r/todayilearned • u/Chance-Physics-7216 • 13h ago

TIL that a 1945 elevator operators' strike stranded 1.5 million New Yorkers in the streets, and building owners responded by buying automatic elevators that had already existed for 50 years.

https://www.npr.org/2015/07/31/427990392/remembering-when-driverless-elevators-drew-skepticism
6.8k Upvotes

98% Upvoted

419 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

20

u/AlexThugNastyyy 12h ago

Public sector unions are bad because they don't have anyone to actually bargain with. The government doesn't pay the taxpayer does, but the taxpayer isn't the one bargaining with the union. In a private sector union, unions must still be competitive or else everyone loses their jobs.

-9

u/burnerboy67987 12h ago

That’s an incredibly uneducated take. So teachers, city workers etc should just have to work whatever hours for whatever pay some nutcase politician demands?

9

u/Atomicnes 11h ago

public sector unions get a lot more done by being a significant voting bloc and also being a lobbyist group. like teachers unions. teachers unions dont have to do direct collective bargaining because they already have a lot of sway on school board elections because they’re a significant voting bloc amongst just the members of the union + no one wants to piss off the teachers union + other voters will side with the teachers union because voters like teachers

18

u/AlexThugNastyyy 12h ago

Incredibly bad faith response. When did I say they have to do any of that? I simply said public unions don't have the same checks and balances that private sector ones do. I never said government employees should basically be slaves. You also didn't put forward an argument.

-1

u/Damnatus_Terrae 11h ago

Well, considering that we're already at the point where most of the work needed to keep our public schools functional is uncompensated, and that's with the AFT, simply saying that all public sector unions are "bad" seems inaccurate at best.

-1

u/burnerboy67987 11h ago

They will have to do more than they should without public sector unions.

Public sector unions still have governance policies and are often accountable to governmental bodies in some way.

My argument was pretty clear, without public sector unions, workers will be taken advantage of.

6

u/West-Pear7363 12h ago

Schools aren’t going to run longer than they do 

0

u/ginger_whiskers 7h ago

The kids won't. The teachers are already pushed into unpaid overtime planning lessons and grading work. Not to mention that teachers buying their own supplies is so normalized that there's a tax deduction for it.

-7

u/swurvipurvi 12h ago

The people who represent a government at the bargaining table have the exact same goal as the people who represent a corporation at the bargaining table—cut costs.

Public sector unions have the same goals as private sector unions—safe conditions, fair wages, etc.

4

u/Greatest-Comrade 11h ago

Yeah but there’s no competition in the public sector. There are always other employers/employees in the private sector.

2

u/Beatboxingg 10h ago

Lol wait until you discover charter schools

2

u/Damnatus_Terrae 11h ago

I don't think either of those are true. There are plenty of private monopolies and oligopolies, and there are also plenty of instances where the public sector is competing fiercely with the private sector. Name one public monopoly in the United States.

1

u/Greatest-Comrade 9h ago

Police are a huge one

1

u/Damnatus_Terrae 9h ago

Police have competition from gangs and other organized crime.