Andrew Klavan: Behold! Your Public Sector Unions at Work.

Everywhere you turn these days, your public sector unions are hard at work, protesting cutbacks to public sector unions. Andrew Klavan exposes the charming charm of your unionized civil servants.

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  News & Politics

[carultch]

Lol. It was conservatives who ended slavery, and brought about the 13th, 14th, and 15th amendments.

[Emper0rH0rde]

Public sector unions are crime syndicates of the worst kind. Not only do they do pretty much everything crime syndicates do - bully, extort, assault, and in some cases, probably kill - not only do they do it with the full consent of the law, but our own president wants to steal your money at gunpoint to give to those hives.

[John Smith]

You have to be stupid to believe the great conservatives a 100+ years ago are the same retards we call conservatives today.

[OptimalOwl]

- same degree for everyone in society at the same time. It will come piecemeal, with one union mandating a slight rise, and then another and so on - until the first one notes, quite correctly, that the cost of living has increased, and argues for another increase. This process decouples compensation from productivity. It will have a significant distorting effect, as people will have to apply themselves towards it to attain wage increases, rather than towards actual productive activity.

[OptimalOwl]

- which results from the ability of unions to mandate higher wages.

If you're planning to build 200 automobiles, then it doesn't matter to you whether labour costs $20/h or $25/h. You can just adjust the price you'll charge accordingly. But if, during the course of production, the price jumps from $20/h to $25/h, then that can seriously cut into your margins, or even shut you down before you can finish, as Klavan suggested.

Likewise, unions as a whole will never increase wages to the exact -

[OptimalOwl]

Really? Because I think he showed the opposite bias. He showed the wealth as something that is created and then portioned out, rather than as the differential between the final product and the factors of production. That distribution is entirely a short-term concern, as in the long run, entrepreneurs are able to adjust their prices to compensate for increased costs of production.

Rather, the bigger problem is the decoupling of compensation from productivity, and the increased uncertainty -

[maniswil2]

And the first 3 civil rights acts. The only one they didn't was the welfare and affirmative action. 1965 However 1954,55 and 59 was theirs. By the way too FDR was completely against public sector unions. He said they would being the whole show to an end becuase no one can go against them.

[frankos rooni]

Why should they be a counter balance to the free market?

Surely it is in the interests of the majority that the union members have competitive wages and pensions which make theie prolonged existence viable?

Unions like big business are looking out for themselves and no-one else --that is their job --but they certainly don't help the average tax payer who funds them.

Far from it

[EuroUser1]

Yes. Government employees are OVERWHELMINGLY communist party members. That's why the communist party gets such good results in the USA.