3 ms·

Public sector unions do seem problematic. How do you suggest public employees negotiate the highest possible wages for themselves?

balderdash 3y ago
I see the as problem actually just the opposite - the public sector unions are unaccountable and have already figured out how to extract overly generous benefits at the expense of the populace.
- tchaffee 3y ago
  What I'm asking is how would people employed in the public sector negotiate a fair wage if the unions didn't exist? What would the mechanism be? What's your definition of "overly generous"? Based on what criteria?
  - balderdash 3y ago
    I’d describe overly generous as being being unsustainable/bankrupting the very communities they serve. (Or for a qualitative example take police officers in Suffolk county NY earning $200k-$700k/yr in addition to generous pension and health benefits (worth millions on top of that)) You raise a reasonable point that I admittedly don’t have a satisfactory response for, regarding an alternative negotiating framework, but it seems to me the pendulum has swung way too far in one direction, and their is no effective check on capture by public sector unions.
    - tchaffee 3y ago
      Hiring based on a sustainable budget makes sense. That doesn't tell us if we should hire a few people at a high salary or lots of folks at much lower salaries. I don't have an answer either. It's one of the few economics questions that I've never seen a good answer to. The best I can come up with is to allow some market competition to government services and then to match market salaries. That's still not ideal because labor supply and demand is distorted. I've been asking this question for decades. It's a challenging problem.
    - lapcat 3y ago
      > police officers in Suffolk county NY earning $200k-$700k/yr in addition to generous pension and health benefits (worth millions on top of that) The police aren't the greatest example, because everyone wants to "support" the police no matter what. For example, when Wisconsin Republicans eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees in 2011, leading to massive protests at the Capitol, they actually exempted police from the new law, so police still had collective bargaining rights. Keep in mind that many leftists, who are generally very supportive of labor unions, still want to "defund the police". So the narrative is kind of flipped here.
      - tchaffee 3y ago
        > everyone wants to "support" the police no matter what. > many leftists, who are generally very supportive of labor unions, still want to "defund the police" Seems like one of these claims needs adjustment. Also noted that defunding the police usually means replacing the police with other roles that are more in line with community needs. So there's still a need for labor unions. "They have argued that cities should instead prioritize the programs that have been defunded over the years that would address root causes of crime and poverty, like education, healthcare and homeless services." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-de...
        lapcat 3y ago
        > Seems like one of these claims needs adjustment. Well, yes, I didn't mean literally everyone. It was a turn of phrase, a hyperbole. > "They have argued that cities should instead prioritize the programs that have been defunded over the years that would address root causes of crime and poverty, like education, healthcare and homeless services." Yes. Police and prisons are actually vastly more expensive than other, nonviolent community investments to reduce crime. But efficiency and cost effectiveness aren't really the point of "law enforcement". Rather, to borrow a phrase, the cruelty is the point. Anyway, my point is that the power of the police unions is due to the public support for the police, not simply their collective bargaining power. Few other unions have as much power.

balderdash 3y ago

I see the as problem actually just the opposite - the public sector unions are unaccountable and have already figured out how to extract overly generous benefits at the expense of the populace.

tchaffee 3y ago
What I'm asking is how would people employed in the public sector negotiate a fair wage if the unions didn't exist? What would the mechanism be? What's your definition of "overly generous"? Based on what criteria?
- balderdash 3y ago
  I’d describe overly generous as being being unsustainable/bankrupting the very communities they serve. (Or for a qualitative example take police officers in Suffolk county NY earning $200k-$700k/yr in addition to generous pension and health benefits (worth millions on top of that)) You raise a reasonable point that I admittedly don’t have a satisfactory response for, regarding an alternative negotiating framework, but it seems to me the pendulum has swung way too far in one direction, and their is no effective check on capture by public sector unions.
  - tchaffee 3y ago
    Hiring based on a sustainable budget makes sense. That doesn't tell us if we should hire a few people at a high salary or lots of folks at much lower salaries. I don't have an answer either. It's one of the few economics questions that I've never seen a good answer to. The best I can come up with is to allow some market competition to government services and then to match market salaries. That's still not ideal because labor supply and demand is distorted. I've been asking this question for decades. It's a challenging problem.
  - lapcat 3y ago
    > police officers in Suffolk county NY earning $200k-$700k/yr in addition to generous pension and health benefits (worth millions on top of that) The police aren't the greatest example, because everyone wants to "support" the police no matter what. For example, when Wisconsin Republicans eliminated collective bargaining rights for public employees in 2011, leading to massive protests at the Capitol, they actually exempted police from the new law, so police still had collective bargaining rights. Keep in mind that many leftists, who are generally very supportive of labor unions, still want to "defund the police". So the narrative is kind of flipped here.
    - tchaffee 3y ago
      > everyone wants to "support" the police no matter what. > many leftists, who are generally very supportive of labor unions, still want to "defund the police" Seems like one of these claims needs adjustment. Also noted that defunding the police usually means replacing the police with other roles that are more in line with community needs. So there's still a need for labor unions. "They have argued that cities should instead prioritize the programs that have been defunded over the years that would address root causes of crime and poverty, like education, healthcare and homeless services." https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-defund-police-transferring-money-community https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/mar/07/us-cities-de...
      - lapcat 3y ago
        > Seems like one of these claims needs adjustment. Well, yes, I didn't mean literally everyone. It was a turn of phrase, a hyperbole. > "They have argued that cities should instead prioritize the programs that have been defunded over the years that would address root causes of crime and poverty, like education, healthcare and homeless services." Yes. Police and prisons are actually vastly more expensive than other, nonviolent community investments to reduce crime. But efficiency and cost effectiveness aren't really the point of "law enforcement". Rather, to borrow a phrase, the cruelty is the point. Anyway, my point is that the power of the police unions is due to the public support for the police, not simply their collective bargaining power. Few other unions have as much power.