Charity and volunteerism is a hallmark of American civics. But, if big labor has its way, volunteering to help others will go the way of the dinosaur. Volunteers are “eroding the number of hours for our people,” says Ian Gordon of Laborer’s Union 1239 in Seattle. “It’s of great concern that they might be doing further work that we would normally do.” Fox News reports.
With budgets tighter than ever, cities across America are increasingly looking for more free labor. Nowhere is that trend more evident than Yakima, Wash.
“More and more every year, a large part of what we do is volunteers,” says Archie Matthews, Yakima’s director of neighborhood development services, “It saves us a ton of money.”
Matthews says begging for volunteers is not beneath him. And to his surprise, he usually gets them. Once signed up, they do a variety of tasks, including construction work for low-income housing, painting over gang graffiti and keeping senior centers from having to close their doors.
1. I don’t believe public-sector employees should be allowed to unionize. Why? Because “management” is not spending their company’s money, but the taxpayers’. If they give too much to the unions, their company will not go bankrupt, the citizens will just have to dig deeper, whether they can afford it or not, or lose services (they have no choice–elections are not enough to correct this, as the contracts have already been made. The taxpayers are not at the negotiating table).
2. Look at the examples given in the article: repairing lo-income housing, painting over gang graffiti, and helping senior citizen centers. If volunteers don’t do it, who will? In all cases, it would ultimately be paid by taxpayers. Let unions negotiate with companies, not suck money out of strained taxpayers’ pockets.
3. Michael, I see nothing in the article about heavy equipment operators. If the union issue is about heavy equipment operators, then I really don’t see how volunteers can be a threat. Whoever heard of someone volunteering to operate heavy equipment for an entity like a city government or construction company? They might volunteer if they’re building a children’s home, but not a city government building. If anyone does volunteer for such, it would be few and for a very limited project. People volunteer to help other people who are in a difficult situation; they don’t volunteer to save a city money or a business. If Sears were threatened with bankruptcy, would they really be saved by people volunteering to be stockers, cashiers, and janitors? No. But they might volunteer to do those things for a charity thrift store. Even so, charity thrift stores pay for most of their labor because there just aren’t enough volunteers.
4. I read a couple of years ago that unions wanted all first responders (firefighters, ambulance crews) to be paid and unionized. That would leave many people in rural areas without protection. How selfish and mean-spirited can they get?
Liar,
That’s a good name for you. Unions aren’t out to make money , other than what it takes to keep the union going. My union has indeed made money but it is put in stocks and bonds to help keep the union going in hard economic times. If volunteers came in to od your job and you were laid off because of it , I take that you would be 100% behind that by your statement. My union has went into our community and provided services for those in need without taking someone’s job from them.
My guess is you know nothing about unions and you’re a republican hate monger that can’t stand unions. Yoiu may also be envious , jealous or just can’t stand for someone to make a decent living. If you want to know the TRUTH about unions contact me, I am a union member of 41 years. I not only went to the union meetings but was an unpaid officer of my unions. I learned how my union and others worked. In my 40 years of being a member , I haven’t seen one time that my union took up for someone that didn’t deserve it.
ddingus@insightbb.com
The Unions are all about making money for themselves at the expense of everyone. I say if people can get volunteers to do the job then more power to them. “There is nothing stronger than the heart of a volunteer.” You can bet those union guys don’t care about the community, Just getting their dues.
Ethan,
Fair point, but take another look at the story. It features little old ladies doing a good thing – helping to feed needy people in Yakima, bless their hearts…then, it shifts to quoting Mr. Gordon from Seattle. Mr. Gordon represents heavy equipment operators who have been laid off. All he is doing is expressing a concern that some – some – of the work his folks had done in Seattle might go to volunteers and shouldn’t. The propagandists at Fox do this all the time. They introduce a subject – in this case, little angels taking care of people in their hometown of Yakima – and then they superimpose the big, bad lefty who is going to ruin everything (presumably, in the service of some Communist, homosexual, cannibalistic, satanist conspiracy to destroy America). Mr. Gordon’s LEGITIMATE concerns for his members in Seattle pose no threat whatsoever to little old ladies feeding their neighbors in Yakima. Fox and the NRTWC are splitting a gut laughing at people like us because we keep proving to them how easy we are to fool.
Here’s the proof: I say that Gordon expresses a legitimate concern. You, influenced by the story above, say he doesn’t. Fox and the NRTWC have shown that WE (the normal working people of America) can easily be made to argue over the scraps. They think we’re saps, my friend.
-Michael.
No Michael. It’s not legitimate for the Union to aggressively take on extra assignments and replace with union workers at the expense of companies who are getting by with volunteers. Sorry that the guys at Brother Gordon’s Union are being laid off. I wish our companies were as aggressive at trying to expand their profits as the unions are at swallowing new areas and taking advantage of the poor.
The unions biggest
compliant is the money their losing but obviously their not going to come right out and admit that. It’s always better to beat around the bush cause they don’t have guts enough to tell the real truth..
No Michael, it’s not legitimate. American volunteerism is a good thing. If it saves cities money and therefore saves citizens money, that’s even better. If people will volunteer for a job, then why would we pay money for it? That’s simple economics. If it means some people have to be laid off from a job tax payers have to pay for, then maybe that job was part of a bloated system that is crippling our economy.
If my company hires a machine to do my job, I get laid off. That’s just the American market economy. Sucks to be me.
If the people of Yakima want to scrape graffiti in their own neighborhoods, I’d say that’s their right.
I’m afraid those city workers will just have to pound pavement looking for new jobs, just like millions of other people across the USA right now.
“Matt”,
Who, in this case, is “we” and which of my views are you talking about? You need to think your way through this stuff, friend.
-Michael (or Mikey, if you like)
Mikey, how many times do we have to say it. We don’t care! Your views are fundamentally wrong and at odds with reality.
A couple of facts and some context for those of you who actually care about such things: This little article is a part of an only slightly larger story that has bouncing around in the right wing “echo chamber”, of which this site is a small part, for a few days now. Brother Gordon’s Union represents around 900 workers in the city of Seattle, about half of them maintain city equipment. They’ve had a lot of lay-offs there. He’s expressed a concern that the city has begun to use volunteers to do some of the work his people should be doing. That’s not legitimate?