Collective Bargaining

The State of Ohio is looking at doing some union busting. Governor John Kasich has made it a priority & Senator Shannon Jones has introduced legislation to the same end. They want to end collective bargaining for some unionized employees (teachers) & binding arbitration for others (police).
Approximately 36% of public jobs are unionized while only 7% of private jobs are unionized. Why? First off I would guess that private companies usually employ fewer people and, with under 25 employees in a business, why bother with organizing the labor? Simply looking at employees v businesses, the average comes out to only 16 employees/employer. With a small number of employees a manager or business owner can be somewhat intimate with his workforce & labor / management can have a fairly open dialogue.
With governments, you are dealing with levels of bureaucratic administration an a much higher number of employees. The police force of Cincinnati consists of over 1,000 employees. Getting a dialogue going between labor & management pretty much requires using proxy type representatives.
So who's to blame for the contract agreements that cannot be paid for?
In this most recent case, good bit of blame could fall on "Wall Street", but that's a whole 'nother story.
Wild and lavish contracts are awarded to unions with no respect to reality. Is that the fault of the unions asking? Cincinnati recently awarded the fire fighters a contract & within months, asked for concessions. Seems to me the people to blame are the administration's negotiators. granted, the union leaders should poke their heads up once in awhile & take a look at the real world.....
A lot of the union busting going on right now appears to be neo-conservative reactionist vindictiveness. Their brunt of their assault on teachers & lower paid workers v. their relative slack on police & fire is telling. Shannon Jones' bill is scattershot, and unfocussed. Her introduction of the bill can be found here. Her shrill & defensive explanation on Newsmakers on 2/13 can be found here. (Her segment is the 2nd one & I don't know how to link to it directly - sorry)
Is killing collective bargaining guaranteed to save us? David Pepper cites states that don't allow collective bargaining, Arizona, Nevada & North Carolina, have worse deficits than Ohio. Again, the administrations have to be held accountable.
Cincinnati's contracts with the police unions allows for massive numbers of sick days but doesn't provide short term disability. These guys have dangerous jobs and are prone to injury. We absolutely should take care of them when they are hurt. The way this is set up, tho, promotes the officers to tough out injuries and save their sick days which can accrue over their entire career and be cashed in upon retirement in a lump payout. Not only is this possibly bad for the officers health, he an save sick days from his first year on the job & cash them out on retirement at a much higher rate of pay. With his pension guaranteed for life & the possible debilitating health problems caused by not properly treating injuries over the years, the city is on the hook for millions of dollars and huge one time payments that screw up the city's cash flow. Fishwrap source
Who agrees to these contracts? I can't believe I had to applaud the city for not giving the unions their requested free pet insurance.
Todd Portune blames city and county woes on unfunded mandates by state & federal governments. Of course, Hamilton County is on the hook for a stadium deal made with an under-achiever.
The problem is not exactly with the unions, even tho their requests are frequently childish and unrealistic. The elected officials & their administrations need to show leadership - not throw temper tantrums.

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