Government Union Workers

[973beachbum]

Jun 11, 2012 6:51:50 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

LMFAO! Wow....THIS is a topic that someone got their feathers in such a ruffle that they closed their account? Where is the tongue lashing for those of you that clearly should have known this poster was getting her panties in a bunch and therefore you should have told her she was right??? Or am I the only one that has to bow down to the unstable masses?

Tina you know people don't post topics here to get really other opinions. They do it to have people tell them how right they are.

[Miss Tequila]

Jun 11, 2012 8:13:13 GMT -5 973beachbum said:

Jun 11, 2012 6:51:50 GMT -5 Miss Tequila said:

LMFAO! Wow....THIS is a topic that someone got their feathers in such a ruffle that they closed their account? Where is the tongue lashing for those of you that clearly should have known this poster was getting her panties in a bunch and therefore you should have told her she was right??? Or am I the only one that has to bow down to the unstable masses?

Tina you know people don't post topics here to get really other opinions. They do it to have people tell them how right they are.

Sigh... I need to start my own thread so then no one can get in my shit for posting MY OPINIONS!lol

[midjd]

LMFAO! Wow....THIS is a topic that someone got their feathers in such a ruffle that they closed their account? Where is the tongue lashing for those of you that clearly should have known this poster was getting her panties in a bunch and therefore you should have told her she was right??? Or am I the only one that has to bow down to the unstable masses?

I think there's a difference between someone taking her toys and going home (calmly) because she felt we were dismissing her opinions, and someone who says she has to stop posting here because it's affecting her mental health...

[quotequeen]

Jun 11, 2012 8:14:51 GMT -5 midjd said:

LMFAO! Wow....THIS is a topic that someone got their feathers in such a ruffle that they closed their account? Where is the tongue lashing for those of you that clearly should have known this poster was getting her panties in a bunch and therefore you should have told her she was right??? Or am I the only one that has to bow down to the unstable masses?

I think there's a difference between someone taking her toys and going home (calmly) because she felt we were dismissing her opinions, and someone who says she has to stop posting here because it's affecting her mental health...

I don't know... If somebody can't handle a bunch of people pointing out that it's possible for data to be both true and misleading, there could be mental health issues at play.

[midjd]

Touche

[Miss Tequila]

Jun 11, 2012 8:21:45 GMT -5 quotequeen said:

Jun 11, 2012 8:14:51 GMT -5 midjd said:

I think there's a difference between someone taking her toys and going home (calmly) because she felt we were dismissing her opinions, and someone who says she has to stop posting here because it's affecting her mental health...

I don't know... If somebody can't handle a bunch of people pointing out that it's possible for data to be both true and misleading, there could be mental health issues at play.

LMAO!! And so true

[973beachbum]

Jun 11, 2012 8:21:45 GMT -5 quotequeen said:

Jun 11, 2012 8:14:51 GMT -5 midjd said:

I think there's a difference between someone taking her toys and going home (calmly) because she felt we were dismissing her opinions, and someone who says she has to stop posting here because it's affecting her mental health...

I don't know... If somebody can't handle a bunch of people pointing out that it's possible for data to be both true and misleading, there could be mental health issues at play.

My first throught yesterday was "is she a troll? She was pretty new and she kept baiting us, and completely ignoring everything in the data that didn't fit her own ideas.

Maybe it's me but it seemed a lot like another poster I try not to read because of it.

[midjd]

I didn't think "troll," but it did seem out-of-character (which is why I asked her why she was taking it so personally). I'd enjoyed her posts before, even when I didn't agree with them, because she always seemed to have well-reasoned arguments... this thread seems almost like a different person.

She'd been around a couple of months at least, hadn't she?

[milee]

Why do we worry so much about it when a poster leaves? It's not unexpected that people will come and go on a message board like this. Their life situation changes, their attitude changes, the board changes, whatever it is - the board is not going to be a draw for 100% of the population 100% of the time.

Sometimes it's sad when someone goes because we like or value that person, sometimes it's not. But it's normal to have some people leave just like it's normal to sometimes add people.

Now if the board suddenly starts losing a large % of the regular posters, it's worth trying to figure out if a structural change has prompted this, but otherwise, it's just life. FWIW, maryjane didn't sound upset to me and she specifically said she wasn't insulted, just starting a new job and had less time. Let's just wish her luck and stop beating ourselves and each other up for stuff like this.

[milee]

As for the original question, I think a large issue that hasn't been addressed is the fact that government unions have the potential for causing issues because they represent a large voting block. Some interesting excepts from an article describing this relationship:

Finally, the third precondition was the solidification of the alliance between organized labor and the Democratic Party. Franklin Roosevelt's signing of the Wagner Act (which protected the rights of private-sector workers to organize and bargain collectively) in 1935 fully bonded labor to the Democrats; their partnership was reinforced during the fight over the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which was a Republican initiative to rein in union power. By mid-century, Democrats began to rely on labor unions for both funding and on-the-ground campaign organizing. In the 1950s and '60s, according to political scientist J. David Greenstone, "labor functioned as the most important nation-wide electoral organization for the Democratic Party." As a political tag team, both Democrats and labor had an incentive to broaden the base of the labor movement — and they came to see public-sector workers as the most promising new hunting ground, especially as private-sector union membership began to decline.

Democrats began to mobilize this new constituency in the late 1950s. In 1958, New York City mayor Robert Wagner, Jr., issued Executive Order 49, known as "the little Wagner Act." It gave city employees bargaining rights, and provided their unions with exclusive representation (meaning that the unions alone were legally authorized to speak for city workers, regardless of whether those workers belonged to the unions or supported them). And in 1962, President John Kennedy issued Executive Order 10988, reaffirming the right of federal workers to organize and codifying their right to bargain collectively.

From the mid-1960s through the early '70s, states and cities followed with a plethora of laws providing public-employee unions with collective-bargaining rights. In many cases, the consequences were almost immediate. In New York state, one year after the passage of the so-called Taylor Law in 1967, 360,000 state- and local-government employees became unionized; the New York Times described the law as having an "almost revolutionary effect." Other states and cities experienced similar expansions in the number of public-sector union members. For example, in 1968, California passed the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act — a law granting local-government workers bargaining rights — and then extended those rights to teachers a few years later; in the 1970s and '80s, both membership in public-sector unions and the number of strikes in California skyrocketed. Nationwide, by 1970, the AFSCME had negotiated more than 1,000 collective-bargaining agreements, nearly twice the number in place in 1964. And by 1972, nearly half of the states had public-employee collective-bargaining laws in place at either the state or local level.

Collective-bargaining laws gave government workers powerful incentives to join unions. Between 1960 and 1980, the portion of full-time unionized public employees jumped from 10% to 36% of the public-sector work force. The AFSCME grew from 99,000 members in 1955 to just under 1 million members in 1980. Over the same period, the American Federation of Teachers grew from 40,000 to more than half a million members. Today, its membership stands at more than 1.5 million — which makes the AFT larger than the largest exclusively private-sector union, the United Food and Commercial Workers (1.3 million members). But even the AFT is dwarfed by the largest labor union in the United States: the National Education Association, which claims 3.2 million members.

[milee]

continued... (Emphasis added)

THE PUBLIC-SECTOR DIFFERENCE

When it comes to advancing their interests, public-sector unions have significant advantages over traditional unions. For one thing, using the political process, they can exert far greater influence over their members' employers — that is, government — than private-sector unions can. Through their extensive political activity, these government-workers' unions help elect the very politicians who will act as "management" in their contract negotiations — in effect handpicking those who will sit across the bargaining table from them, in a way that workers in a private corporation (like, say, American Airlines or the Washington Post Company) cannot. Such power led Victor Gotbaum, the leader of District Council 37 of the AFSCME in New York City, to brag in 1975: "We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss."
Since public-sector unions began to develop in earnest, their importance in political campaigns has grown by leaps and bounds. Starting from almost nothing in the 1960s, government-workers' unions now far exceed private-sector unions in political contributions. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, from 1989 to 2004, the AFSCME was the biggest spender in America, giving nearly $40 million to candidates in federal elections (98.5% of it to Democrats). It is important to stress that this was spending on federal elections; the union represents mostly state and local workers. But given the magnitude of federal contributions to state budgets, the AFSCME is heavily involved in electioneering to shape Washington's spending in ways that protect public workers and the supply of government services. And so over that 15-year period, the AFSCME was willing and able to outspend any other organization in the country.

The political influence of public-sector unions is probably greatest, however, in low-turnout elections to school boards and state and local offices, and in votes to decide ballot initiatives and referenda. For example, two of the top five biggest spenders in Wisconsin's 2003 and 2004 state elections were the Wisconsin Education Association Council and the AFSCME-affiliated Wisconsin PEOPLE Conference. Only the state Republican Party and two other political action committees — those belonging to the National Association of Realtors and SBC / Ameritech — spent more. The same is true in state after state, as unions work to exert control over the very governments that employs their members.

[milee]

This political dimension of public-sector unionism also changes the substantive priorities and demands of the unions themselves. Although private-sector unions in the United States have engaged in leftist "social activism," they have mostly concentrated their efforts on securing the best wages, benefits, pensions, and working conditions for their members: "pure and simple unionism," as longtime American Federation of Labor president Samuel Gompers used to call it. Rarely do they demand more hiring, since — given the constant private-sector imperative to keep operating costs minimal — increasing the number of a company's employees can limit wage and benefit increases for the workers already on the company's payroll.

By contrast, as economist Richard Freeman has written, "public sector unions can be viewed as using their political power to raise demand for public services, as well as using their bargaining power to fight for higher wages." The millions spent by public-employee unions on ballot measures in states like California and Oregon, for instance, almost always support the options that would lead to higher taxes and more government spending. The California Teachers Association, for example, spent $57 million in 2005 to defeat referenda that would have reduced union power and checked government growth. And the political influence of such massive spending is of course only amplified by the get-out-the-vote efforts of the unions and their members. This power of government-workers' unions to increase (and then sustain) levels of employment through the political process helps explain why, for instance, the city of Buffalo, New York, had the same number of public workers in 2006 as it did in 1950 — despite having lost half of its population (and thus a significant amount of the demand for public services).

For a case study in how public-sector unions manipulate both supply and demand, consider the example of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. Throughout the 1980s and '90s, the CCPOA lobbied the state government to increase California's prison facilities — since more prisons would obviously mean more jobs for corrections officers. And between 1980 and 2000, the Golden State constructed 22 new prisons for adults (before 1980, California had only 12 such facilities). The CCPOA also pushed for the 1994 "three strikes" sentencing law, which imposed stiff penalties on repeat offenders. The prison population exploded — and, as intended, the new prisoners required more guards. The CCPOA has been no less successful in increasing members' compensation: In 2006, the average union member made $70,000 a year, and more than $100,000 with overtime. Corrections officers can also retire with 90% of their salaries as early as age 50. Today, an amazing 11% of the state budget — more than what is spent on higher education — goes to the penal system.[Correction appended] Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger now proposes privatizing portions of the prison system to escape the unions' grip — though his proposal has so far met with predictable (union supported) political opposition.

[milee]

A further important advantage that public-sector unions have over their private-sector counterparts is their relative freedom from market forces. In the private sector, the wage demands of union workers cannot exceed a certain threshold: If they do, they can render their employers uncompetitive, threatening workers' long-term job security. In the public sector, though, government is the monopoly provider of many services, eliminating any market pressures that might keep unions' demands in check. Moreover, unlike in the private sector, contract negotiations in the public sector are usually not highly adversarial; most government-agency mangers have little personal stake in such negotiations. Unlike executives accountable to shareholders and corporate boards, government managers generally get paid the same — and have the same likelihood of keeping their jobs — regardless of whether their operations are run efficiently. They therefore rarely play hardball with unions like business owners and managers do; there is little history of "union busting" in government.

[milee]

www.nationalaffairs.com/publications/detail/the-trouble-with-public-sector-unions

[aliciar6]

ok-I'm an engineer working for the gov't, I work for the Dept of Defense for the Army. I'm going to explain this.
Our salaries are based on the GS Scale and then depending on where we live we get a COLA % increase.

Our pay system here:

When you get hired right out of college you can get hired at a GS5 or a GS7 (if you GPA is high enough and you have a lot of special things to offer)...I was hired as a GS-5...i was making a whoping 27K per year. I am a chemical engineer. my friends who graduated with me, got jobs making 53-57K a year right out of college.

In 6 months, you get promoted to the next GS level (GS 7), so then I was making around 36K a year. A year later you get promoted again to the next GS level (GS 9), a year later you get promoted to GS 11, then another year later you get promoted to GS 12, where you stay and only get yearly step increases until you are a step 4 and you have to be a step 4 for 2 years before you get a step 5, etc...unless you can get promoted to a GS 13 either by a Factor IV application (technical expert) or you are selected competatively for a GS 13 position. It's not automatic. Also if you aren't doing a good job, you aren't getting those promotions either. They can be withheld and are not guaranteed. You are an intern and on a trial basis for 3 years or until you become a GS 12.

It took me forever to catch up to what my private sector counter parts were making. and note that i was working in NJ, where we have a high COLA, and i was still only starting out at 27K...note that was in 2003. I would say if you compare all the varied things I have to be an expert at and all the things I do compared to my industry counterparts, I do a heck of a lot more and need to know more. My skill sets have to be a lot more widely varied.

If you have a lot of previous experience you can apply for an enginering position they all fall in the GS5-GS12 range unless it is competative where you are applying specifically for a GS13, 14 or 15 (14s and 15s are usuallly management positions). But it is up to who ever hires you to decide what grade and step they feel you qualify for. So you can have a masters or PhD and years of expereince but not in the exact right field and they can say, ok we will hire you as a GS 7 step 5. Or you can have a masters and the exact qualifications and they will hire you as a 9 step__....it's rare you get hired on as a anything higher than a 9, and i haven't seen it happen here.

In order to get a job here, you also have to be able to get a security clearance. There are rules and regulations that we have to abide by that normal private sector workers do not.

we have a "union" but our union really doesn't do anything, we don't have any type of collective bargaining rights...they can't help us when the morons in congress can't pass a budget and we have to worry whether or not we will get furloughed...and it is not mandated that we will get back pay, and we have no idea how long we may be out of work. We face the threat of a BRAC every few years and also RIF's to lower the work force since they think we are over staffed.

all the info about Gov't jobs can be found on the OPM website. including info about our retirement benefits and everything else. which the primary source for our retirement income is supposed to be our contributions to TSP (our 401K basically)

and while the cost of everything else is going up, our pay, our cost of living increases has been frozen and they want to keep it frozen, they have limited our bonuses, so even if we are superstars we can only get 1% of our salary as a bonus....that's for our yearly performance evaluation and bonuses that the people we work for want to give us....they can all only total 1% of our salary now in order to save the gov't money.

there is also talk about doing away with the yearly step increases too, to further save money.

I like my job, because I love what I do, I love that my work benefits our military forces, but I could move back to BFE nebraska where the COLA is so low it's rediculous, get a job doing what my dad does and make double my current salary, get 30-45K retention bonuses every 2-3 years, awesome medical and retirement. And they keep asking my dad about me and seeing if I'd come work for them because they know I'm pretty much a carbon copy of him, but I love school more, and I'm more willing to go further with career progression than my dad, he's happy being an Engineer Operator but wants no part of management. don't think that when FI have his house paid off, 6 figures in the bank and are ready to start his buisness that we might not move back...and that can all happen in a 2-3 year time frame.

[wvugurl26]

My new favorite is that they should demote people. Some group decided that people have too high of a grade for their responsibilities. Yes, I'm in the automatic track up to 12 but my responsibilities have increased each year. I don't know anyone who keeps the same responsibilities and gets a new grade.

Especially since even though we are under the people cap OMP set and losing people right and left we can't replace anyone. The programs we audit are not shrinking, they are growing and they are very susceptible to fraud. We have a trillion dollars worth of spending to oversee, it requires staff. At some point you can only do so much to work smarter, prioritize, etc.

[hockeygrl]

We are in the same across the board hiring freeze as everyone else, so when we lose people we can't backfill the positions. We had all color printers in the office removed to save money on ink and toner. We are exploring mandatory telework for some people to save on fleet costs. Yeah, it's all rosy working for the Feds!

[TheOtherMe]

Jun 11, 2012 7:03:24 GMT -5 wvugurl26 said:

At my orientation the union guy said they were responsible for the flexible schedules like AWS. My class was entirely white collar people and the guy was still there encouraging people to join so I'm not sure about the rules.

I was around when the AWS schedules were implemented at the federal government. The unions made a big push on behalf of employees to get those tested in various agencies and then implemented.

I was white collar, but not management.

I also refused to sleep with a manager who did not take kindly to it. He took less kindly to it when I reported it to the union. He was my boss and he told me my evaluations would go down if I didn't sleep with him. I wasn't going to do that. He never tried it again with me.

This same manager got demoted out of management for some racist comments. The recipient went to the union, as she should have.

Yes, I've seen the union defend people they should not have. I never went to them with anything frivolous. I figured they had their hands full with some of the ridiculous stuff that I'd hear about.

I started out as a GS-5. They start the position as GS-7 now. It tops out at GS-14 before you have to go in to management. At my agency, high level managers were hard to keep even at the local level because of the pay differential.

[Phoenix84]

"We are in the same across the board hiring freeze as everyone else, so when we lose people we can't backfill the positions. We had all color printers in the office removed to save money on ink and toner. We are exploring mandatory telework for some people to save on fleet costs. Yeah, it's all rosy working for the Feds!"

Most every fed I know is wearing 2-3 different hats. They do their regular job and take on the job duties of someone they can't replace.