(July 19, 2015 at 6:44 pm)Mr.wizard Wrote:(July 19, 2015 at 5:02 pm)Lek Wrote: In California and other states the cost of public employee retirement payouts is higher than the pension funds can cover. In California this results in money being taken from the general fund to make up the difference. This issue has helped bring some cites to bankruptcy and has become a major item of concern in the state. Unions have resulted in much good for workers over time, but they also were a huge factor in damaging the US steel and auto industries. Walker didn't end the unions and has probably saved public employee pensions, rather than losing them through bankruptcy.
That's bullshit about unions damaging auto and steel. Unions are the reason that America's middle class grew at the rate it did and gave consumers the buying power that made those industries grow into what they where. Those industries along with the rest of the manufacturing sector fell victim to outsourcing and globalization.
You're right that unions were instrumental in the growth of the American middle class, but by the mid 70s they were striking to obtain wages equivalent to college-educated professionals, and cushy pensions, just for standing on an assembly line and performing simple repetitive tasks. At the same time they were making crappy cars while the Japanese were making better quality cars at lower prices. The same with the steel industry. To this day, these industries are still struggling to finance the pensions obtained by the unions back then. I worked in a steel mill the summer before I started college and, though I did some some hard work, I also spent spent more than a few workdays trying to look busy because I was assigned to some "do nothing" position that wasn't needed, but was required by the labor contract. The fact is that the big unions had gotten out of control. The pendulum had swung too far.
