unions should not be able to negotiate against the collective will of the people and seniority based leveling has been a disaster for the government in the US, at least.
You cannot ultimately chain people to their desks. What you either get is a "soft" withdrawal of labour (people refuse to take the job if they have any other choice available, as we're discussing upthread, so you get dregs), or the whole thing explodes into "illegal" strikes. Which are harder to resolve, because you made sure there's no one organisation to negotiate with.
the US has at-will employment, save it with the hyperbole. There are plenty of non-unionized jobs people would love to have.
Collective bargaining against private actors is fine. There should be no collective bargaining against the democratic will of the people, any more than some random group of federal workers has veto power over law passed bu congress. It is simply not how democracy works.
Poppycock. Being able to collectively bargain against the government is more than legal, it should be encouraged.
They don't have veto power over Congress, it's about allowing workers to dictate the terms they seem fair for themselves against the US government. If Congress and the executive branch can't agree with labor terms with workers at the table, that's bad.
Not having unionized federal workers is way way way worse.
One thing I am curious about, how do you feel about police unions?
If you just want to talk about outcomes, there are a number of studies showing the negative impact public sector unions have on outcomes - for instance there is clear research causally linking union penetration in school districts to decline in student outcomes in Wisconsin. [0]
> One thing I am curious about, how do you feel about police unions?
Not everyone fits into two political buckets. I am extremely anti for the reasons above as well as additional reasons particular to police unions. I also favor big tax hikes, banning guns, and higher spending on housing subsidy, snap, etc.
I just also think governments should be capable, student outcomes are important, the interest of voters are greater than that of govt employees, etc.
No you see only capital is allowed to bargain with the government, labor is not allowed to for "reasons" that somehow always seem to benefit capital at their expense.
It's way easier to understand when they just want to attack labor and absolve capital, it really is that simple for 99% of the discourse you read online.
The protections offered to unions goes far beyond standard freedom of association. Generally I think that is okay, but not in the case of public unions.
I think you may be misunderstanding. The right to join a union is the right to association. Right to association is not something provided by a union. In other words, you have a right to collectively bargain for certain working conditions and that is guaranteed by the 1st amendment.
Many of the administrative actions, through the purging of 200k employees, are preventing activities that are required to be done by law from being done.
I agree it’s unreasonable that you’re being downvoted. I disagree strongly with your position, but you’re expressing it in a completely appropriate manner.
> There are plenty of non-unionized jobs people would love to have.
That makes it easy for people to leave the government.
The question you should be asking is: are there enough people who are sufficiently competent to take on the government roles?
Case study where the workers had less power than expected: Reagan vs. air traffic controllers.
Case studies where the government had less power than expected: Every coup ever, UK's Winter of Discontent (even if the long-term result was electorate going for Thatcher who gutted the unions), Polish Solidarity Movement.
