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+--- Thread: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? (/showthread.php?tid=18728)
Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - MarkD - 09-05-2017
Anyone tired of those HGEA commercials running all the time? I sure as heck am. Promoting all those great government employee benefits.
21 days vacation and 21 days sick, and 12-14 paid holidays/year. (paid Time off comes to about 1 week/month) HMSA PPO, Kaiser, or HMA health insurance. HDS dental. 457 deferred compensation account. Pension eligible after 7 to 10 years of civil service.
I am no raving socialist, but how about the folks working at Walmart or Cafe 100? Or Ace Hardware or any other businesses that make up our community? Think they’d like a few more days off? More sick leave? Some more health insurance benefits? IMO, their employers probably give them what they can, based on the realities of the marketplace.
But government employee compensation? Just bill the taxpayer.
http://assets.grassrootinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/The-Costs-of-Public-Employment-in-the-Aloha-State-1.pdf
A growing trend is that rich people are a little less overt about their wealth, especially when they travel to poor neighborhoods. I’m no a big supporter of class warfare; people rich or poor should just about their business. Don’t project either your good fortune or your poor fortune on others.
Does everyone in Hawaii who struggles to make a living need to see HGEA's pomposity on their TVs every day? Is there a recruiting drive? Short on government employees, are we?
http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/2017/02/hawaii-public-employee-benefits-rise-5-times-faster-than-in-private-sector/
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - kalakoa - 09-05-2017
But government employee compensation? Just bill the taxpayer.
Well, yes. There is no other choice.
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - terracore - 09-05-2017
http://www.grassrootinstitute.org/2017/01/state-pension-debt-rises-to-12-billion-but-the-real-debt-is-even-bigger/
Unfunded pension liabilities in Hawaii is 35 billion dollars. HNL will look like a Detroit but with palm trees eventually. At least it will have a rail system to nowhere.
"In total, this translates to $24,544 of tax money that will be taken from every man, woman and child in the state...Keep in mind that the pension debt doesn’t even include the unfunded liabilities for health benefits for retirees. State calculations currently show an additional $11 billion unfunded liability for the state retiree health benefits fund."
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - MarkD - 09-05-2017
But government employee compensation? Just bill the taxpayer.
Well, yes. There is no other choice.
I see you elect to withhold a value judgment. (I will not speculate on your site of employment.)
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - EightFingers - 09-05-2017
At one time, unions had their place, now not so much. Unionized Heath care is very scary. Just wait till you have an emergency and all the anesthesiologists are on strike. "yes, you can have the surgery, but it may be a little uncomfortable."
Socialism is great till you run out of other people's money.
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - kalakoa - 09-05-2017
you elect to withhold a value judgment
Hawaii government is a corrupt bloated pig that can sometimes wear lipstick and perfume while screaming about the need for tax increases.
See how the value judgement doesn't stop rail? It's hard not to care, but I will find a way.
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - MarkD - 09-05-2017
At one time, unions had their place, now not so much.
Well, not quite the case with Hawaii, where government employee unions funnel a disproportionate share of tax revenues for the benefit of their members.
The Hawaii Government Employees Association is Hawaii’s largest union with nearly 43,000 members statewide...Public state and county employees are divided into 14 collective bargaining units and HGEA has exclusive representation of eight of these units. HGEA also services a large Associate membership, composed primarily of retirees, other state/county employees & officials and federal & private sector employees.
HGEA organizes and coordinates a wide range of legislative and political action activities.
No doubt about that. As in lobbying.
HGEA provides benefits that go beyond what is required under collective bargaining. These benefits complement the union's services, and are designed to enhance the member's personal needs on the job and at home.
What exactly is to "enhance" someone "needs"? Don't you fulfill someone needs? Oh, that's right, if you work for Hawaii government you get to have your needs enhanced. (I need a bigger house.)
https://www.hgea.org/our-union/
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - HereOnThePrimalEdge - 09-05-2017
Hawaii government is a corrupt bloated pig
And so nothing can be done, because as noted under the Sacred Pig topic recently, pigs, (and although not specified, I assume it includes corrupt bloated pigs) are objects of devotion and worship in the islands.
The Donner Party really wasn't that great of a party, was it?
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - kalakoa - 09-05-2017
government employee unions funnel a disproportionate share of tax revenues for the benefit of their members
Government is one of the few local industries, and it doesn't even have to pretend to compete.
RE: Give your Union a Shaka! How about a finger? - terracore - 09-05-2017
Unions served a vital purpose, had Karl Marx envisioned their successes getting labor laws legislated he might have wrote his manifesto differently. But now they are just big tax-exempt businesses that have pushed the majority of US manufacturing offshore and left big open-pit cesspools (Detroit) where the cradle of the US industrial complex used to exist. Eventually they will bankrupt governments the same way they pushed US manufacturing out of this country. If it wasn't for their self-serving interests labor unions would have been a footnote in history.
"Union leaders earned an average salary of $252,370 in 2016, according to a new report from the Center for Union Facts. The center compiled salary information from federal labor filings from 192 of the largest national, state, and local unions. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, business leaders only earned an average of $194,350 — almost $60,000 less than union bosses, the Washington Free Beacon's Bill McMorris reported."
https://pjmedia.com/trending/2017/05/16/union-bosses-make-more-money-than-private-sector-ceos/