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by AdamN·1y ago·view on hn ↗
Reagan fired the ATCs when they tried to assert their rights - can't be good if they think they may be the next in line for DOGEing.
1 comments
> when they tried to assert their rights

That's an interesting way of phrasing going on an illegal strike which they agreed not to do as part of their employment contract.

The fact that a strike can be illegal is, in and of itself, an erosion of worker rights.
unpopular opinion - but public workers should not be able to go on strike, and in fact shouldn't even be allowed to unionize. it's antithetical to democracy. they should simply run for office and change things, not hold taxpayers' services hostage.

unions make sense for private organizations because private organizations are effectively authoritarian entities, not democracies. there is no mechanism in which you could actually "vote" anyone out or establish a leadership position by virtue of popular support, and most importantly there's no constituency to air grievances to

The people in federal workers unions aren't in elected positions, no country or government anywhere has voters weigh in on every clerk, office manager, etc.... They're just jobs, no one votes for them beyond in some cases voting for the head of their agencies but more often by voting for the people that will select the agency heads.
That’s a good point against unionization for government employees.

But anti-union is against the right to assemble, and any law requiring an individual to work goes against some very basic freedoms (self-determination, slavery?)

Let’s not make stripping away of freedoms a common thing that employers, government or private, can do. Rights are rights.

There's a very obvious error in your reasoning: the relationship between public worker and the government is a relationship between an employer and an employee, not between a government and the governed. Why shouldn't such workers be extended the same rights as others?

there is no mechanism in which you could actually "vote" anyone out

Here again, you are implying that public workers somehow do have that ability, to vote "out" their employer. How do you imagine that works, in practice? Do you think it would be better for public workers to form a PAC and run public campaigns for or against a specific candidate? That would be a much more problematic option, as something like that would make public workers political entities themselves and pit them against the government they're supposed to keep running.

> simply run for office

That "simply" is doing an absurd amount of heavy lifting.

I don’t agree with your opinion but I think you make a great point. They are definitely very different situations which at least warrant some differences in policy.
Yeah, imagine if somebody at say Google made a union as opposed to just buying up 51% of the stock to vote somebody out.

Everybody makes in-groups to advocate their positions. idk why when it comes to workers people are all like "but they shouldn't". Let me know when you're against the US Chamber of Congress ...

I don't think that's an unpopular opinion really. Unions are supposed to be an adversary of management who they negotiate with, and depending on who wins the election they are an ally. There's a conflict of interest. So naturally the group that supports the person that wins the election will have a favorable contract and be able to grow their union as that's beneficial to the political party and the union.

At the very least states should implement laws and statutes that define limits and rules such as union compensation must be paid with the current years revenues and not with bonds that are paid for by future generations, etc.

It's a compromise to ensure the functioning of the country.

PATCO members were offered more than double % raises of any other government employee with a small reduction in work hours.

They overplayed their (illegal) hand and it bit them. No sympathy.

Everyone else was offered 2.5%?