spicedrum wrote:How do the county unions have a monopoly on resources? I don't understand that part.
You are required to become a member of the union upon working for Josephine county.
I don't have specific experience with the unions that represent government workers, but I do have experience with other unions. In my experience, an employer must demonstrate that none of the applicants who are current union members possess the qualifications required for the job before they can hire a non-union member. I don't know if this is true of all unions. I was making the assumption that it is.
spicedrum wrote:I believe unions had their place back in the day, just not anymore.
I agree with that.
spicedrum wrote:If a public sector manager doesn't hire people at the upmost level, their business will go under and a few familes will suffer. If the county does that, the whole county suffers.
Human nature being what it is, people generally make decisions based on their own self interest, rather than the public interest. In the private sector, if you don't deliver the best value to your customers, they go elsewhere, you lose money, and you go out of business. The incentive to maximize profits requires you to deliver good value, hire the best people you can, and fire those who underperform. In the public sector, the customer pays whether you deliver the goods or not. They can't take their business to some other government if they aren't getting their money's worth. The money that's paid to government employees doesn't come out of anybody's pocket but the taxpayers, and they're required by law to pay whether they like it or not. Most government employees are not elected, so the people who pay the bills can't fire them. Without a direct connection between performance and profit, there's a broken link in the chain of accountability. That's why I believe the private sector is generally more efficient than government, and why I support privatization for any services that can feasibly be privatized.
