Friend_Of_Haley wrote:I'm biased as I was raised by a father who was in a union (firefighter) and my wife is part of the teachers union.
But its also largely a choice of our country to not prioritize labors/unions. Elsewhere in the developed world union rates are much better off and they prioritize it. Maybe there's something structurally different about our unions in the USA where that balance you described was not historically met, I don't know. But the past 20 years or so, the right has really turned on unions and actively sought measures to weaken them.
As far as education goes and privatization, are you basically referring to a total sell off to the charter school model?
Maybe that will be the path, though for what its worth, charter schools are now seeing teachers unionize I think. Obviously they'll have to go a while to negotiate back up wages and benefits to prior levels, but as long as the source for education is overwhelmingly at the local level, its a ripe situation for large increases because people are more willing to pay more taxes when they stay so local. I guess the only difference is that the pensions (if the new union negotiates one) may then be funded locally instead of at the state level with TRS - which is basically what police and fire pensions are now, and most of those are similarly way underfunded.
The unions have, in part, been very successful at taking care of their people. But it's come at a cost, and now these roles many times are set for a better life after their career ends, often early (many firefighters can retire at 55 for instance). As the population grows, we require more of these which only adds to our burden.
If I remember right, the last big pension that I remember being cancelled was United Airlines. The cost of these things at scale grows above and beyond. When United grew and grew its employee base it could no longer keep up with a pension system. And it is understandable. Without a hard cap on pension benefits (i.e. a maximum salary that they can receive), with guaranteed raises that others don't get, etc., it's spiraled. And there are currently around 150k teachers state wide. That doesn't go with how many are retired, that's active (it was about 136k in 2013). That's just not sustainable without taxing and taxing and taxing.
It used to be that teachers weren't paid as much and that was the reason for the pension. But that isn't the case in a lot of areas. You've got a lot of teachers/admins making in the 6 figure range that a lot of workers aren't getting to. And they're not having to fund their pensions themselves.
It's kind of like a blank check. I just don't know how we continue to let it go.