The Wisconsin Cheese Showdown

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why is it even necessary to run to another state or wherever? Is there some bizarre law in the U.S that means that legislators can be forced to attend? I remember being confused over the Texas thing for the same reason.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Why is it even necessary to run to another state or wherever? Is there some bizarre law in the U.S that means that legislators can be forced to attend? I remember being confused over the Texas thing for the same reason.

Yes.

http://www.slate.com/id/2285532/

"The chief clerk shall immediately call the roll of the members, and note the absentees, whose names shall be read, and entered upon the journal in such manner as to show who are absent with leave and who are absent without leave. The chief clerk shall furnish the sergeant at arms with a list of those who are absent without leave, and the sergeant at arms shall forthwith proceed to find and bring in such absentees."

That is absolutely and utterly insane.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Excessive hyperbole and distort much?

Not particularly; it's the logical end point of a lot of right-wing rhetoric (and, to be fair, theory) regarding public sector workers. Of course most people shy away from taking that kind of thing to its logical conclusion.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Overtime is part of it. They all call in sick (personal days) at the same time, so the place is "understaffed," and overtime needs to be paid. They take turns. They must have a spreadsheet to manage it all. Overtime is particularly toxic, because their bloated defined benefit plan compensation gets a steroidal boost from playing the overtime game. It is really quite a dirty little nest that they inhabit.

Well its great that they can do that, Torie.  Do you propose that no one may be allowed to be ill?  Or that there be the same hourly pay for persons working over the 40 hour week?  People died in the 1930s fighting for these (incredibly meager) rights..  I'd hate to see them go just because your class wants more golden toilet bowls.

The people in the 1930s died for union rights in the private sector. Unfortunately they were undercut by Alabama, Arizona, Oklahoma and Texas. Wake me up when there's a UAW chapter striking at the Hyundai plant.

Which in turn is partially a result of the failure (or the circumstances of the failure) of the 1934 mill strike.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Public sector unions are immoral and they should be abolished.

You believe in morality now?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

BTW, the Rasmussen poll shows Walker tanking among voters with children in schools. That was the Republicans' base--solid, traditional, middle class American families, not unmarrieds. Bad move.

How shocking that parents don't think that schools are dens of depravity.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There is plenty of public choice literature about the phenomenon of rent-seeking.

There's public choice writings on almost everything, but most of us choose not to take that lunacy seriously.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Can someone explain to me why public unions are needed?

For much the same reason trade unions are needed in other industries. To represent the workforce, to defend its rights and to argue on its behalf.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There is plenty of public choice literature about the phenomenon of rent-seeking.

There's public choice writings on almost everything, but most of us choose not to take that lunacy seriously.

Nice argument.

I would write similar things about (for example), post-modernism, woolly leftish theories of all kinds, the cruder kinds of 'Marxism', most contemporary sociological theories and all forms of evolutionary reductionist bollocks. And have, actually.

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What do you mean by 'needed' and what do you mean by 'good'? As a Socialist, I would argue that they are a good thing for the workforce and are thus 'needed'. People with different views might disagree.

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It's not just a matter of 'compensation', but in any case experience would tend to disagree with your assertion, at least up to a point. Public sector concerns are inevitably large and bureaucratic (not a criticism as it isn't possible to run certain things in any other way) making negotiation between an individual worker and management a joke.