They are bargaining with people that they directly hire (via not just their vote, but their massive boots-on-the-ground in-kind efforts and second-to-none contributions) to bargain with. Conflict of interest. Kind of like Dodd/Frank "pick your regulator" shenanigans.

Voting isn't hiring....
Neither is campaigning...

Why bother arguing with ilk? Just understand the fact that to them the right to make money is more important than all other rights, freedom and human dignity and move on.

Yeah. I keep hoping that by pointing out that the right to free trade nullifies all other human rights they may weigh one against the other and make the decent choice.

There is a lot to be disgusted about when it comes to public sector unions.

They receive their pay via taxation. The unions use that pay to influence elections and politicians to receive even more pay, and to try to make sure government is never downsized or made more efficient.
Fewer bureaucrats would mean less money for the union. Their interests are put above that of the general public they are supposed to be serving.

In the private sector if workers demand too much money or suck at their jobs the company has to worry about becoming less competitive and possibly going out of business.
In the public sector they simply extract more money from the public by force to subsidize their garbage.

They often work in government-run monopolized industries. In the private sector, private citizens can go to alternative businesses if quality sucks or if costs are too high.
If public employees go on strike or demand higher pay the public has few options. This puts incredible pressure on politicians to cave in to public union demands.
Rather than massively raise present taxes to pay for increased union costs, which would be massively unpopular, they have typically been creating massive pension programs that kick the costs several years down the road until after the person is out of office and can safely hide from backlash from their horrible policies.
Now we are seeing massive unfunded liabilities from these pension plans amounting to several trillion dollars.

They also are big on a practice called feather-bedding. Thats where they make employers hire more employees than would be necessary to fulfill a job.
This is of course disastrous from a cost and efficiency standpoint, would be harshly punished and would face massive disincentives in a private business, but alas the checks and balances of private markets have been cut away.

Higher taxes and bigger, more wasteful government is being thrust on Americans to suit the needs and wants of government employees. What a nightmare.


This is all directly contrary to the public's interests overall.

Yeah why bother making any real points or arguments when you can make up strawmen and pretend the opposition are bad guys?

I'm a unionized federal employee. You are advocating for the removal of my first amendment rights. You are a bad guy.

And the truth comes out.
The leeches want to continue extorting the public to fill their own wallets and call anyone who opposes that a "bad guy".
Government employees collectively using government to force higher compensation for themselves is not a 1st amendment right. Public unions were actually outlawed in most instances until the 1960s when democrat politicians found it to be politically convenient for themselves.
They also have come under attack in recent years as they have been exposed as a massive parasitic drag on the American public.

This post was edited by cambovenzi on Dec 29 2014 03:39pm

If the American people were unhappy with the compensation I receive for the service I provide they would vote for libertarian candidates who would either dissolve the agency I work for or hold out for a contract with less compensation. But they aren't and you're just a fringe-genre lunatic who lives in fantasy land so candidates who share your ideas don't get elected and my job is secure.

Here is a guy who spends his time demonizing private businessmen who receive their pay voluntarily by enriching the lives of others and hes a federal employee who receives his pay via taxation.
You have no leg to stand on.