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| Map usa unions (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
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| English: Star Tribune Assembly Process. Kiswahili: Star Tribune Mchakato wa uchapishaji. (Photo credit: Wikipedia) |
We were really courted by both sides. The Guild would hold informational meetings at local bars/restaurants and then tell us all the great things the Guild did for the advertising staff at our rival newspaper...The St Paul Pioneer Press.
The newspaper management decided to have a very nice sales contest with the winners going on a trip to Naples, Florida. We also would get more "spiffs" for mini-contests and receive little gifts in the mail promoting out big sales contests. It was nice to get all that special attention. In general, I like union drives because you get a lot of perks when they are happening.
So what happened? Both times the union was voted down. So why did it happen? Well, for one thing, overall, our advertising reps made more money in incentives than the Pioneer Press sales people did. They did have a higher base salary but as a group we didn't feel we would come up any better on the total compensation and then we would have to tie ourselves to a lot of needless rules and regulations. All the reps had a lot of freedom, in many cases to come and go as we chose. We had it good and we just didn't see the upside to less freedom.
I think the Wisconsin recall election was similar in that people just didn't see that is was worth all the effort, time and money to get rid of a governor who was making good on his campaign promises to reduce spending, get out of debt and produce more jobs.
I'm not someone who is anti-union but I do think public sector unions are not a good deal for taxpayers. It's counter productive. On the one hand we demand accountability for government spending to fight waste but then we turn around and give wages and benefits that are better than what most private sector employees get. A government employee should never make more than a private sector employee.
I always feel sad for our schools when they have to go to the voters with a bond referendum. I believe that often times these get voted down for one reason and one reason only. It's the only time that any taxpayer gets a chance to vote on raising their own taxes. It's unfair to the schools. The vote should be about the merits of the spending more education money, not a referendum on taxes. Because tax payers have no say so on taxes, schools are unfairly punished.
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