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1. #1
   On January 3rd, 2008 at 11:42 pm, beenthere said:

   Maybe, but these guys may simply be as bored with it as the rest of us and simply biding their time. We do now, however, they will all come together on the real election day — because a Democrat victory means lots of government jobs and no democrat anywhere is going to walk away from that.

2. #2
   On January 3rd, 2008 at 11:44 pm, gandolphxx said:

   Love that graph - hope it continues down - best bet for the future.

   Unions glibly spend members money for things that have nothing to do with the members workplace issues nor benefit - the rest of the dues goes to big salaries.

3. #3
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:05 am, Speakup said:

   And I hope the commie next door continues to lose.

   The China syndrome has no place in America.

4. #4
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:06 am, Michael said:

   Now I dislike union influence in politics as much as the next guy, but the problem with the overall graph going down is that it’s the decent-paying industrial jobs dropping even faster than the graph shows, while what props up union membership is the rapidly growing percentage of union workers in government jobs, jobs which are being added at an alarming rate as government at all levels grows.

   Instead of the Reagan Democrats in those unions, these new union members are the hardcore big-government liberals we’re dealing with now.

   Michael Swartz
   http://www.monoblogue.us

5. #5
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:11 am, meatpieandtatters said:

   Heck, we don’t make anything in the US anymore. All the big public companies have sought their shareholder ROI on foreign soils, thus the only unions remaining are found in the warm confines of our over-bloated federal government.

6. #6
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:34 am, JohnnyDilznik said:

   I have as much problem with the unions as anyone but please explain this to me. I am a firefighter and have been constantly told I make to much money. In CA we have Tom McClintock who constatnly demonizes government workers. What should a firefighter make? Minimum wage? People I work with are well educated. Most firefighters I know are conservatives. We have a hard time with elections because one party wants to pay us crap and another wants to use us and then ship jobs to Mexico. Anyone want to give me an answer on this? How is it that a group of people who go to work everyday can be such a drain according to so many? No FD is a money maker but have a need for our service one time and I’ll bet you won’t want the lowest paid fool showing up to your house during an emergency. Anyone? Anyone?

7. #7
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:39 am, derel3433 said:

   As Reagan said firefighter: government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

   Your services should be contracted out to a private company that can provide fire fighting more efficiently and cost effectively.

8. #8
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:51 am, JohnnyDilznik said:

   As Reagan said firefighter: government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

   Your services should be contracted out to a private company that can provide fire fighting more efficiently and cost effectively.

   Oh Yes. I knew it would show up just not so early. Yeah another private company man. Well derel3433 have you heard of Rural/Metro the for profit fire and ems service. Probably not on the global scale they wish. Why? Becasue they have been run out of most cities they tried to profit from. You see my good man when you try to profit off of emergency services you or the company usually loses. Lets see how this goes. Well we could cut you out of the car derel3433 but that wouldn’t be cost effective. And the IV we would give you would cost to much and you PROBABLY won’t live so forget it. Come on. Come up with something better than regurgitating your favorite Reagan quote like the rest of the wanna-bes in this election. Intersting how government expanded under Reagan isn’t it. Greatest American my arz.

9. #9
   On January 4th, 2008 at 12:53 am, JohnnyDilznik said:

   Oops. I mean interesting.

10. #10
    On January 4th, 2008 at 1:02 am, derel3433 said:

    everyone knows the government cannot do anything effectively–schools, healthcare, transportation, even war. the private sector always more efficient.

    all government services need to be subject to the discipline of the market. only way to guarantee efficiency.

    read Ayn Rand.

11. #11
    On January 4th, 2008 at 1:33 am, JohnnyNJ said:

    Hey JohnnyDilznik…..You ought to move to NJ. I have one brother-in-law who is a firefighter in NJ who makes 110,000K a year and is 45 years old. Another brother-in-law who retired 10 years ago at 52 and collects a lifetime pension of about $6,000/Mo, and has lifetime free “Top Shelf” healthcare…..
    New Jersey is going broke because of overpaid union government employees. Our property taxes are the highest in the nation. Everyone over 60 is fleeing the state unless of course you are retired government employee.

12. #12
    On January 4th, 2008 at 8:27 am, tre said:

    As a former union member, I can understand that there was at one time a place for them. Employers, once, did try to blatantly cheat their employees. There still is a place for them, since a lot of companies want to shut down American factories and move them to China to save money. Then give the executives fat bonuses for saving the company money.

    That said, I never could understand why the union’s think that the party that wants to take ever larger chunks of my paycheck to give to people who don’t work is the “party for the working man.” The union to which my wife used to belong (United Auto Workers) used to talk about gun control. What does that have to do with workers rights?

13. #13
    On January 4th, 2008 at 9:59 am, misterbee241 said:

    I worked for Department of Defense for 36 years and I’m quite familiar with contracting.
    For those of you who dont know, contracting goes to the CHEAPEST bidder, not necessarily the best. And in many cases, taxpayers who think they are getting something on the cheap are just getting something cheap.
    Contractors arent always the answer but sometimes part of the problem.
    I’ve seen more junk passed off to the the government by defense contractors because somebody in government thinks it great AND cheap.
    Having said all that, I’ll say this: Over the years I worked with some terrific contractors who were very serious about the services they provided. And I’ve worked with some who weren’t worth powder and shot to blow them to Hades. And the same I can say for government workers. Human nature runs across government/contractor lines.

14. #14
    On January 4th, 2008 at 10:36 am, Gator70 said:

    I worked with some terrific contractors who were very serious about the services they provided. And I’ve worked with some who weren’t worth powder and shot to blow them to Hades

    That is very true, over time in Iraq I’ve seen the quality of service that contractors provide drop drastically. For example most of the generators we use are “contracted” and require them to be serviced by KB&R. Weeks later you might get them serviced. Keep in mind that these generators power all of our fancy high tech comm gear which allows us to get MEDEVACS onto the scene within minutes if needed. More than once I’ve had to break out the old stuff and imporovise to get comm to higher due to no generators. We ususally set our units up to relay because of this. Anyways I think too much has been given to government contractors. Ironically our “green gear” is better, there just isn’t enough.

15. #15
    On January 4th, 2008 at 10:43 am, sdillard said:

    I am a civil service employee here in California. I have the usual civil service protections of seniority, etc. However, SEIU is the union we are forced to belong to or pay an “agency fee” to whether we like it or not.

    I have no problem with employees having a union to bargain for wages and benefits.

    But SEIU here spends most of its time trying to buy politicians to pass more laws requiring more unionized workers and restricting what we can do in our jobs so that more workers will have to be hired to do what we do now. They also take over $1100 a year from me in “agency fees” to administer a contract that runs for three years. That means I’m paying over $3000 in three years to “administer” what, exactly?

    SEIU also agitates against the war, in favor of abortion, illegal immigrants, etc. I support none of their positions, so why should I have to fund them?

16. #16
    On January 4th, 2008 at 11:27 am, SpeakEasy said:

    #14 Gator, As a career Marine I agree. The problem as I see it is the military is replacing military members with civilian contractors to reduce the number of “troops deployed.” This doesn’t decrease the number of Americans in Iraq, just the number of troops. There is no better bang for your buck than the military member so it costs you more and your service is not as good. But it allows politicians to claim credit for “bringing the bys (and girls) home.”

    The sooner we get our heads around how long we will actually have a presence in Iraq (you know, the way we have been in Germany for the past 50 years) the better.

17. #17
    On January 4th, 2008 at 11:28 am, walterc said:

    The problem with contracting out a necessary service such as EMTs and Firemen, is there is always a lack of oversight by the government. In the beginning, things might go great, but over time, the private employees want more money (particularly management) and so they short cut services (many times lowering the pay of the actual workers to less than what the government employees were making) until the agency puts up more money. In the end it costs the taxpayers more for substandard service.

    Just pay the firefighters, Police and Emts a reasonable wage and cut out some of the duplicated/triplicated paper pushers that every level of government suffers from.

18. #18
    On January 4th, 2008 at 11:30 am, SpeakEasy said:

    Uh, make that ‘the boys’.

    (fingers….too…fast…)
    (must…..slow….down…)

19. #19
    On January 4th, 2008 at 12:24 pm, hawkeye54 said:

    On January 4th, 2008 at 12:39 am, derel3433 said:
    As Reagan said firefighter: government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.

    Your services should be contracted out to a private company that can provide fire fighting more efficiently and cost effectively.

    I’m not so sure that works for ememergency services. I recall forest firefighting that once was the realm of the US Forestry Service has been farmed out to private contractors as a so-called money saver.

    I think at least once, in Oregon, some immigrants were snatched up for fire fighting duty at low pay. There were dire result such as injury or death at some point due miscommunication because of lack of englsh speaking skills and some being poorly trained by the contractor. Maybe somebody can clarify what I recall in this instance of using private contractors.

    Being “cost-effective” in firefighting and other emergencies may not be any more efficient using private contractors (who’s desire for maximum profit may conflict with efficient and effective service) than government employees.

    Can we trust the government to be responsible for oversight of private contractors who would provide firefighting, police, and other emergency services?

20. #20
    On January 4th, 2008 at 2:32 pm, JodyT said:

    I’d like to hear RetFireman weigh in on what sdillard says in comment #15. RF seems very outspoken here on conservative issues and I’d be interested to hear if he is/was this outspoken in the firehouse or union meetings…where it counts/counted.

21. #21
    On January 4th, 2008 at 9:44 pm, greenfairie said:

    I’m a municipal employee in Southern California and thankfully, my unit is currently exempt from agency fees. Two years ago there was a vote on whether to require agency fees for those who forgo membership in SEIU and it didn’t pass. Ha ha!

    Like sdillard said, it would be one thing if SEIU only stuck with negotiating contracts and helping individual employees with any work-related problems not being properly addressed. But SEIU is a political organization more than anything else, throwing its power around Sacramento, supporting everything I’m against, and opposing everything I’m for. I’d gladly negotiate my own salary and benefits like everybody in the private sector does. Why should I even give them $1200 a year in agency fees to do it for me, when all we get as it is from SEIU are peanuts.

22. #22
    On January 5th, 2008 at 1:38 am, Klaatu said:

    I agree that a large part of the decline in union membership is because the jobs have gone overseas. But, American unions are the cause of America’s industrial base being shipped out. The unions have “eaten their young, ” taking short term gains and destroying their long term prospects. That attitude nearly killed American business.

    Unions, public and private, are quasi-government entities with the power to “tax.” They get what they want and make other people pay for it, ignoring the long term consequences. The “tax payers” eventually revolt and find a way around paying. In this case, getting goods from overseas.

    The government should run some things. Emergency services is one of them. In colonial times, Ben Franklin started the first Fire Company which you paid to belong to. If your house was burning, they came with the wagon, looked for the company symbol hanging on the wall and, if they didn’t see it, went away. We can say that is the cost of not being self-reliant. However, your neighbor should not have to risk losing his house in a fire because you are not self-reliant.

    Properly supervised, the government can run some things. I don’t want them running my healthcare, but I’m ok with fire and police.

23. #23
    On January 6th, 2008 at 4:20 am, Terry_Jim said:

    My union’s candidate, the cackler, finished third. A co-worker screamed at me Friday morning, “No,No, she tied for second!!”

    Heh.

    I appreciate my union when it sticks to its business of contract arbitration, when it comes to politics, I won’t drink the purple Kool-Aid.