Fresh Start Political Thread

As a gov't employee personally I'm glad to be a union member, why are people afraid of having their workplace rights looked after?

Public employee unions should not be allowed.

Imo, whatever they say, the opposite is true (the union itself, not each individual person in a public union).

I swear, it seems like the whole goal is to get paid the most money possible for the least amount of work possible. And the bosses get kick-ups on all that money.

Privately, I don't think unions do much good either, but that's up for individual states and companies to decide on.

I'd never open a business anywhere that wasn't a right-to-work state, personally.

This is my 1st and last political post of 2022.

Note - I just generally don't understand liberalism. And maybe being liberal is absolutely right and being conservative is absolutely wrong. I don't know. But I just don't understand it. This is the main reason why I'm not gonna talk politics in 2022. It's not who is right or who is wrong. It's just no one here is changing their minds on either side. I'm sure lots of liberals don't understand conservatism either.

The note section was actually going to be the final post, but I'll use it as an addendum to my thoughts on public unions.

SD out.

Matty - Is there a way to switch our username? I only need to change 1 letter. scskinsfan2001 is the re-brand lol (he doesn't talk politics). Coming February 6th.

#fakenews

As a gov't employee personally I'm glad to be a union member, why are people afraid of having their workplace rights looked after?

As someone who had never been part of a Union and knows very little about them .. I feel like I am the perfect spokesperson for what the average American thinks when we think of "unions".

1. Unions make the cost of goods higher. Union employees, whether a factory worker or grocery store shelf stocker, gets a higher pay with Unions. Not to mention the top level greed of Union leaders making millions, lobbying Congress.

These added costs of production gets pased onto us the consumer.

2. Unions make it impossible to fire bad employees (police, teachers) and lazy employees (lots of State and fed employees who dont do shit, "work" 4 days a week and get huge pension and retirement plans .. from us taxpaying citizens who have to kill to eat and dont get retirement cushions).

Entire DC govt is all voicemails right now, no dept are open, no one ever calls you back ... its a joke while "secretaries" make 89k a year.

As someone who had never been part of a Union and knows very little about them .. I feel like I am the perfect spokesperson for what the average American thinks when we think of "unions".

1. Unions make the cost of goods higher. Union employees, whether a factory worker or grocery store shelf stocker, gets a higher pay with Unions. Not to mention the top level greed of Union leaders making millions, lobbying Congress.

These added costs of production gets pased onto us the consumer.

2. Unions make it impossible to fire bad employees (police, teachers) and lazy employees (lots of State and fed employees who dont do shit, "work" 4 days a week and get huge pension and retirement plans .. from us taxpaying citizens who have to kill to eat and dont get retirement cushions).

Entire DC govt is all voicemails right now, no dept are open, no one ever calls you back ... its a joke while "secretaries" make 89k a year.

Pros and cons to everything, unions help negotiate better wages/benefits and working conditions, and they also help protect you against an employer firing you without a justifiable reason. We all like 5 day work weeks right? Health insurance, 401k's, vacation time, sick days, etc. Personally I hate the narrative that only state and fed workers are lazy. There are lazy workers in every line of work.

I know in my situation our agency is absolutely swamped since a big part of our service used to be being open to the public for walk ins. Now all of our work is over the phone, and when we first shut down the agency was ill prepared for having 100% telework. In fact our new commissioner yanked all telework just weeks before the pandemic hit. My office used to get 100 calls a day or so, now it's closer to 300. We just don't have the staff to handle it.

Haha, Joe Judge.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/fYZMXUJOlNEF7zNqwo/giphy.gif

This is a Political comment?

Haha, Joe Judge.

https://media4.giphy.com/media/fYZMXUJOlNEF7zNqwo/giphy.gif

G1 is correct this does not belong here. This belongs in the common grounds thread. Mind your debating with the enemy etiquette SD

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/11/oakland-lefty-my-whole-life-school-closures-triggered-an-identity-crisis-526860


.........Parents who advocated for school reopening were repeatedly demonized on social media as racist and mischaracterized as Trump supporters. Members of the parent group I helped lead were consistently attacked on Twitter and Facebook by two Oakland moms with ties to the teachers union. They labelled advocates’ calls for schools reopening “white supremacy” called us “Karens,” and even bizarrely claimed we had allied ourselves with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s transphobic agenda.........Some unions and districts are now using last year’s closures as a precedent. Recently, with the Omicron surge, several major school districts announced they were switching to remote learning for a week or more, including Newark and dozens of other New Jersey districts, Ann Arbor and Cleveland. Then last week, the Chicago teachers union voted for a sickout, followed by teachers in San Francisco and Oakland engaging in similar actions..........But I began to fear that even in-person school in fall 2021 was at risk because of the impossible demands of the teachers union (that schools remain fully remote until there were “near-zero” Covid cases in Oakland) and apathy of the school board and district; even after teachers were prioritized for vaccination, there was no urgency to get kids back to the classroom.....

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2022/01/11/oakland-lefty-my-whole-life-school-closures-triggered-an-identity-crisis-526860


.........Parents who advocated for school reopening were repeatedly demonized on social media as racist and mischaracterized as Trump supporters. Members of the parent group I helped lead were consistently attacked on Twitter and Facebook by two Oakland moms with ties to the teachers union. They labelled advocates’ calls for schools reopening “white supremacy” called us “Karens,” and even bizarrely claimed we had allied ourselves with Marjorie Taylor Greene’s transphobic agenda.........Some unions and districts are now using last year’s closures as a precedent. Recently, with the Omicron surge, several major school districts announced they were switching to remote learning for a week or more, including Newark and dozens of other New Jersey districts, Ann Arbor and Cleveland. Then last week, the Chicago teachers union voted for a sickout, followed by teachers in San Francisco and Oakland engaging in similar actions..........But I began to fear that even in-person school in fall 2021 was at risk because of the impossible demands of the teachers union (that schools remain fully remote until there were “near-zero” Covid cases in Oakland) and apathy of the school board and district; even after teachers were prioritized for vaccination, there was no urgency to get kids back to the classroom.....
Ahhhhhhh, so this is your "union" experience. Teaches Unions trying to protect their members because parents want to send children to school who are sick. Glad you were looking out for everyone.

Ahhhhhhh, so this is your "union" experience. Teaches Unions trying to protect their members because parents want to send children to school who are sick. Glad you were looking out for everyone.

Actually my Union experience comes from living in the UK from 1974-1977. They were destroying that country and I freely admit their behavior tainted me against Unions (and likely I can be unfair on occasion when unions are involved because of that). That said in this case I'm pretty certain I'm not being unfair to the teachers unions on this one (a zero covid case demand???? really?).