect comparative example: my mother works in the public sector as a unionized middle school teacher, and my father works in the private sector as a firm/contract mechanical engineer. Both have bachelor's degrees from Cornell University, and both have masters' degrees - my father an MBA, and my mother two, one in Nutritional Biochemistry and the other in Education. My mother has worked as a teacher for 10 years this next academic year, and will be the science department head for her middle school, not to mention team leader and a number of other various leadership positions. My father has worked in his craft for over 20 years, at three different firms, and is currently enjoying a flexible yet challenging job.
My mother will continue to earn half of what my father makes next year, even as department head, and my father doesn't make $100k a year.
It's a personal insult to me when someone stands up and claims teachers and union workers are overpaid, and says private sector jobs is the place for high pay and good benefits. Union work may not require the most prestigious of degrees and rigorous of academic training, but it's damn well necessary for the upkeep of a community, and it's rather silly to sit here and piss on that, claiming the private sector should get everything, when these are the people who run your towns. Are you seriously going to affront the policeman and firemen that keep you safe, the snow plow drivers, garbage and sewer workers that keep this country clean, and the teachers that educate the future? What happens if you take away their rights and they fight back with strikes and protests, like they're doing in Madison?
Communities. Shut. Down.
I'm sorry kanevaldier, but you disgust me. The concept behind collective bargaining is to protect a group of public employees in a particular sector the same way a corporation protects all of its employees in the private. Unions are the only way public individuals receive some kind of power in negotiating benefits and wages with their state and local governments, a luxury taken for granted in the private sector. Without such a force, many individuals wouldn't work union jobs, and so it's essential to the upkeep of society that unions continue with full rights in the public sector.
Finally, you're absolutely ignoring other aspects of this past week in which democracy was killed. Did you know that a week ago the WI state assembly was supposed to take a vote on the bill at 5 pm one day, as decided upon by the Republican Speaker, and at 4:55, when all the Republicans were back in the assembly room and the Democrats were walking back, the Speaker started taking a vote? WITHOUT THEM? You sit here and make comments that paint the Democrats as the killers of democracy. I'm not going to lie - fleeing the state to prevent quorum is an unprecedented and unusual move. But when your Republican colleagues not only don't even listen to what you and 100,000 protesters have to say and even try and figure out some compromises, but don't even let you exercise your right to vote as a state representative, what else is there to do?
Get your facts straight.
First off, those who are against the bill are not in the minority, but the majority. 61% of adults in the United States oppose the elimination of collective bargaining rights for state unions.
Second, and I can say this from personal experience, your attempts to paint public, union employees as overpaid and overbenefitted when compared to the private sector is laughably ludicrous. To explain, I'll use my parents as the perfect comparative example: my mother works in the public sector as a unionized middle school teacher, and my father works in the private sector as a firm/contract mechanical engineer. Both have bachelor's degrees from Cornell University, and both have masters' degrees - my father an MBA, and my mother two, one in Nutritional Biochemistry and the other in Education. My mother has worked as a teacher for 10 years this next academic year, and will be the science department head for her middle school, not to mention team leader and a number of other various leadership positions. My father has worked in his craft for over 20 years, at three different firms, and is currently enjoying a flexible yet challenging job.
My mother will continue to earn half of what my father makes next year, even as department head, and my father doesn't make $100k a year.
It's a personal insult to me when someone stands up and claims teachers and union workers are overpaid, and says private sector jobs is the place for high pay and good benefits. Union work may not require the most prestigious of degrees and rigorous of academic training, but it's damn well necessary for the upkeep of a community, and it's rather silly to sit here and piss on that, claiming the private sector should get everything, when these are the people who run your towns. Are you seriously going to affront the policeman and firemen that keep you safe, the snow plow drivers, garbage and sewer workers that keep this country clean, and the teachers that educate the future? What happens if you take away their rights and they fight back with strikes and protests, like they're doing in Madison?
Communities. Shut. Down.
I'm sorry kanevaldier, but you disgust me. The concept behind collective bargaining is to protect a group of public employees in a particular sector the same way a corporation protects all of its employees in the private. Unions are the only way public individuals receive some kind of power in negotiating benefits and wages with their state and local governments, a luxury taken for granted in the private sector. Without such a force, many individuals wouldn't work union jobs, and so it's essential to the upkeep of society that unions continue with full rights in the public sector.
Finally, you're absolutely ignoring other aspects of this past week in which democracy was killed. Did you know that a week ago the WI state assembly was supposed to take a vote on the bill at 5 pm one day, as decided upon by the Republican Speaker, and at 4:55, when all the Republicans were back in the assembly room and the Democrats were walking back, the Speaker started taking a vote? WITHOUT THEM? You sit here and make comments that paint the Democrats as the killers of democracy. I'm not going to lie - fleeing the state to prevent quorum is an unprecedented and unusual move. But when your Republican colleagues not only don't even listen to what you and 100,000 protesters have to say and even try and figure out some compromises, but don't even let you exercise your right to vote as a state representative, what else is there to do?
Get your facts straight.