Once again, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie points out the obvious that everyone else has ignored:
Collective bargaining is no bargain if both sides are on the same side.
As Christie says, someone has to represent the taxpayers. And that’s a role he relishes.
This post was last modified on March 6, 2011
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I am a union negotiator and would love to sit across from elected officials. But alas, they are too busy (but they get insurance, retirement, per diem, other perks) and hire a "professional" negotiator who bills by the hour and therefore drags out the process to pad his pocket and we almost always end up where we started. As a taxpayer to these very cities I find this to be a waste of money.
I have a lot of thoughts in this regard.
If you allow that collective bargaining *can* happen, then it is normal, and I'd even say desirable to push for as much as you can get away with -- that's just good negotiation, not to mention normal in capitalism. However, it's one thing to *want* and another thing to *get*. The excess benefits and pay, and the outrageous attitudes so allowed to develop represents a profound dereliction of duty by elected officials. If a business owner pulled what they did, they'd be doing jail time. When an elected official does it, they just raises the taxes to cover it so the unions won't raise a stink.
The heart of why businesses have a higher standard is because the business *will* fail if they are derelict in their duties. (A big organization like GM *not* failing because they leveraged government to cover for their failures adds governmental outrage to corporate malfeasance.) It has nothing to do with an inherent moral superiority, and everything to do with holding people responsible for their actions because if they don't, somebody with money see that they are.
I don't think that collective bargaining by public sector unions should be stopped because the unions will demand too much -- but because the elected officials can and have given them too much in the past and present, and nothing has changed so as to make me believe that they will not do so in the future.
When you add in the democrat reelection schemes and funding from unions, I think they ought to be banned outright, given that the entire purpose of the scheme on the elected official's side is to defraud the taxpayer. That said, to be entirely honest, I just can't say that the union is the main culprit there, as unloveable as they may be.
The metaphor I have is in giving cell phones to my sons. I told them that it is a responsibility, and that I give them to them for *my* convenience, and not theirs. As long as they are responsible with them, they can use them to talk with their friends. The moment they start to misuse them, I will call the phone company, cancel their phone, pay the early termination fee, and put up with the inconvenience. The reason it works is because they know I'm dead serious about this.
If I were incapable of sticking to my principles, then I would be a lot better off to not get them a phone in the first place -- not because *they* cannot be trusted, but because *I* cannot trust myself.
All states that have had elected leaders in the past so foolish as to allow gooberment employees the right to unionize is facing the same problem. The people that pay the bill, those of us working in the private sector, are tired of seeing state government employees wages and benefits go up and up while ours stay flat or shrink.
He can handle it, however I don't feel any less respectful for those governors that cannot handle it. Each governor must do what he deems best for his or her state.
Didn't JFK and RFK go after the unions in the early sixties? And didnt they wind up dead shortly thereafter? JFK especially under very suspicious circumstances which has all been kept very secret for all these years. I hope nothing happens to Christie because I agree with spymyeyes. We need a pres with a backbone. When the media attacks him, he'll let em have it rather than cower in the corner like McCain or smile like Romney.
"In 1962, President Kennedy signed an executive order giving public-employee unions the right to collectively bargain with federal government agencies."
It is FDR and Jimmy Carter who didn't like public union collective bargaining.
The main JFK death theory involves his going after The Federal Reserve and the banking cartel.
I was specifically referring to Jimmy Hoffa and the Teamsters. I think the Kennedy's were instrumental in getting Dave Beck in jail and also making life miserable for Hoffa. Either because he was a crook, which he most likely was, or because he was a big Nixon supporter. Either way, I dont think I'd like to have crossed Jimmy Hoffa nor any Teamsters boss before or since.
http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/USAhoffa.htm
Navyvet,
You are so right my friend.
Mcain will always have my respect for serving his country in war & peace, but he has proved that he flip-flops on important issues so much that people in his own state don't trust him anymore.
Romney is from Mass. and all his dirty money comes from the same place that Obummer gets his money, alquedia.
If Obummer with his total muslim-licking, bow-down to every despot, and abject apeasement of terrorists can stay in the white house for 3 years now and not be put down by a card-carrying member of the KKK with a 50.cal sniper rifle, then Cristie can be protected too.
CRISTIE FOR PRESIDENT 2012!!!!!!
christie for persident in 2012!!!!!!
Public sector unions and politicians who support them should be investigated under RICO laws. It's public sector organized crime.
Sounds to me like the governor get's it. The million dollar question now is will the unions get it and the tax payers of NJ understand what the hell is going on?
I would like to see this bulldog turn Union Bosses and their lackys into kibble. Release the hounds.