4 ms·

This is how it starts. City booms, everyone whines about cost of living going up, unionized public sector employees extract massive concessions from politician

This is how it starts. City booms, everyone whines about cost of living going up, unionized public sector employees extract massive concessions from politicians whose campaigns they fund. I'm not saying this in an ideological way; it's inevitable, given that unions get dues by default which most employees don't bother to opt out from, those dues get spent influencing local politics to favor union members, and over 50% of US union members are in the public sector [1] - only 16% of the US workforce is unionized, but 1/3 of public employees are - it's hard to see how this ends any other way. Eventually business wises up and realizes the obscene salaries and taxes they have to pay their employees go a lot farther elsewhere, then they relocate and (rightly) leave this mess behind, on the hands of the local government, taxpayers, and politicians who ran on promises they could never deliver on, and the public sector employees who all but extorted the taxpayers out of their money. This is the story of Detroit yesterday, Illinois today, and SF tomorrow. I don't see how this ends any other way. Look at how many companies are already hiring remote employees -- time for SF to wake up and realize how limited their bargaining power is. [1] https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21737318-supreme-court-poised-strike-decisive-blow-unions-are-confronted https://www.economist.com/news/united-states/21737318-suprem...

jacobolus 9y ago
Teachers in SF are living in closets, out of cars, two to a bedroom in shared apartments, commuting long distances, etc. Their salaries are comparable to the state average, but the cost of living is dramatically higher here. The problem in SF is obscene housing costs (and, like everywhere in the US, obscene healthcare costs), not overpayment of public employees. In CA municipal budgeting would also be much more straightforward, effective, and robust without prop 13. As for unions: the US has seen several decades of intense ideological war on organized labor, with dramatic erosion of workers rights across the board, and in particular legislative and Supreme Court interpretation changes that make labor organizing much more difficult and dangerous than a half century ago. Public sector unions are some of the last hold-outs. The overall result we’ve seen for the past 35 years is continually rising productivity but stagnant wages and working conditions (for all workers, unionized and not), and skyrocketing inequality. The future does not look bright for the bulk of American workers. (Great for the financial sector though, like the hedge fund manager [and Peter Thiel protégé] who wrote this op-ed.)
- ghthor 9y ago
  America will go down as the winner take all approach to society. It's not going to end well and there will be lots of suffering.
- eldavido 9y ago
  As a US centrist, I care about the social safety net. But I also care about efficiency. I have no love for a janitor making 200k/year. I don't care what the laws are, that's a broken system someone has figured out how to game. I think that in the future, decisions about redistributive action will be much more individual and finer-grained. People sometimes forget that nation-states aren't the only way to provide a social safety net, and in fact, they have significant disadvantages, including tons of complex rules and an entrenched bureaucracy that resists change. I would much rather have the social safety net work like American Red Cross (incidentally, to which I'm a donor) than the US federal government. The key is to install the right social norms so that as the power of states fall, people still feel compelled to engage in some level of redistributive personal donation. Fewer McMansions and boats, more volunteering and donation. In sum, just because the power of government and organized labor is declining doesn't mean everyone is going to become a cold-hearted scrooge. I think there's a third way, where we could help a lot more people for a lot less money out of pocket.
  - rabboRubble 9y ago
    If it costs the janitor upwards of $100k a year to live reasonably near the place of work, then paying the janitor $200k a year is reasonable. If a company does not like to pay this amount towards cleaning staff, then the company can eliminate the janitorial positions and have people working in their own filth, or have non-janitorial staff take on custodial duties in addition to their own.

jacobolus 9y ago

Teachers in SF are living in closets, out of cars, two to a bedroom in shared apartments, commuting long distances, etc. Their salaries are comparable to the state average, but the cost of living is dramatically higher here. The problem in SF is obscene housing costs (and, like everywhere in the US, obscene healthcare costs), not overpayment of public employees. In CA municipal budgeting would also be much more straightforward, effective, and robust without prop 13. As for unions: the US has seen several decades of intense ideological war on organized labor, with dramatic erosion of workers rights across the board, and in particular legislative and Supreme Court interpretation changes that make labor organizing much more difficult and dangerous than a half century ago. Public sector unions are some of the last hold-outs. The overall result we’ve seen for the past 35 years is continually rising productivity but stagnant wages and working conditions (for all workers, unionized and not), and skyrocketing inequality. The future does not look bright for the bulk of American workers. (Great for the financial sector though, like the hedge fund manager [and Peter Thiel protégé] who wrote this op-ed.)

ghthor 9y ago
America will go down as the winner take all approach to society. It's not going to end well and there will be lots of suffering.
eldavido 9y ago
As a US centrist, I care about the social safety net. But I also care about efficiency. I have no love for a janitor making 200k/year. I don't care what the laws are, that's a broken system someone has figured out how to game. I think that in the future, decisions about redistributive action will be much more individual and finer-grained. People sometimes forget that nation-states aren't the only way to provide a social safety net, and in fact, they have significant disadvantages, including tons of complex rules and an entrenched bureaucracy that resists change. I would much rather have the social safety net work like American Red Cross (incidentally, to which I'm a donor) than the US federal government. The key is to install the right social norms so that as the power of states fall, people still feel compelled to engage in some level of redistributive personal donation. Fewer McMansions and boats, more volunteering and donation. In sum, just because the power of government and organized labor is declining doesn't mean everyone is going to become a cold-hearted scrooge. I think there's a third way, where we could help a lot more people for a lot less money out of pocket.
- rabboRubble 9y ago
  If it costs the janitor upwards of $100k a year to live reasonably near the place of work, then paying the janitor $200k a year is reasonable. If a company does not like to pay this amount towards cleaning staff, then the company can eliminate the janitorial positions and have people working in their own filth, or have non-janitorial staff take on custodial duties in addition to their own.