Frequently the markets are not liquid enough to support an ideal model and workers are faced with organized employers. Autoworkers, Truck Drivers, Miners and the like have used organized confrontation to carve out a more equitable deal against these frequently state supported oligopolies. Wouldn't you agree that in certain industries and within certain timeframes Unions have value? I just don't think that's true now regarding the Teacher's unions and Longshoreman. And I certainly don't think Sizemore is heading for sainthood but we should all fear the tactics used to bring him ( and Washington's tax activist ) down. http://news.statesmanjournal.com/article.cfm?i=49304 (the latest) Educational spending http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/budget-ed.htm http://oregonmag.com/Steve&Natalie.htm StateBudget spending http://www.oregonwatchdog.com/allfunds.htm PERS is not a going concern ( even if you won't admit that you can't payout more then you take in ) http://www.pers.state.or.us/NewsRelease/new%20release%20PDF%20files/Replacem entRatio.pdf -----Original Message----- From: Crispin Cowan [mailto:crispin@private] Sent: Monday, October 07, 2002 11:22 AM To: Gunderson_Dane Cc: sugahara@private; crime@private Subject: Re: CRIME Dockworker lockout- OT Gunderson_Dane wrote: > I am a Union Member and come from a family of Teachers obligated to >be union members and can tell you from personal experience that Unions have >a useful life cycle dependent on the maturity of the industry. If excessive >profits are to be made within an industry unions can help protect workers >and grow a community with 'fair' wages that often are above what the market >might provide. > There is nothing "fair" about extorting wages above what the market might provide. That is exactly the kind of distortion that leads to crippling inflation. If excessive profits are being made, the market's natural response is to breed competitors, who drive the price down to commodity levels. If unions pre-emptorily drive the wages for workers in that class up, then commoditization becomes more difficult, and consumers end up paying inflated prices for a very long time. > But... within the current Oregon economy you can see demonstrated >the exploitive diversion of tax dollars to the teacher's unions through >obligatory dues that fund politically self destructive ends. Evidence? In >a state with 8% unemployment, with an educational budget that doubled in 8 >years, with PERS revealed to be a complex ponzi scheme how does the media >portray a multi billion dollar increase in the educational budget? They use >the word 'cuts'... because the Teachers' unions wanted even more... > I'm relatively new to Oregon (8 years) and I still find the Oregon education budget confusing. During the boom years of the late 1990s, when the economy was roaring and the State's revenues should have been overflowing, the education system was in a budget crisis. I read in the paper about budget cuts, and Dane claims that it is actually a substantial increase that just isn't as large as the teacher's union would like it. Can someone tell me what is actually going on here? > And... both Oregon and Washington have allowed Teacher's unions >lawsuits to drive out of business anti-tax activists. Allowing people to >have a say by 'voting' so offends the teacher's unions they attacked with >lawsuits the initiative creator, created an action group called the >VEP(Voters Education Project) to misrepresent the initiatives and use 'dirty >tricks' to discredit the initiatives and with the support of other PERS > Hmmm, perhaps. But Seizmore had his own bag of dirty tricks, and from my personal arm chair, there's more dirt on Seizmore than on the Teacher's Union (Crispin sides with a union: you saw it here first :) Crispin -- Crispin Cowan, Ph.D. Chief Scientist, WireX http://wirex.com/~crispin/ Security Hardened Linux Distribution: http://immunix.org Available for purchase: http://wirex.com/Products/Immunix/purchase.html
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