Here is a profile/interview of Fisk from the UCI School of Law:
http://www.law.uci.edu/faculty/profile_c_fisk.html
One thing that is not included in that profile is that Fisk is the wife of Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky.
Her guest speaker was Steve Matthews, who is Executive Director of SEIU Local Union 721 in Riverside. As you might imagine, this was a pro-union presentation by the UCI-Law School.
Fisk spoke first. Her thesis was that contrary to all those claims by Republicans and conservatives, there is no correlation between collective bargaining rights for public sector unions and budget problems in states like California (emphasis mine).
As we know, our state, California, has extensive collective bargaining rights. We also have a huge deficit problem. But, according to Fisk, there is no connection. This would be the basis for my question during the Q and A.
She went on to talk about how pensions are vested expenses, which we all know. They are a contract that should not be repudiated (naturally).
Then we saw an overhead that showed how unions play a positive role and how they partner with government and employers in solving problems. The overhead made the points that:
Unions can ID cost-saving measures and implement them (emphasis mine).
Unions can implement reforms in pension funding, eligibility and benefit formulas (emphasis mine).
Unions can insist that states increase rainy day funds (emphasis mine).
Unions have assisted governments to negotiate pay freezes, cuts, reduced benefits, and layoffs.
Then Mr Matthews took the podium.
He defined collective bargaining rights as "free labor". He pointed out that 150 years ago, there were two kinds of labor-free labor and slave labor. He also stated that those who are against collective bargaining would want to take us back to the days of slave labor.
Matthews made references to those who are "scapegoating and attacking collective bargaining". He used Wisconsin and Ohio as examples.
He also made reference to something he called COPE funds, voluntary contributions coming from union members to be used to compete politically against corporations, "who spend far more in political contributions."
http://www.tcnj.edu/~aft/cope/cope.htm
Matthews told us that only this appearance at UCI was keeping him away from the Occupy LA rally going on at the same time.
Here is what he missed.
During the Q and A, I told Matthews and Fisk that I was also a public sector retiree who never belonged to a union. I also asked them to comment on Fisk's thesis that there was no correlation between extensive public sector collective bargaining (as in California) and budget problems. I asked Matthews to comment on my assertion that public sector unions, such as SEIU, the California Teachers Association, and the Prison Guards Union, which (in my view) own the politicians in Sacramento and whose members, in the midst of our economic problems in California, are thriving while others are struggling.
His answer was that if they had so much power in Sacramento, millionaires would be paying their share of taxes. He also stated that the average annual pension of his members was only $31,000 (with executives making the higher amounts). He finished by stating that he wished they had as much power as I thought they did.
In answer to another question, Matthews stated that the Occupy movement was waking up the unions to the larger picture and that they have given the unions a valuable message.
Yes, indeed.
This is all rhetoric bud. Make an actual argument please.
ReplyDeleteDear law student.
ReplyDeleteMy argument was contained in the post. As I told Matthews, the public sector unions in California basically own the politicians in Sacramento. They are thriving while non-public sector workers are struggling. That was my argument. He denied what is obvious.
As for rhetoric, I heard a lot of rhetoric in those presentations. I heard rhetoric about Republicans and conservatives who are against the "working man". I heard rhetoric about how people who oppose public sector unions want to take us back to the days of slave labor.I heard rhetoric about how great unions are and all they CAN do to hold down costs. What was presented was one-sided, pro-union rhetoric. What relevance it has to a university law school, I am not sure.
Hope that satisfies, you...bud.
Gary has been known to concede that at some undefined point in the distant past, workers were indeed exploited, and unions were at that time necessary. However, Gary believes that this sort of crass exploitation is a thing of the past, and not a significant hazard now. Today, unions are merely an apparatus for well heeled dictators to tell workers what is good for them?!?
ReplyDeleteUnless Gary is deliberately lying to us, which I do not believe, he has evidently not studied labor history. If he had, he would know that the same arguments about unions being run by dictators who threaten the liberty of individual workers was very much in vogue when miners lived in unheated shacks and when railroad workers went on strike (over the cautions of their allegedly dictatorial leaders).
Unions exist because individual employees of employers could be, and history teaches generally would be, kicked around by supervisors, managers, and executives, unless the power of a union prevented it.
Unions also have problems. Seniority rules are a rather rigid straight jacket, but nobody has come up with a better way to set an objective standard, so bosses don't simply indulge in sheer favoritism. Union leadership tends to become addicted to how things have always been done, and see a plot by the boss in every new innovation.
I wouldn't go so far as to say that those who opposed public sector unions WANT to take us back to the days of slave labor. But, that is the likely net effect if they were successful.
P.S. I believe the wife of the dean of a law school should find another venue for employment -- even if it means teaching at a law school attached to a university which is a sports rival of the one where her husband is dean. Ditto for a man whose wife is dean of a law school.
Siarlys,
ReplyDeleteAre you implying nepotism? It's called the UCI career Partners Program.
http://www.ap.uci.edu/programs/careerpart/CareerPartners-FTE.html
I hadn't heard of that one Gary. It is the diametric opposite of the policy many institutions, public and private, have established to avoid nepotism, and indeed the mere possibility that a spouse will be an employee's supervisor.
ReplyDeleteIncidentally, since today is Sunday, it is perhaps worth noting that labor unions are a practical manifestation of the prophecy of Isaiah (65: 21-22).
And they shall build houses, and inhabit them; and they shall plant vineyards, and eat the fruit of them.
They shall not build, and another inhabit; they shall not plant, and another eat; for as the days of a tree are the days of my people, and mine elect shall long enjoy the work of their hands.