Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) owes his Wisconsin gubernatorial colleague Scott Walker (R) some serious gratitude. While nearly all the media attention and labor activism has been centered in Madison over Walker's controversial budget bill, Kasich is on the verge of passing an equally significant bill restraining collective bargaining rights in the Buckeye State.

The bill passed the state Senate by the narrowest possible margin - and now is virtually assured of being signed into law by the governor next week. It's awfully similar to the legislation Walker has struggled to pass, in a more politically-consequential state for the 2012 presidential battle. The bill would make Ohio the first state to strip collective bargaining rights from public employees.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2011/03/labor-loses-big.php

I never said it was a right. It is a priviledge, but it is necessary to have or the company will walk all over their workers. I see it here and I have worked and lived where unions represented the workers. It's night and day. Years ago, companies all packed up and moved to the South becaus labor was cheaper and there were no unions. Now these companies have discovered third world countries and are packing up from the South and moving there because they can really crap on their workers and get away with it.
Sorry Abra, you are not going to convince me that unions and collective bargaining are bad and should be abolished. If this country loses collective bargaining, which will also destroy unions, this country will be in big trouble....a lot worse than it is now.

jetfan27 wrote:

I never said it was a right. It is a priviledge, but it is necessary to have or the company will walk all over their workers. I see it here and I have worked and lived where unions represented the workers. It's night and day. Years ago, companies all packed up and moved to the South becaus labor was cheaper and there were no unions. Now these companies have discovered third world countries and are packing up from the South and moving there because they can really crap on their workers and get away with it.
Sorry Abra, you are not going to convince me that unions and collective bargaining are bad and should be abolished. If this country loses collective bargaining, which will also destroy unions, this country will be in big trouble....a lot worse than it is now.

I am against those unions in the private sector that bankrupt their employer..like the GM and want federal bailout!

Public employees unions are the one I am totally against because...

According to the Department of Labor, most union members today work for state, local and federal government. Close to 40 percent of public employees are unionized. As such, they represent a powerful political force in elections.

As a candidate for governor, mayor or city councilman, you surely want the votes and campaign contributions from public employee unions. In my view, that's no problem. The problem arises after you win office and sit down to bargain over the pay and working conditions with unions who voted for you.

Given the relationship between politicians and public employee unions, we should not be surprised that public employee wages and benefits often average 45 percent higher than their counterparts in the private sector. Often they receive pension and health care benefits making little or no contribution.

If Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker were getting a dollar for every protester, politician, and pundit accusing him of union-busting, attacking public-sector employees, or waging a war on working people -- it wouldn't be long before he could personally close his state's $137 million budget shortfall.
To angry protesters occupying the Capitol building in Madison, it may seem clear that Walker's bill restricting the scope of collective bargaining for government employees is "an assault on unions," as President Obama called it, and no doubt many of them would agree with the AFL-CIO that "nothing less than democracy, fundamental rights, and freedom are at stake" in the fight over public-sector bargaining.
But they aren't at stake. There is no "fundamental right" to collective bargaining in government jobs. Indeed, labor leaders themselves used to say so.

Obama scolds Walker for trying to restrict collective bargaining by government employees to wages, yet the two million federal civilian (non-postal) workers Obama presides over can't even bargain over that much: With rare exceptions, the wages, hours, and benefits of federal employment have never been subject to union contracts. The president appears to be quite OK with that. Last November he unilaterally announced a two-year pay freeze for all federal civilian federal employees, informing them -- no negotiating -- that they were going to "make some sacrifices" adding up to $2 billion this fiscal year.

Does this mean that federal employees are oppressed and underpaid? Hardly. Average federal wages far outstrip those in the private economy. When benefits are included, federal worker compensation averages $123,000 -- more than double the private-sector average of $61,000. Federal employees don't need collective bargaining over pay and pensions to be treated well, and the lack of bargaining rights has not busted federal-employee unions.

As even labor leaders once acknowledged, it is civil-service rules, not collective bargaining rights, that safeguard public employees' interests in hiring, promotions, and discipline. Wisconsin could abolish public-sector collective-bargaining entirely, and its government workers would still be strongly protected from management abuse -- and as free as they are today to join unions able to advocate on their behalf.

Wisconsin Republicans are targeting only the public unions' overweening political clout. They pose no danger to the welfare of public employees -- let alone to "democracy, fundamental rights, and freedom.