Comments on: Governor’s Union Order Produces More Politics Than Power http://spencerspeaks.com/2007/11/12/96/ Here are my thoughts; share yours Tue, 02 Dec 2008 07:26:42 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.1 By: Wildflower http://spencerspeaks.com/2007/11/12/96/#comment-934 Wildflower Mon, 12 Nov 2007 19:06:13 +0000 http://spencerspeaks.com/2007/11/12/96/#comment-934 It is nice to have faith in a governor. Ritter is a wonderful, moderate, governor.If Beaucamp runs again against Ritter in the next election, Ritter has a lock on it. Ritter's predecessor ran a bare-bones government and axed way too many important things.(Remember when Owens emptied out (into the street)a treatment center in the Springs for severely emotionally disturbed young people?)But Owens gave his departing appointees big bucks out of our pockets. So Benson's bucks were behind the barrage of literature we got re the mayor's new taxes, and nothing from the "con" side! (Does he even live in Denver?) I felt our neighbors to the south should ante up for the cultural facility, I imagine they use it them more than I do. But, to borrow one of Dennis' words, the "idiots" voted for everything, no matter how vaguely worded.One sentence had 13 lines... Add that tax to the $38 that was already to be added and we get to cough another $100 next spring. All at once for seniors without mortgages. It is nice to have faith in a governor. Ritter is a wonderful, moderate, governor.If Beaucamp runs again against Ritter in the next election, Ritter has a lock on it. Ritter’s predecessor ran a bare-bones government and axed way too many important things.(Remember when Owens emptied out (into the street)a treatment center in the Springs for severely emotionally disturbed young people?)But Owens gave his departing appointees big bucks out of our pockets.
So Benson’s bucks were behind the barrage of literature we got re the mayor’s new taxes, and nothing from the “con” side!
(Does he even live in Denver?)
I felt our neighbors to the south should ante up for the cultural facility, I imagine they use it them more than I do.
But, to borrow one of Dennis’ words, the “idiots” voted for everything, no matter how vaguely worded.One sentence had 13 lines…
Add that tax to the $38 that was already to be added and we get to cough another $100 next spring. All at once for seniors without mortgages.

]]> By: Anoldguy1944 http://spencerspeaks.com/2007/11/12/96/#comment-940 Anoldguy1944 Tue, 13 Nov 2007 17:21:19 +0000 http://spencerspeaks.com/2007/11/12/96/#comment-940 Sigh. Having just returned from St. Louis, which is hardly a bastion of left-wing radicalism, and with a son who lives in Minneapolis, a thriving city where a union endorsement at election time is widely regarded as an advantage, the Post's hysterical (in several senses of the word) front-page editorial and the continuing fallout from a very timid executive order on the part of the Governor continues to have me shaking my head. Like Jim Spencer, I was also part of a "union" that had no power, no ability to enforce its decisions, and no real to-the-wall bargaining influence. We had a lot of free-riders, most of them Republicans, who were happy to take the pay and professional provisions we negotiated for them, mistakenly thinking that they'd have been able to get them for themselves individually if they'd bothered to bargain with the bosses. They were wrong then, just as Colorado's right-of-center drum-beaters are wrong now. It's sad to see the pitiful state of unions in both Colorado and the country. Even sadder is that so many believe unions to be somehow responsible for immense greed on the part of corporate America. Capitalism is the best wealth-generating system humans have been able to devise so far, but its benefits are not distributed equitably, and all unions do is try to tilt that imbalance a little bit toward the people who make the prosperity possible. That the reaction here to Ritter's order is so over-the-top says a lot about the anti-worker prejudices too often prevalent in this state. Sigh.

Having just returned from St. Louis, which is hardly a bastion of left-wing radicalism, and with a son who lives in Minneapolis, a thriving city where a union endorsement at election time is widely regarded as an advantage, the Post’s hysterical (in several senses of the word) front-page editorial and the continuing fallout from a very timid executive order on the part of the Governor continues to have me shaking my head.

Like Jim Spencer, I was also part of a “union” that had no power, no ability to enforce its decisions, and no real to-the-wall bargaining influence. We had a lot of free-riders, most of them Republicans, who were happy to take the pay and professional provisions we negotiated for them, mistakenly thinking that they’d have been able to get them for themselves individually if they’d bothered to bargain with the bosses.

They were wrong then, just as Colorado’s right-of-center drum-beaters are wrong now.

It’s sad to see the pitiful state of unions in both Colorado and the country. Even sadder is that so many believe unions to be somehow responsible for immense greed on the part of corporate America. Capitalism is the best wealth-generating system humans have been able to devise so far, but its benefits are not distributed equitably, and all unions do is try to tilt that imbalance a little bit toward the people who make the prosperity possible. That the reaction here to Ritter’s order is so over-the-top says a lot about the anti-worker prejudices too often prevalent in this state.

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