The Wisconsin Governor does not like unions.

MattDaddy wrote:

First of all where do you get the label of "small government guy" for me? Sterotypes? Generalities?

Second, it is not a non-solution. I already answered that in pointing out the inaccuracies of the article.

Your statement doesn't even make sense. How would someone justify the governement fixing a problem just because they were the ones that created it? Really? So because I'm a supposed "small governemt guy" I should be against the government doing anything at all? Is that the trap you're trying to lay out here?

I dunno, dude, you always seem popping into threads favoring government getting out of things with a heavily conservative bent. That's certainly been your persona in the various gun threads.

Second, no you didn't. You even admitted that stripping worker rights doesn't save money, you said it was about saving on pensions and the like. Seems like perhaps the solution should address that somehow.

I don't know how someone would justify all that. It seems Walker has created this situation for this expressed purpose, and since you support his decisions, I hoped you might address what I perceived as inconsistencies in a polite way, similar to how they were posed. But considering what seems like a very angry and accusatory reply, I shouldn't have bothered. So, carry on.

MattDaddy wrote:

Your statement doesn't even make sense. How would someone justify the governement fixing a problem just because they were the ones that created it? Really? So because I'm a supposed "small governemt guy" I should be against the government doing anything at all? Is that the trap you're trying to lay out here?

You shouldn't be against govt. doing anything at all, but I actually respect people who take on the mantle of being for small government. In fact, I'm frequently one of them. Part of my philosophy, though, is that the govt. should be less interventionist across the board. Stop subsidies to business, especially defense and agribusiness. Stop handing out tax breaks to large corporations and couples who buy a home or have children. End the drug war. Stop fighting vice crimes through legal means in general and instead go after people who directly hurt other people. End the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I think being for small govt. would definitely mean you don't favor a governor who would manufacture a crisis to bust a union. The governor should be focusing on core problems and solving those instead. You can shrink govt. quite a bit before ever touching pensions or unions. They aren't the problem.

I live and work in Wisconsin for a very large business. I work alongside a union (I am salaried, a "company man"), and it's been an interesting day. Most of the union people I've talked to about the issue are not in support of the Democratic legislators that fled the state, and overall they seem to be backing Walker more than anything. I also have several extremely liberal friends, some of whom are teachers, who are vehemently in support of the teacher's union. Overall, however, the public feeling I've gleaned is more in support of Walker.

Anyone that works in the private sector knows that it's been a sh*tty couple of years. We've been hit hard with wage freezes, wage cuts, and severe job reductions. No too many people are saying "If we can't have it, neither should you! nyeah!", but at the same time it's tough to be sympathetic in this case. I've been lucky, but my wife has been unemployed or partially employed for almost four years - I wouldn't mind her taking any full time position!

I'll admit that I'm not completely sure where I stand. In general, I don't really back unions. I don't have a very positive experience with them personally, but I know that not all unions function and operate the same. I've also only interacted with unions in the private sector, where things probably operate differently.

Also, if you want a fun read, check out the comments on any of the stories at jsonline.com. And by fun, I mean infuriating. It's a veritable hive of scum and villainy from both sides.

Michael wrote:

Anyone that works in the private sector knows that it's been a sh*tty couple of years. We've been hit hard with wage freezes, wage cuts, and severe job reductions. No too many people are saying "If we can't have it, neither should you! nyeah!", but at the same time it's tough to be sympathetic in this case. I've been lucky, but my wife has been unemployed or partially employed for almost four years - I wouldn't mind her taking any full time position!

Gorilla.800.lbs wrote:

What I ALSO fail to understand is this sentiment that "the folks in private sector don't have this benefits anymore, so the public sector guys shouldn't either". Ask instead why the American Businesses keep on giving a flimsier and flimsier deal to the American Worker!

Kraint, your quote seems to indicate that you think I take the opinion stated by Gorilla. I think if you my post more closely you would find that to be inaccurate.

Michael wrote:

Anyone that works in the private sector knows that it's been a sh*tty couple of years. We've been hit hard with wage freezes, wage cuts, and severe job reductions. No too many people are saying "If we can't have it, neither should you! nyeah!", but at the same time it's tough to be sympathetic in this case. I've been lucky, but my wife has been unemployed or partially employed for almost four years - I wouldn't mind her taking any full time position!

Just to clarify, it's been a sh*tty couple of years for private sector employees. It *hasn't* been a sh*tty couple of years for executives and investors. Executives continue to be exceptionally well compensated and corporate profits are back at their boom time highs. You know how companies managed that? Wage freezes, wage cuts, and severe job reductions. Hell, when I got laid off last year it wasn't because the company was losing money. It was because our investors wanted 28% profit instead of the 22% we delivered so the only solution was to cut costs, namely a bunch of other folks and me.

Isn't Wisconsin a citizen initiative state? If so, this sort of thing needs to be decided by all state voters, not the whims of a governor.

I completely sympathize with the fact that public employee retirement plans need some serious overhauling. Voters can't afford people retiring at 80% of their final salaries for 20+ years, or situations where employees get to earn their pension AND continue to work. But I'm against completely busting the union to do this.

Michael wrote:

Kraint, your quote seems to indicate that you think I take the opinion stated by Gorilla. I think if you my post more closely you would find that to be inaccurate. :)

Actually, I was noting my agreement with Gorilla that your opinion is surprising to me. He just stated it rather eloquently.

Honestly, I don't get follow the logic that everyone should share the pain. Do you think everyone across the country should take a 10% pay cut because some number of companies are having trouble, regardless of the work they are doing or the profitability/efficiency/success they are having? If one healthcare plan raises premiums, should every other provider raise rates as well? This feels more like sour grapes than any real fiscal policy. I mean, we don't give teachers bonuses when tax income increases unexpectedly, so why should we cut already-negotiated pay and benefits?

OG_slinger wrote:
Michael wrote:

Anyone that works in the private sector knows that it's been a sh*tty couple of years. We've been hit hard with wage freezes, wage cuts, and severe job reductions. No too many people are saying "If we can't have it, neither should you! nyeah!", but at the same time it's tough to be sympathetic in this case. I've been lucky, but my wife has been unemployed or partially employed for almost four years - I wouldn't mind her taking any full time position!

Just to clarify, it's been a sh*tty couple of years for private sector employees. It *hasn't* been a sh*tty couple of years for executives and investors. Executives continue to be exceptionally well compensated and corporate profits are back at their boom time highs. You know how companies managed that? Wage freezes, wage cuts, and severe job reductions. Hell, when I got laid off last year it wasn't because the company was losing money. It was because our investors wanted 28% profit instead of the 22% we delivered so the only solution was to cut costs, namely a bunch of other folks and me.

I'm aware of all that; I read all of our quarterly and annual reports. I'm very sorry that you lost your job - like I said, my wife has fallen victim to similar situations. Even though I'm pretty young perhaps I'm already jaded to the fact that there will always be executives and board members that get paid boat loads of money. Right, wrong, or in indifferent, I'm pretty sure it's always been that way and always will be that way, unions or not.

jdzappa wrote:

Isn't Wisconsin a citizen initiative state? If so, this sort of thing needs to be decided by all state voters, not the whims of a governor.

I completely sympathize with the fact that public employee retirement plans need some serious overhauling. Voters can't afford people retiring at 80% of their final salaries for 20+ years, or situations where employees get to earn their pension AND continue to work. But I'm against completely busting the union to do this.

I have to ask then: why did the government negotiate plans that included retirement pensions like that? The public employees worked for years at a lower salary because they had a better retirement package. Why is it right to retroactively decide their work is less valuable than previously agreed? If you buy something on credit, you still have to pay the full price after the 12-months same-as-cash period.

Now, if you want to open up negotiations with -current- employees, that is another story. But all this talk of cutting current pensioner benefits is legally and ethically a bad idea from what I can tell.

Good post, Heavyfeul. Interesting stuff.

One of my favorite books ever is "The Machine That Changed the World". My interest in it is because I'm a big believer in Agile / Lean for manufacturing and software development. However, the book is also a very interesting case study in what has gone wrong with American auto manufacturing and why.

In short the book makes a compelling case that the Japanese succeeded in large part because they had smart assembly lines that could respond to defects quickly and fix the process causing the defects. In the US they tried to apply this same process and in many cases it failed miserably. Frequently when it failed the reason was that US auto-workers were so concerned about getting written up or criticized that they used the power of the union to push back on process that would draw attention to a process that was causing defects on the assembly line. Better to roll the car off the assembly line riddled with defects and fix it after the fact than risk giving the company an excuse to fire you.

This jives pretty strongly with my experience of unionized public employees. Extreme CYA to the point where people are actually less productive at their jobs and incapable of learning, taking criticism or accepting new methodology.

Heavyfeul and DSGamer, thanks for having some clear and well thought-out posts.

The sheer hatred expressed over unions in some corners is remarkably illogical to me, because unions have (and should continue to) done great things to end deplorable working conditions and get a much fairer deal for workers. There have been abuses of power, corruption, and ungainly bureaucracy built up around some unions, but you can't tar all of them with that brush any more than you can tar all employers with Wal-Mart's mistreatment of some employees.

Here are some pics and video from Madison:
http://www.avclub.com/madison/articl...

We're definitely on the decline. We lose manufacturing jobs to China and tech and services jobs to India. I wonder if I'll see a mass migration out of the United States sometime in my life? Where would we all go though? The USA has only ever had an emphasis in knowing 1 language. We learn Spanish, French and perhaps Italian as second languages, but Romance language countries aren't exactly where the jobs are, the only place growing in the Americas is Brazil and they speak Portuguese.

We live in interesting times.

Kraint wrote:

The sheer hatred expressed over unions in some corners is remarkably illogical to me, because unions have (and should continue to) done great things to end deplorable working conditions and get a much fairer deal for workers.

I agree. Like most progress it's a pendulum, though. It's clearly swung far in the other direction in many companies / organizations. I'm the first to admit that if you wiped out unions tomorrow you could quickly see the return of longer work weeks and other abuses. So I'm by no means for abolishing unions. My experience has simply instructed me that there are definitely times where pushback against unions is not only necessary, but it's the only way for unions to make further progress as unions begin to become seen as a problem and not a remedy.

I honestly don't know how you do that. I know that blatant union busting isn't the answer. However top-heavy unions don't typically respond well to gentle nudges to make change in order to keep up with the rest of the business world.

NathanialG wrote:

Here are some pics and video from Madison:
http://www.avclub.com/madison/articl...

I wonder how many of those people voted for him or, more likely, didn't vote at all.

Dirt wrote:

...the only place growing in the Americas is Brazil and they speak Portuguese.

Portuguese is just Spanish with a different accent, right?

Yeah, that Nummi story on NPR was great. It just so happened that I was reading "The Machine That Changed the World" when that podcast came out. It was a pleasant coincidence as my brain was there already.

I hail from Michigan. My dad, his brothers, and my grandfather...all union guys and I have been in three different unions myself (all very good btw). However, unions have played a significant role in the auto industry's decline and rarely will they cop to that. Union reform is definitely necessary, especially the larger national unions, but it seems like the choice is live with it or abolish it all together. I would like to see some sort of pro union reform movement, where a fair balance can be struck.

Unions, in a sense, are the victims of their own success. They originally were created to reform horrific working conditions after the industrial revolution. Nowadays we have lots of legal protection, thanks to unions, but that makes them less relevant. A lot of them have become top heavy as well, meaning that they are more interested in protecting the interests of the union more so than the interests of the workers they represent. Corruption has always been a problem as well. In Detroit it was the mob who used to provide protection against the company goons and many financial scams have passed through the UAW books.

Anyway...If you compare the wages and benefits of a Japanese car maker's employees in a US plant (non-union) to the unionized American-owned plants, the wages and benefits are not that far off. Employers still want good employees and they will pay a salary that attracts competent individuals or their product will be inferior.

Unions are very communistic (not necessarily bad) when it comes to workers rights (doubt the same applies to the managers/administrators), but that means that you have very little control over your personel...

When I was hired to fix truck rails at a GM truck plant in Detroit, I was paid 15 bucks an hour by the guy who basically brokered the deal on the steel. Some rivet holes were drilled wrong and needed fixing. When the guys I was working with on the line found out I was not UAW, they raised a stink (they got solidarity!). They ended up flying a guy up from Ohio, putting him up in a hotel, and then had me train him how to drill the rails. He got paid 25 bucks an hour. Make any sense to you?

I did get to see, first hand, how poorly Detroit makes cars. The line, as it is run by the big three, is not conducive to zero defects. The Japanese model is far superior and the head guys managing the Japanese lines actually make design decisions. Wow, let the guys who actually build the car tell the engineers where they f*cked up! Detroit ain't into that. Toss it over the wall to the hostile union guys who hate you and never, ever, I mean never, stop the line.

I remember having to stop the line a couple of times. Everyone looked at me like I just took a dump on the floor.

This American life talks about the Japanese model versus the American by looking at the history of the GM/Toyota Nummi plant.

Ira Glass and his team know how to tell a story:
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/radi...

The great experiment that succeeded, but ultimately failed:
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...

My Dad's family still lives in the Detroit area and my uncle is still a radical Union supporter, but a lot of people are turning on the Unions. It may sound elitists, but a lot of normal blue collar folk see these UAW guys (workers and mangers) making tons of money and still asking for more while the entire industry has been collapsing around them for forty years.

My step-mom, a very liberal blue collar gal (we got tons in the Midwest; very different from the West Coast liberals where I live now!), summed it up very nicely, "did these guys really think they could get away with making this much money with barely a high school education?"

And that becomes the tragedy. When a plant closes in a town, the middle class disappears and is never replaced (see Flint, the "welfare city" GM built). When you make that kind of salary and benefits without any skills beyond building cars, you really have no other alternatives except low-paying jobs with no benefits. It becomes a downward spiral into crime and poverty.

If one of the workers at my company (software) losses their job or our team gets shutdown, they have comparable options, because they have college eduction and a widely applicable technical skill (designing software and programming).

EDIT: I'm coming off as anti-union when I am not. We still hate the highly educated buffoons who ran the big three into the ground. I'm just not a knee-jerk liberal. I loved the unions I was part of and they did ensure fair wages and benefits. These were small unions though; less prone to corruption and corporate torpor.

Kraint wrote:
jdzappa wrote:

Isn't Wisconsin a citizen initiative state? If so, this sort of thing needs to be decided by all state voters, not the whims of a governor.

I completely sympathize with the fact that public employee retirement plans need some serious overhauling. Voters can't afford people retiring at 80% of their final salaries for 20+ years, or situations where employees get to earn their pension AND continue to work. But I'm against completely busting the union to do this.

I have to ask then: why did the government negotiate plans that included retirement pensions like that? The public employees worked for years at a lower salary because they had a better retirement package. Why is it right to retroactively decide their work is less valuable than previously agreed? If you buy something on credit, you still have to pay the full price after the 12-months same-as-cash period.

Now, if you want to open up negotiations with -current- employees, that is another story. But all this talk of cutting current pensioner benefits is legally and ethically a bad idea from what I can tell.

Oh, I thought most of this was about negotiating with current employees and their future retirement bennies. Yes, I agree that the state shouldn't go after retired employees, except for perhaps cracking down on any double dippers. With such high unemployment, there's no reason that a retired public employee should be re-entering the state workforce.

I need to listen to the NPR podcasts on the Japanese versus the American models. I will say though as a guy who lived for several years in Japan that Japanese society is far more egalitarian compared to American society in terms of worker compensation. CEOs do not make 400 times what the average guy on the floor makes, and there's a far greater emphasis on social harmony. There are some major drawbacks to that model, including the fact that seniority completely trumps talent or initiative. But the problem I see is that American companies want to move to the Japanese model of no unions without also adopting the model where companies have some loyalty and appreciation for all their workers, not just the top guys.

DSGamer wrote:

http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/02/18/wisconsins_budget_woes_are_real

This is interesting if true. I have no reason to believe it isn't as Medicaid shortfalls in states have been in the news for a while. What it would mean in terms of what's happening right now in Wisconsin, though, is this. The Governor is passing tax cuts in bad faith to try and force a fake budget crisis. The public employees union is protesting to protect their pensions that they earned.

Meanwhile the real problem isn't the relatively small tax cuts recently passed or the pensions, but actually Wisconsin's Medicaid obligations. So we have two parties fighting over fake causes while completely ignoring the train coming down the tracks. I understand why public employees don't want to be bullied into losing their pensions over this. And I think it's reprehensible for govt. officials to create a crisis to bust the unions. However, it's even more tragic when there's a real crisis coming.

Where do you get the lie that they are losing their pensions? All he's asking is for them to contribute some of their own salary towards it.

SpacePPoliceman wrote:
MattDaddy wrote:

First of all where do you get the label of "small government guy" for me? Sterotypes? Generalities?

Second, it is not a non-solution. I already answered that in pointing out the inaccuracies of the article.

Your statement doesn't even make sense. How would someone justify the governement fixing a problem just because they were the ones that created it? Really? So because I'm a supposed "small governemt guy" I should be against the government doing anything at all? Is that the trap you're trying to lay out here?

I dunno, dude, you always seem popping into threads favoring government getting out of things with a heavily conservative bent. That's certainly been your persona in the various gun threads.

Second, no you didn't. You even admitted that stripping worker rights doesn't save money, you said it was about saving on pensions and the like. Seems like perhaps the solution should address that somehow.

I don't know how someone would justify all that. It seems Walker has created this situation for this expressed purpose, and since you support his decisions, I hoped you might address what I perceived as inconsistencies in a polite way, similar to how they were posed. But considering what seems like a very angry and accusatory reply, I shouldn't have bothered. So, carry on.

You sure you're talking to the right person? What gun threads have I always been in? I recall maybe one that I posted in.

The solution DOES address saving money on pension costs. I made that clear. I also said that taking away these rights by itself *may* not save money. I didn't say it definitely didn't. I also stated that wasn't simply taking workers rights away. In fact, they would still have the ability to collectively bargain salaries.

He didn't create this situation. Take a look at the links I posted earlier. The financial issues are real. This is one piece of addressing them.

Kraint wrote:

This feels more like sour grapes than any real fiscal policy. I mean, we don't give teachers bonuses when tax income increases unexpectedly, so why should we cut already-negotiated pay and benefits?

I believe that this is for the upcoming labor deal, not going back on what was already in the current contract. The contract runs out soon what I recall. Right before Walker took office, the unions were trying to push through a very favorable (for the union) deal with the outgoing Governor Doyle. The democrats, who still had all the majorities at the time, didn't go for it out of fear of taxpayer backlash. Funny that no one was upset about the union trying to ram something through quick without debate a couple months ago.

MattDaddy wrote:
DSGamer wrote:

http://www.salon.com/news/budget_showdown/index.html?story=/tech/htww/2011/02/18/wisconsins_budget_woes_are_real

This is interesting if true. I have no reason to believe it isn't as Medicaid shortfalls in states have been in the news for a while. What it would mean in terms of what's happening right now in Wisconsin, though, is this. The Governor is passing tax cuts in bad faith to try and force a fake budget crisis. The public employees union is protesting to protect their pensions that they earned.

Meanwhile the real problem isn't the relatively small tax cuts recently passed or the pensions, but actually Wisconsin's Medicaid obligations. So we have two parties fighting over fake causes while completely ignoring the train coming down the tracks. I understand why public employees don't want to be bullied into losing their pensions over this. And I think it's reprehensible for govt. officials to create a crisis to bust the unions. However, it's even more tragic when there's a real crisis coming.

Where do you get the lie that they are losing their pensions? All he's asking is for them to contribute some of their own salary towards it.

#1 - I was implying that public employees are concerned about the bigger picture. That bigger picture being that states would like to default on their pension obligations. Something that's been talked about in the news a lot recently and I mentioned earlier.

#2 - Learn what the definition of a "lie" is. That was just my supposition about what this fight is about. Not a statement of fact.

#3 - You might want to reconsider saying someone is a liar. It doesn't generally make people want to debate you.

Kraint wrote:
Michael wrote:

Kraint, your quote seems to indicate that you think I take the opinion stated by Gorilla. I think if you my post more closely you would find that to be inaccurate. :)

Actually, I was noting my agreement with Gorilla that your opinion is surprising to me. He just stated it rather eloquently.

Honestly, I don't get follow the logic that everyone should share the pain. Do you think everyone across the country should take a 10% pay cut because some number of companies are having trouble, regardless of the work they are doing or the profitability/efficiency/success they are having? If one healthcare plan raises premiums, should every other provider raise rates as well? This feels more like sour grapes than any real fiscal policy. I mean, we don't give teachers bonuses when tax income increases unexpectedly, so why should we cut already-negotiated pay and benefits?

Hmm, maybe I'm not phrasing my point of view very well. Again, I don't subscribe to the "share the pain" viewpoint, and agree that it's sour grapes/petty/not very nice to say 'I got the shaft, so should you!'

The issue here (for me) is twofold:

* Revoking the right of public employees to unionize or negotiate collectively over working conditions - regardless of your experiences or feelings about unions, the option for to workers to unionize and engage in collective bargaining is an important one, and not one that should be removed by fiat. Union representatives have been saying all along (and many of them reiterated today) that they are willing to discuss financial changes as part of a comprehensive budget fix.
* Threatening to deploy the National Guard against citizens exercising their right to peaceably assemble is unacceptable.

Wisconsin, like pretty much everywhere, has a lot of difficult decisions to make in the coming years. There will be painful cuts and higher taxes. I feel that the cuts should be structured so they have the least impact on the people most in need, and that the tax burden be structured so that the people most able to afford it are paying a larger percentage. I know some folks have different opinions about where those lines should be drawn, and I think there is room for reasonable disagreement and discussion.

But the reason I'm down on the capitol is that our brand-new Governor (who won with 52% of the vote) is acting in a manner more suitable to a petty tyrant than an elected official of a state I'm proud to call home.

Dimmerswitch wrote:

* Threatening to deploy the National Guard against citizens exercising their right to peaceably assemble is unacceptable.

I think this part of it is getting hyped up a bit much.

We asked the progressive committee for evidence to back its claim that Walker threatened to summon the National Guard in response to protests.

It cited three Feb. 11 news stories:

Milwaukee public radio station WUWM-FM reported that "if there is worker unrest, Walker says the Wisconsin National Guard is prepared to respond" and that Walker said the Guard is prepared "for any problems with workers."
The Associated Press reported that Walker said the Guard "is prepared to respond if there is any unrest among state employees."
Milwaukee-based Biz Times Daily reported that Walker said he "is prepared to call in the Wisconsin National Guard to respond if there is any unrest among state employees.
None of those reports quoted Walker directly, so let’s see what he actually said at the news conference where he announced his proposals.

Walker made reference to having made contingency plans and was asked by a reporter whether they included the National Guard.

"In state government, we have had, before I’ve taken office, plans for contingencies no matter what the circumstances. We have updated those," Walker said. "I got a full briefing from all the major, level-one state agencies as well as the
the National Guard yesterday (Feb. 10). We are fully prepared and equipped to handle whatever may occur. So we have every confidence we can move forward on that.

"But again, you plan for the worst, you expect the best. And I expect from the good men and women who work for state and local government that they’re going to continue to do the good, professional job they do each and every day."

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/...

DSGamer wrote:

#1 - I was implying that public employees are concerned about the bigger picture. That bigger picture being that states would like to default on their pension obligations. Something that's been talked about in the news a lot recently and I mentioned earlier.

#2 - Learn what the definition of a "lie" is. That was just my supposition about what this fight is about. Not a statement of fact.

#3 - You might want to reconsider saying someone is a liar. It doesn't generally make people want to debate you.

I wasn't trying to call you a liar. I called it a lie because they are not losing their pensions. I asked where you got it from, because it sounded like this was something you heard or read. Sorry for the poor choice of a word there.

Our state does not want to default on it's obligations. If we did, then we wouldn't be looking for ways to fix the budget. I have never heard defaulting mentioned as an option for Wisconsin at all.

Fair enough - I'd read the AP piece. That's disappointing and misleading reporting on their part.

I still think the attempt to ram through bad legislation without any discussion or debate is a very poor example of governance. Governor Walker hardly has a mandate from the voters, and based on his behavior so far I'd be surprised if there isn't a recall election next year.

My take on unions is this: There are serious problems with specific unions--and particularly as a union ages, corruption and cronyism can set in pretty easily, and that's bad. But that's a problem with *specific unions*. Unfortunately, a lot of people seem to extend that from "there are bad unions" to "unions are bad", and that's a travesty. (Actually, it's slightly worse than that: even a "bad union" has a lot of good people in it, and does some good things.)

Unfortunately, I've never really figured out what form a solution might take. It's important that workers should be able to organize, particularly in scenarios where the prestige of their positions is far lower than the responsibility of the positions--that's the kind of scenario where the people on the ground ought to have the clout to push back at management when safety becomes an issue. And it's important that workers should be able to strike--because that's the primary threat they have available to say "Hey, no, we're really not kidding."

I'm just not sure what kinds of constraints you can put on unions as organizations that could help prevent abuses by the unions without neutering them when they do have an important role to play.