Adventures in economic juggling
Oct. 11th, 2011 02:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
veronica_richA couple of thoughts regarding these states cutting public employees' rights to negotiate their benefits and salaries:
A friend who used to work both for and against union shops in a marketing/PR/advertising capacity told me many, many years ago that the workers she dealt with in each job did not organize primarily because they wanted a bigger paycheck. They did it because they did not feel respected in their jobs. Which makes sense, because union negotiations don't always lead to significantly higher pay or benefits - there are almost always concessions and/or losses. I saw that for many years, as the daughter of a UAW factory worker. But the workers like to feel they have been involved in the process, that their representation contributed somehow to the end result (and - getting a little more out of the bosses never hurt, either). So for a governor or legislator to say they're putting an end to collective bargaining rights really has very little, if anything, to do with saving money. Like efforts to outlaw abortion access or restrict birth control, or strengthen the rights of corporations as legal persons, or cut back on publicly funded education, it's another effort to minimalize and marginalize the value of the individual in our society.
Cheap, plentiful, uneducated, unquestioning labor makes corporations happy + no actual difference in the price to be charged to the consumer + voting the way the corporation wants = more premiums and donations for legislators and officeholders, whether in the form of gifts, campaign contributions, stock, jobs for self or relatives, you name it. It's a formula for communism (which I feel like is an ultimately failed kind of government, but it IS frequently a successful backlash against greed at the top, at least for 2-4 generations) or for leaders getting their heads chopped off. At least according to a few thousand years of recorded history, that is.
Second thought, and I'll admit at the outset I'm not solidly certain of how draw-down money is accounted in a state's General Fund - in other words, if it shows as part of the overall budget each year, or if it's set off to the side and "forgotten about" for purposes of annual budgeting functions. I had read that a record number of Wisconsin's public employees - teachers, etc. - were retiring or taking an early-out this year, effectively resigning, over the collective bargaining law the Republican enacted. As in, more than in any other single year, more than in some multiple years combined. So here's my thought: Do they receive a draw-down or similar bulk payment when leaving their jobs, like employees in at least some (if not all) other states can? By "draw-down," I don't mean pension funds and I don't mean 401(k) funds. I mean, both my mother and sister worked for another state (not Wisconsin) and were able, through the state, to put aside a little money from each paycheck into a draw-down fund (I don't know if the state put any in or not - I think so, but I wouldn't swear to it). Point is, when Mom retired, she collected tens of thousands of dollars from the fund; she'd been employed for over 30 years. When my sister resigned - not retired, but quit - after 6 years, even she collected a certain amount, though obviously nowhere nearly as much as Mom had. (You have to pay a big tax on these, BTW, sort of like emptying an IRA before age 59.)
MY POINT BEING - I don't know where this money is held or invested, but since it can be liquidated at an employee's choosing, I would think the state is holding it somewhere rather than investing in some scheme. And if that's the case, and the state assumes only a certain number of people per year will be asking for their liquidation, would so many employees retiring/leaving all at one time cut into the actual state spending budget for that year? For example, if you employ 1,000 people and each person has this "draw-down" savings, and you expect that each year 50 people will retire/leave, would you spend out of the other 950 people's draw-down in your budget and refill it with revenue as you receive it (in the case of a state, tax money)? And then if 150 people left one year instead of 50, would that extra 100 people's liquidation of their cash in your system affect your ability to spend/invest?
The reason I bring this up is because Wisconsin Republicans are touting how much money this collective bargaining abolition is saving the state. But is it, really, at least in the short term? (And even the long term? What about studies that link decreased access to/quality of education to later prison populations and welfare rolls?)
These are the things I think about on my lunch hour. /shrug
A friend who used to work both for and against union shops in a marketing/PR/advertising capacity told me many, many years ago that the workers she dealt with in each job did not organize primarily because they wanted a bigger paycheck. They did it because they did not feel respected in their jobs. Which makes sense, because union negotiations don't always lead to significantly higher pay or benefits - there are almost always concessions and/or losses. I saw that for many years, as the daughter of a UAW factory worker. But the workers like to feel they have been involved in the process, that their representation contributed somehow to the end result (and - getting a little more out of the bosses never hurt, either). So for a governor or legislator to say they're putting an end to collective bargaining rights really has very little, if anything, to do with saving money. Like efforts to outlaw abortion access or restrict birth control, or strengthen the rights of corporations as legal persons, or cut back on publicly funded education, it's another effort to minimalize and marginalize the value of the individual in our society.
Cheap, plentiful, uneducated, unquestioning labor makes corporations happy + no actual difference in the price to be charged to the consumer + voting the way the corporation wants = more premiums and donations for legislators and officeholders, whether in the form of gifts, campaign contributions, stock, jobs for self or relatives, you name it. It's a formula for communism (which I feel like is an ultimately failed kind of government, but it IS frequently a successful backlash against greed at the top, at least for 2-4 generations) or for leaders getting their heads chopped off. At least according to a few thousand years of recorded history, that is.
Second thought, and I'll admit at the outset I'm not solidly certain of how draw-down money is accounted in a state's General Fund - in other words, if it shows as part of the overall budget each year, or if it's set off to the side and "forgotten about" for purposes of annual budgeting functions. I had read that a record number of Wisconsin's public employees - teachers, etc. - were retiring or taking an early-out this year, effectively resigning, over the collective bargaining law the Republican enacted. As in, more than in any other single year, more than in some multiple years combined. So here's my thought: Do they receive a draw-down or similar bulk payment when leaving their jobs, like employees in at least some (if not all) other states can? By "draw-down," I don't mean pension funds and I don't mean 401(k) funds. I mean, both my mother and sister worked for another state (not Wisconsin) and were able, through the state, to put aside a little money from each paycheck into a draw-down fund (I don't know if the state put any in or not - I think so, but I wouldn't swear to it). Point is, when Mom retired, she collected tens of thousands of dollars from the fund; she'd been employed for over 30 years. When my sister resigned - not retired, but quit - after 6 years, even she collected a certain amount, though obviously nowhere nearly as much as Mom had. (You have to pay a big tax on these, BTW, sort of like emptying an IRA before age 59.)
MY POINT BEING - I don't know where this money is held or invested, but since it can be liquidated at an employee's choosing, I would think the state is holding it somewhere rather than investing in some scheme. And if that's the case, and the state assumes only a certain number of people per year will be asking for their liquidation, would so many employees retiring/leaving all at one time cut into the actual state spending budget for that year? For example, if you employ 1,000 people and each person has this "draw-down" savings, and you expect that each year 50 people will retire/leave, would you spend out of the other 950 people's draw-down in your budget and refill it with revenue as you receive it (in the case of a state, tax money)? And then if 150 people left one year instead of 50, would that extra 100 people's liquidation of their cash in your system affect your ability to spend/invest?
The reason I bring this up is because Wisconsin Republicans are touting how much money this collective bargaining abolition is saving the state. But is it, really, at least in the short term? (And even the long term? What about studies that link decreased access to/quality of education to later prison populations and welfare rolls?)
These are the things I think about on my lunch hour. /shrug
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no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 07:08 pm (UTC)State employees get to keep their sick leave, but that's it.
Or we got to, before Walker & his cronies started taking our rights away. I'm not sure how my former fellow employees are doing now, though.
no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 07:29 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 09:27 pm (UTC)Are you going to post there about the Mississippi Idiothood thing?
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 11:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-11 08:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 12:34 am (UTC)http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/bloomberg-investigation-alleges-koch-subsidiaries-paid-bribes-sold-190408559.html
no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 02:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-10-12 09:29 pm (UTC)