Buckeye State Blog - You've Gotta Be Kidding Me - Comments

"At will" means less than the paper it is written on....

cadfile — Mon, 19 May 2008 22:58:17 -0700

Working "at will" is not freedom or security in your job. It means that your boss could tell you one day "you're done" and there is nothing you can do about it. Labor and management need to work together and labor can only be equal through a CBA. It is the old saying "united we stand divided we fall..."

Ding Ding Ding!!!

Nick D — Mon, 19 May 2008 09:10:18 -0700

First of all, Ohiocop, thank you for posting your opinion. BSB is built upon a civilized exchange of ideas, and I thank you for posting yours. Hopefully you will be posting again soon.

Secondly, you answer is the one I was hoping nzbobster would give. We need to be asking why 88% of Americans are forced to live with at-will employment, merit-only raises, and 401K. Public employee unions need to recognize that if too few Americans are unionized, then public support for allowing public employees to join a union will diminish. Knowing this, public employee unions need to work harder than ever to increase union membership in the private sector, and be especially cautions to bad PR incidents like this one.

Just look at the comments on that Plain Dealer article that started this thread, they are universally negative towards unions. This a bad PR incident for the labor movement, and if I were in their shoes, I'd be encouraging these employees to do the right thing and not accept pay for work they didn't do. There are lots of foodbanks around Greater Cleveland that I'm sure would happily accept a donation of several hundred thousand dollars.

NickD's answer

ohiocop — Mon, 19 May 2008 08:29:03 -0700

The answer is to your question about public sector unions gaining benefits not seen in the private sector is this: because those of us in the public sector have eanred them through repeated negotiations and have given other things up in return to get them. Now, I have no idea what the CBA said in the case cited that allowed them to utilize the procedure that both the union and the employer agreed up but think of it like this: If your employer agreed not outsource your job to a lower paid group and signed a contract stating that...and then did so, would you not try to rectify that situation? I would. Your question should not be why do public employees have better benefits than some private sector employees. Rather, you should want to know why some private sector employees have not gotten defined benefit retirements, just cause removals from employment, etc... Another question you should consider is why did the City of Cleveland break a legally binding contract, costing the taxpayers dollars they cannot afford? Why did the City of Cleveland agree to something and then do the opposite? No one is saying that some other group cannot pick up trash, they probably just cannot use tax dollars to pay someone else to pick up trash. Just like a City could not hire security guards to police neighborhoods. Just the thougths of a faithful reader who has never been moved to post before.

Sounds like no answer

Nick D — Mon, 19 May 2008 07:00:42 -0700

So, I asked nzbobster a perfectly legitimate question: If 88% of the American workforce has to live with employment rule "A", which is at-will employment, merit-only raises, and 401K or other defined-contribution retirement plans; why should our "public servants" get to work under the much more generous employment rule "B", which is contracted employment, guaranteed raises, and a traditional defined-benefit pension.

Nzbobster responded to my question with name calling before asking me to deactivate his account. Sounds to me like an admission that he didn't have an answer to my question that would make sense. If anyone else does, feel free to post.

In the meantime, Nzbobster's account has been deactivated as his request. I would ask him and anyone else out there to keep in mind that my opinions are my own and not those of David or anyone else on BSB's "editorial board."

This is an example of bad Union activities

cadfile — Mon, 19 May 2008 01:07:35 -0700

I agree that labor should form a collective voice to protect their members from the whims of management. On the other hand there are so many rules and contract language that contracts are more for pointing out what work a union member will not do for the same pay. I have in the past seen a maintence member on a state job get 4 hours of pay just for showing up off hours and using a few minutes to fix what they were called for. People that fill pot holes have 2 people filling and one or two watching and on and on. Then on the third hand employers have no right to complain when the contract they agreed to makes them look bad.

Forget it, mister!

nzbobster — Sun, 18 May 2008 20:45:03 -0700

You're obviously no friend of public-sector labor. Which makes me no friend of yours. Fortunately, the Democratic Party, while certainly not perfect, is more respectful of our needs than you are. Given your standing here, that makes it untenable for me to remain here, so you may delete my profile.

Not at All

Nick D — Sun, 18 May 2008 17:12:25 -0700

I'm not asking public employees to accept second-class citizenship at all. I am suggesting that public employees be forced to accept the same employment conditions as the 88% of the American workforce that is not unionized. That means, At-Will employment, where there is no employment contract per se, and either party can terminate the employment relationship at any time for any reason, Merit-only pay raises based on an annual performance review, and 401K or similar retirement plans instead of a "traditional" PERS pension.

I've been working since I was 16 and have literally never known any other employment arrangement. What I'm asking is, why should you get better employment conditions than 88% of the public you are supposed to be serving?

The answer is...

nzbobster — Sun, 18 May 2008 15:41:02 -0700

...public servants, as well as private-sector ones, will either get the working conditions negotiated for, in the case of a unionized shop, or provided by law or a business' discretion in a non-union environment. In either case, an employee's employment contract with his/her company spells out those conditions, with remedies available to either party should the other abrogate that agreement. I work in the public sector, and yes, some of my working conditions are better than in the private sector. Conversely, some private sector companies do even better for their workers. It's up to my union to address areas of improvement in those conditions; that's why I pay dues...and that's why the members of the union you're pissed off about pay theirs. If you filed a successful suit against your employer for a breach in your employment agreement, what right does anyone else have to judge you for it if they don't know the terms and conditions of your employment? None. And nor do you, unless you took the effort to find out the union members' reasons for their action. Furthermore, public employees are also people who deserve a safe work place and a suitable wage to support themselves and their families. Unions provide those things when an employer won't do so voluntarily, which was the case prior to 1984 when the law was changed to allow public workers to join unions. That did not open the vault to a rich and luxurious lifestyle for any of us; certainly not for me, but I get by, as do most of my co-workers. So, my question to you becomes, why should public employees accept second-class citizenship in their job situations?

Surely

Nick D — Sun, 18 May 2008 14:16:43 -0700

Surely not every Democrat can be expected to support 100% of the party platform. There are plenty of pro-life and pro-gun Democrats out there. This is simply my quibble with the party platform. The truth is that, though a solid Democrat, I do have a bit of a Libertarian streak.

I have no problem heartily supporting unions in the private sector, where they provide a check and balance against the unlimited profit motive of a corporation. But the general public has no profit motive. They simply want to keep as much of their paychecks as possible. However, unions have been busy signing up public employees because its easy, instead of Wal-Mart workers where its hard. And the result is that our tax dollars don't go as far as they could go.

You keep asking me about the CBA. All I know is that hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars that could have been going to repave streets or repair schools is now going to city workers because a third party entity funded by private property owners hired people to do a job that involved picking up trash amongst other duties. Don't these union workers care about their city? Don't they realize how bad this looks to the general public?

At the end of the day, if these guys show some concern for the city, I'll show some concern for them. Let's see them donate this money to Cleveland Public Schools instead of accepting pay for work they didn't do.

Oh BTW, you still haven't answered my question, why should "public servants" get better employment conditions then the general public?

You don't know what their CBA says, yet you pass judgment...

nzbobster — Sun, 18 May 2008 13:58:19 -0700

...not just on that union, but all public employee unions. That is what's insane! You don't even know what the city and the union agreed to in terms of how work for that group of employees should be contracted out should the need arise, but you want to throw ALL of them under the damned bus. That is the sort of behavior/reaction I've come to expect from the GOP. What should the union have done? Kept its mouth shut and then let the employer say, "Well, since other people are doing this, we don't need as many of you and can start layoffs?" And, again, to question the party's support of public-sector unions, support that by and large is mutual and has been for decades, is downright craptastic.

You've Gotta Be Kidding Me!!

Nick D — Sun, 18 May 2008 10:19:13 -0700

Seriously, you've gotta be kidding. What should the city have done? Had the police out there to prevent people from picking up trash so the city wouldn't get fined? Hey you! Put that piece of trash back down!! Only a city employee can pick that up! Union rules!

I find that a frigging insane argument. Personally, I can't imagine why city employees need union contracts at all. Why can't they work under the same rules I work under in the private sector? At-will employment, merit raises only, 401K instead of PERS? Aren't they "public servants"? Why should they have it better than I do?

Regardless of who hired them...

nzbobster — Sun, 18 May 2008 09:45:14 -0700

...if their CBA calls for city employees to pick up trash, and there are available employees to do what those ambassadors were hired for, why should the city allow any third party to to hire someone else to do those workers' jobs?

Wasn't Cleveland

Nick D — Sun, 18 May 2008 05:04:45 -0700

It was a third-party. I find it frigging outrageous that the nation's fourth-poorest city is paying hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to a union because a THIRD PARTY hired people who pick up trash amongst other duties. I can't begin to tell you just how crazy that looks to me, let alone the general public.

If Cleveland violated that union's CBA...

nzbobster — Sat, 17 May 2008 23:30:14 -0700

...shouldn't the union enforce it through arbitration if necessary? And why slam public-sector unions in general over what happened in one jurisdiction?

You've Gotta Be Kidding Me

Nick D — Sat, 17 May 2008 11:47:13 -0700

This is the kind of thing that makes me question our party's unwavering support of public employee unions.

An arbitrator ruled today that the City of Cleveland must pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to members of Municipal, County, and State Employees' Union Local 1099, because the Downtown Cleveland Alliance, an outside group not affiliated with the City, hired "ambassadors" who clean trash from sidewalks amongst many other duties.

I find this outrageous. Its not like there is any shortage of trash for city employees to pick up. The only reason the Downtown Cleveland Alliance was hiring these ambassadors was because city workers weren't getting the job done in the first place. And, its not like this is unique to Cleveland, downtown Columbus also has ambassadors who clean city streets amongst other duties.

Read the full story here.