From the article:
It makes more sense to give every retired public safety officer a million dollar annuity — it would be money-saving.

I think a clever way to frame the issue would be to put an initiative on the ballot that replaced public-safety pensions with a one-time, million dollar payout at retirement.

In other words, a cop retires at 50, he gets a million dollar check, and no pension.

A million dollars may sound like an outrageous amount.

Except that the pensions they are getting today are worth 2-3 times that much.

So here’s the tagline for the initiative:

A million dollars for our heroes!

Now, who would not want to give our heroes the million they deserve?

After (hopefullly) we break the public employee unions; the utility employees will be next.

Utility employees have been flying under the radar with their lavish benefits and salaries; but they are just as bad as gov’t workers.

[quote=sdduuuude]Related to the public union discussion in the Nationwide protests thread.

Here is a guy trying to get it right. He wants to end government negotiation with labor unions.

He quotes FDR, who states the obvious:
[quote=FDR]The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.[/quote]

I like his answer to the question “Do unions have a right to organize public employees?”

[quote=Ebenstein]”Definitely. That’s freedom of association. (Then those) unions could lobby government agencies and others on public policy. They could provide services to their members that their members wish them to perform. They would not, however, be allowed to represent government employees in any capacity related to their work, compensation or employment.[/quote]

Makes complete sense.

And, of course this has nothing to do with unions serving private corporations.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-morrison-lanny-ebenstein-20111015,0,2148814,full.column%5B/quote%5D

The funniest part:

Did your father get a pension from UCSB?

It depends on what happens with reform of the system. At this point in time it would be a defined benefit, so what I’m advocating may not be in my personal interest!

I’m not surprised that to an extent these occupy protests have focused somewhat on the gold plated salaries and benefits of gov’t workers.

The rationale for dropping public sector employee unions, whether in CA, San Diego, or Wisconsin, is that good faith, fair bargaining in the public interest cannot result when a union negotiates with elected officials. This was behind FDR’s opposition, as well as Gov. Walker in Wisconsin, and is now being recognized in San Diego.
In private sector negotiations, managements and unions duke it out fairly, since management has the long term interests of the company in mind. In the public sector, “management” is short term oriented, and only wants labor peace and to look good at the next election, so they make extravagent promises that will come due years later. Witness our city council a decade ago binding us to outsized pension benefits that we are just now being saddled with. Our San Diego School Board did the same 1-2 years ago, with the now-upcoming 7% pay hikes that will hit the fan in the next 12 months, likely forcing insolvency and shortening the already brief school year by 7 days. In 1999, CA bumped all existing state pensions, past and future, by 50% because the tech boom briefly boosted the stock market. State pensions are now squeezing out every other category in the state budget. In each of these cases, the savvy union leaders educated their membership to be patient, keep their lifetime compensation in mind, and stay united. Taxpayers got screwed because they were complacent. The media did not do its job, accountants and actuaries did not become whistleblowers (with some exceptions, like Diane Shipione in San Diego), and the liberal media looked the other way.
Add to all this the tendency in a democracy for special interest groups to have an outsized influence over policy when they individually have a lot at stake while the average voter/taxpayer only suffers a little and far in the future, and you often have unions “capturing” the management side of negotiations. The San Diego School Board is essentially owned by the union, and is a prime example of this, Our students are about to pay the price.

What OWS needs is a message!!

WHAT DO WE WANT !!
A BIGGER PICE OF THE PIE NOW !!
WHAT DO WE WANT !!
HIGHER WAGES NOW !!
WHAT DO WE WANT !!
A BETTER RETIREMENT PLAN NOW !!!
WHAT DO WE WANT !!
EVERYONE GETS A CALPERS ACCOUNT NOW !!

[quote=CA renter]Next, we’ll off-shore all the tech jobs, then the medical services jobs that don’t need to be performed here. Then, we’ll off-shore all our financial services jobs, since there are plenty of people around the world who would gladly do those jobs for a tiny fraction of what our financiers are being paid. Of course, we need to off-shore our legal work. A well-trained attorney in India can do what a lawyer does here for 1/10 of the cost. Best of all, we won’t have to provide health benefits or 401ks or any other kind of benefit for anyone, since there are billions of people around the world who can easily take every single American job and do it for a fraction of the cost!

Life will be grand when every American is working for $10/day!!!! All our problems will be solved![/quote]

That Indian lawyer cant sit down in a room and talk to me about my family and my kids, and take me out for lunch and build my confidence that he can handle my case. So what happens is the smart American firm figures out that the relationship and the complex law can be handled locally, and they can hand off the routine stuff to someone better suited to do the job (in india), with the American continuing to manage the relationship.

I’m no econ major but i think this is standard market economics stuff and is no different than a company in california opening a plant in say ohio because the labour base is cheaper. Or even someone starting their own business and then hiring some part time staff to do work for them because the part time staff work cheaper than they themselves do.

Off shoring jobs is just work going to those best suited to do it. If you dont want to do that then stop exporting anything too – doesnt seem fair to say we can take their jobs but they cant take ours. I always think of the USA as the best example of a place where merit wins, and jobs moving around is just merit winning isnt it?

I’ve been teaching my kids for years that there are no guarrantees. Your job and your paycheque are only as good as the value you deliver today. Yesterday doesnt matter – you already got paid for it. If you want yeaterday to pay you tomorrow then thats up to you and you need to invest in some passive income – otherwise you’d better work hard today and make sure that you are defnding your value for tomorrow. That means providing skills that are unique and in demand.

If you dont someone else will take your job… Whether its your neighbor or a guy in India really doesnt matter – you’re still outof anjob because someone els could do it better.