jack

mtbykr

Good, these guys do a hard job and deserve to be paid for it. They earned the extra doing overtime in addition to their normal salary. I'm sure libs now will feel they earn too much so will cut their base salary. If guys want to work harder when available to better themselves then i am fine with that.

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"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits". - Albert Einstein

jack

Over $200.000 for a cop? I did'nt think that was possible..

Are unions good mtbykr? or are unions bad?

STFarmy

Unions can be good or bad, depending on a many numbers of things.

jack

Isn't the union gripe that conservatives have , is high wages?

STFarmy

Not exactly. I think the gripe with unions (not necessarily by Conservatives) is that they look after their own to the expense of others, and I don't mean the corporations. Sometimes it seems as if they push things too far with a certain amount of short-sightedness. I don't know many specifics on the subject, but I don't think conservatives get mad because the mean old working man is pushing around the defenseless corporation (though that's often the perception).

jack

Like fighting with management on issues that go unresolved until there's a strike?

Why does the republican party not like unions?.......... Anybody on the board know the reason?

Real World

This is exactly what I'm always talking about. Emotion should never be involved in government. When you bend over like cities do when the title teacher, fireman, or policeman are involved, you get what you deserve, and that's massive government, less service, and higher taxation for your residents. This is part of the reason why governments of all types are so broken. My friends and I were just discussing this very article via email. Anyhow, I'll post some snippets of note.



Samuel Tyler -- president of the Boston Municipal Research Bureau, a business-funded watchdog group -- called the numbers troubling and said that the city will have to find ways to cut costs in the future. Tyler said that since officer pay increased with new contracts, the department must be more vigilant about managing expensive overtime and sick time. In contract arbitration, the patrolmen's union won a 14.5 percent pay raise over four years.



''I think it is a factor of collective bargaining," Tyler said. ''It certainly has made the cost of providing services, particularly police services, much more expensive. That has to be taken into consideration when we have these discussions about manpower being less than it was 10 years ago. Well, 10 years ago it didn't cost nearly so much for an officer."




According to an independent budget commission, the average salary for a patrolman in New York is $66,000. The average Boston police officer earns $83,700.



Tyler said he hopes officials will consider hiring more civilians in areas where police officers are not needed, though he acknowledged the clout of the police unions here may make it difficult to eliminate jobs and some of the perks Boston officers enjoy, such as the paid detail system, which exists almost nowhere else in the country.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

Real World

The beef is far more complicated than wages. The beef involves restricting the power of the employer versus the employee. Unions make it next to impossible for owners to run a business freely. Try firing a *****ty teacher and tell me how you make out in 10 years when you might reach arbitration. Try firing a cop, or laying blame on a fireman who went to a blaze while intoxicated. Unions certainly have their benefits, and purpose, but like corporations, are as just as evil and ruthless as they were once needed. I'm speaking generally of course.

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"The most difficult subjects can be explained to the most slow-witted man if he has not formed any idea of them already; but the simplest thing cannot be made clear to the most intelligent man if he is firmly persuaded that he knows already, without a shadow of doubt, what is laid before him."
Leo Tolstoy, 1897

mtbykr

I think there are good and bad in them. The main problem I have is that there is no standard. I feel that someone should do their job to the best of their ability, and if they screw around and are lazy they should be fired and someone who is willing to do it should have an opportunity at that job. The problem is that if the first person is a member of a union, then no matter what they do (short of a crime) they can't be fired. There is no incentive to work your hardest becuase there are no repercussions if you don't.



Maybe I came across wrong, I don't (or do my best) not to let emotion sway my thinking. My point was that according to the article they earned the majority of their money by working over and above their 'job requirements' doing overtime, ect... I don't think every cop should be given a $200k salary, but i do think that if they want to work extra, and above what is required of them for extra $$ then that should be encouraged. I don't think it should be given to them, but if they want to better themselves by going the extra mile then good for them.

__________________
"The difference between stupidity and genius is that genius has its limits". - Albert Einstein