Speaking as a taxpayer, it does not seem to me at all clear why collective bargaining agreements between public servants and city governments should be able to be private documents at all. We pay the bills, after all.
it isn't clear to me why police is allowed to have union at all. They aren't labor. Armed forces (as well as FBI) don't have a union for a reason, and the police is no different in that respect.
I agree. Collective bargaining for public workers is overall absurd, IMHO. It injects a layer (the union) between the voters/citizens and the public employees. We don't get to elect/control the union or see their dealings? BS!
So labor should just take whatever management and politicians feel like giving them like obedient little servants? How has that worked out in the past? Do we feel that the civil service is sufficiently isolated from rapidly changing political pressures to ensure the rights of workers and to avoid the inherent issues involved in political control of a large group of government workers?
> So labor should just take whatever management and politicians feel like giving them like obedient little servants?
When you're the boss (which you are when it comes to public workers), that's exactly what you want. Do you wish your cops were something other than "obedient little servants?" Doesn't it seem like the whole problem with cops in the U.S. is that they don't think they work for you?
> Can't unions negotiate for fair wages while also throwing the bad apples to the wolves?
No, not really. Its the nature of the beast that unions need to protect all their member. A noble goal with a noble origin, but it gets pretty perverted in the extreme its been taken to. For example, school union members that are no longer allowed to teach students but cannot be fired (search on cases in both LA and NYC). You would think rationality would prevail but then you run into the other problem.
Union membership totals determine power. More members, more money to lobby, which gives you more influence. There is a reason the California Correctional Peace Officers Association continues to advocate for laws that will put more people in jail.
At this point, for government workers, we as a country would be much better off without government worker's unions.
The NYC case I saw was where the agreement with the union was that cases would be arbitrated, but the school board was refusing to pay their half of the arbitration fees. So yeah, if you refuse to go through the arbitration process that you agreed to, you get to keep paying that teacher's salary even when you're not letting them teach. Can't blame the union for that one.
It's the nature of the beast that corporations exploit their staff. Or something.
If you have extreme situations like this, something is badly wrong, but removing all unions isn't the solution. Instead, add more: convince people to join a more moderate union.
> It's the nature of the beast that corporations exploit their staff. Or something.
I mentioned corporations not once, and this is about transparency in government.
> If you have extreme situations like this, something is badly wrong, but removing all unions isn't the solution. Instead, add more: convince people to join a more moderate union.
I would contend that there is no such thing as a moderate union in this situation. I would be curious if you had any history of "convince people to join a more moderate union"? I am inclined to think rayiner is correct and no incentive exists.
Beyond this, we are there employers and the people who pay their wages. An organization interfering with transparency and accountability does not serve the public good.
I assumed corporations were relevant as much of this discussion has been saying unions should be banned for the public sector, implying that they're acceptable in the private sector. It's also where unions started.
Anyway.
At my previous job, in the British public sector, there were three unions who represented the staff, and I joined the one the others in my office had joined. Initially, this was because I appreciated the support a union had given someone in my family against a bad manager. Later, I stayed in the union in support of those with much less skill than me — the union was campaigning against "zero hours" contracts¹.
A year or two ago, the government imposed significant cuts. (Contrary to a lot of posts in this thread, government budget for salaries isn't unlimited.) I found out that my union seemed to be prolonging the negotiations unnecessarily, by being needlessly difficult — submitting 1000-page documents in the last hour of a 3-month consultation, for example, which had no more content than a 5 page document on the first day. Most staff I spoke to were more interested in knowing whether their job was ending, rather than hanging on for an extra month's pay during negotiations. (We already had 1-3 month notice periods.) I left the union, and didn't join another. Several colleagues left, and joined the more reasonable union.
For another example, the RMT is the more extreme union representing London Underground employees, ASLEF is more moderate (there are others, these are the two biggest, and not all staff are in a union).
Quoting from [2], just as an example, "The RMT has attacked a fellow Tube union for failing to call strike action as part of the ongoing Night Tube dispute. The RMT accused ASLEF of being "happy" with alleged assurances that London Underground (LU) would put forward new work rosters for drivers." And just look at the language in the RMT newsletter "only resolute determination will prevail...".
RMT goes on strike much more often, and make a lot of noise about it, but most of the staff in that union are less essential (ticket checking, platform staff, etc) and the trains keep on running. The train drivers generally belong to ASLEF, which is still a powerful union, but rarely tries to defend drunk drivers or similar.
What incentive do cops have to join a union that won't insulate them from public accountability, especially given the (real) threat of false complaints from disgruntled criminals?
I thought the situation was union protection of incompetent staff, in which case ridicule from colleagues / friends, lost pay through striking, and having to listen to the kind of union boss who supports incompetent staff.
But for a significant change in working conditions (which introducing cameras seems to be), then I'd expect the more moderate union to argue this too — if that's what the members want. It might take a lot of negotiation.
If there is a criminal complaint it has to go through an indictment hearing by a grand jury. If the officer is not indicted there either is not enough proof or the officer acted in accordance with the law.
Usually a judge has to hear the criminal complaint first and determine if it has merit first. If there is no evidence of the complaint, the judge might decide it has no merit. If it is a false complaint there would be no evidence.
I don't think a union has the power to change how the court system works. They can protect the officer from getting fired, but the officer still has to be tried in court just like anyone else. Although grand juries are not as strict on officers as they are on other people.
That... doesn't follow. What's to say you'll have salary transparency afterwards? Not you. You're merely speculating that they might be the "primary agent".
Maybe there's a smoking gun I've missed. In TX at least, I think police salaries actually are public information. Check it out: http://salaries.texastribune.org/dallas/
Those salaries look, on the whole, pretty modest overall compared to the private sector. The "CEO" of Dallas makes maybe twice what a good programmer in SF might. The median police salary is under $60K. That's a decent living, but it's far from extravagant.
I want all labor to be paid appropriately too. The proper way to do that is by setting policies that apply to all labor--not allowing particular subgroups of labor to game low-turnout municipal and state political systems. Indeed, I'm not entirely sure public employees should be allowed to vote (speaking as someone who has worked for the government before). There is too much of a conflict of interest.
Nobody should be allowed to vote - there's too much of a conflict of interest. Just imagine if they vote for more money/exemptions/subsidies that benefit themselves!
If and only if a hard mechanism is devised, otherwise unions will do what they're incentivized to do, and that's to protect their own by any means rational. Public shaming is not a sufficient mechanism, and nor is personal morality.
> Do you wish your cops were something other than "obedient little servants?"
Yes.
The idea of a small army of men with guns being obedient servants of local elected officials is absolutely terrifying. I'd much prefer a system with checks and balances.
I'm fine with unions for corporations, that's two private collectives bargaining their mutual economic interests. Capital generally has an advantage in negotiations so it seems only fair that individuals should be able to pool their labor as a counter-negotiating tactic, and this too is a market strategy.
When someone is working for the public the considerations are entirely different and I am much less sure about the ethics or wisdom of allowing collective bargaining. I feel the same way about government procurement/contracting, treating the public interest as just another market participant often seems to result in moral hazard and other unwanted outcomes. I don't have a good theoretical answer for this but I think we badly need to revisit the issue.
>When someone is working for the public the considerations are entirely different.
How so? People don't work in the public sector because the are doing everyone a favor. They are working there because they are being compensated in some way. I think that they should be able to negotiate for what the market will bear.
Do you work for the private sector but think that people who work in the public sector should do you some sort of favor? That's pretty rude isn't it?
I don't think highly of police unions, but I do think they have the right to get the benefits and income that the market will bear.
I do think that the better thing to do would be to pass laws that require external investigations, mandatory prosecution for wrong doing and mandatory auditing.
If you want police offices wearing cameras with sound 80% of the time, pass an law/ordinance that has auditing requirements and a budget.
A public entity is not an organization participating according to the rules of the market. "What the market will bear" with regard to a public entity has no meaning.
Sometimes, but not always. City accountants certainly fall under this, since accountants can work in the private sector, but what private-sector competition exists for police employment? Are they meant to be comparing their salaries with those of armed bodyguards, or para-military organizations?
That's a nice theory, but here's how it really works in practice:
gov extracts taxes with threats of prison -> civil "servants" paid with tax money -> unions tax civil "servant" salaries via automatic payroll deduction -> unions use money to "lobby" (bribe) politicians with campaign donations -> politicians set government policy for taxation and civil service
There ARE some rights being violated here, but it is not the civil "servant"'s rights
Well with respect to public servants consider what Franklin Roosevelt said:
"All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters."
That is to say, the place to protect public servants is through ballot, not collective bargaining.
I think that's a really important question that shouldn't be downvoted.
However, I think the answer is through workplace safety laws (OSHA), fair labor standards act provisions for minimum wage and overtime, ERISA (which sets minimum standards for retirement and health plans), Civil Rights Act provisions, ACA, the Federal Employment Compensation Act, and others.
Unions originated in an era where you could find children working 14 hours in a sweatshop for a starving wage, with locked doors that prevented escape in case of fire, around dangerous machinery that would take off limbs in a blink with victims never compensated and unable to work again.
The case for unions in that era is different than the case for unions today. Worker concerns today, serious as they may be, are categorically different from the concerns of that time. The case for unions today also has to grapple with concerns about rent seeking, keeping dangerous/unfit employees on the job, and reducing job availability or promotion for capable newcomers.
But note that the alternative to unifying workers trade-by-trade or workplace-by-workplace is to just unify enough of the electorate to fix obviously broken labor practices through legislation. It sounds much harder, but we've done it repeatedly, and it doesn't have the same down-sides.
You have a point, but civil labor usually has an advantage their private-sector counterparts don't: they elect their bosses. Public unions multiply that power. Whether that's a net benefit for society at large, I'm not going to discuss here.
In many American jurisdictions sheriffs, prosecutors, mayors, town councils, and even judges are elected. In that case essentially all of the leadership with which a police union might be negotiating is elected.
So yes, a police officer's direct boss wouldn't be elected, but in terms of negotiation both a police captain and the rank and file would be aligned in wanting higher pay, making it harder to be fired, etc. In small jurisdictions there would be few layers between a sheriff's deputy and the actual elected sheriff.
Also, some of the leadership has a conflict of interest. The prosecutor, one of the ultimate police bosses, cannot work against the police interests without also jeopardizing his own career as the police can stop working with him and get him voted out. This is one of the many reasons why prosecutors tend to treat police brutality cases very differently than if the suspect were an ordinary citizen. Likewise a sheriff might face similar issues since he is elected but his staff is not.
Unlike a private sector union, a public sector union can essentially never bankrupt the government, so there is no natural check against their power. Bankrupt your company with absurd work rules? You'll be on the street eventually.
I'd just say that 80% of the US population lives in urban areas (from the census information I found), which are likely to be served by larger public service departments with more unelected middle management. They may choose to side with the lowest ranks of police, but it's not as bad as a simple "my direct boss didn't pay me enough, let's all vote him or her out."
That said, the prosecutor-capture (especially since that's a route for aspiring politicians) and state-supported-zombie points are well made.
But as a somewhat pro-union point, remember that public employees aren't bonused anywhere near private sector employees. At least for teachers, which I'm most familiar with. The idea that one could be in the Top 10% of performers for your job and be making less than others simply because of seniority is... strange.
Note that "urban area" in the U.S. encompasses not just big cities, but all the surrounding suburbs, unincorporated counties, and small towns. E.g. all but the most rural parts of Virginia are an "urban area": http://www.virginiaplaces.org/regions/graphics/urban2004.png. And even in pretty urban areas, municipal government is pretty thin. E.g. in Baltimore County (suburbs just north of Baltimore), the police chief is nominated by the County Executive (a directly elected position), and approved by the County Council (a directly elected legislative body with seven people).
>I'd just say that 80% of the US population lives in urban areas (from the census information I found), which are likely to be served by larger public service departments with more unelected middle management.
Except for the absolute largest cities, like NYC, many urban police departments are going to be a lot smaller and less hierarchical than you'd think.
Also, many areas considered urban still elect their sheriffs. For instance, Arlington, VA (home of the Pentagon and Arlington Cemetery) has 10-20 story buildings and elects its sheriff, as does neighboring Alexandria, VA (a colonial city that predates DC). I believe all cities and counties in VA elect sheriffs.
>They may choose to side with the lowest ranks of police, but it's not as bad as a simple "my direct boss didn't pay me enough, let's all vote him or her out."
In a place with elected leadership and limitless funds, so long as your union has enough critical mass, it's in the best interests of all members of the police force to push for higher wages, more stringent work rules, etc.
Why wouldn't they do this? There are no consequences for failure and lots to gain. It's not like a company where middle management wants to keep costs down; in the government your importance has to do with the size of your budget and number of reports and there's no negative feedback. In fact, because of how budgeting works in America, every dollar must be spent, and any savings will end up with a smaller budget next year. If anything, middle management is aligned with these demands.
The exceptions are agencies like WMATA or the MTA, where a significant portion of revenue comes from fares or advertisements. These are more likely to fight unions, but they are still state (or multi-state and Federal in the case of WMATA) agencies that at the end of the day answer to politicians and can still get government bailouts.
>But as a somewhat pro-union point, remember that public employees aren't bonused anywhere near private sector employees
Many public sector employees have absolutely sweet benefits, though. Good healthcare, good pensions or retirement funds, unions to go to bat for them, extreme job security, limited hours, etc. For certain classes of work government employees do make more than their private sector counterparts, but this is mostly related to low end work.
At the high end the government absolutely pays worse, you're right. The max salary in the normal Federal general schedule is roughly $160K.
I think this is part of the reason for demanding absurd rules and benefits, since salaries are set by law, not on the market, and the electorate doesn't want to hear about (or pay for) top talent making big bucks. Politicians respond to these incentives and cap salaries.
> Why wouldn't they do this? There are no consequences for failure and lots to gain. It's not like a company where middle management wants to keep costs down; in the government your importance has to do with the size of your budget and number of reports and there's no negative feedback. In fact, because of how budgeting works in America, every dollar must be spent, and any savings will end up with a smaller budget next year. If anything, middle management is aligned with these demands.
If state budgets are badly managed we have only ourselves to blame - we elect the legislators who control them.
Many middle managers in the private sector only wants to keep costs down if their jobs are on the line.
Otherwise, they play the same games that their public sector counterparts do - spend everything they're given, always ask for YOY growth, resist efforts to automate themselves out of a job.
There is no private vs public sector magic wand that somehow makes the former more efficient then the latter. If there was, IBM would be out of business.
> civil labor usually has an advantage their private-sector counterparts don't: they elect their bosses.
I don't understand this: All unions elect their own leaders, as far as I know. Public sector unions do not elect the heads of the departments where they work, if that's what you mean; the FOP doesn't choose the police chief.
If you mean that union members also have votes in general elections, along with the rest of the public, that's true but their influence is limited (there are many other voters), the 'bosses' are a few steps over their heads (the mayor is elected, not the police chief), and finally, that's the point of democracy: Everyone should have influence, from union members to managers to even Repulicans and Democrats.
> So labor should just take whatever management and politicians feel like giving them like obedient little servants?
They can choose to work in the private sector. Nobody is forcing them to work for the public sector.
> How has that worked out in the past? Do we feel that the civil service is sufficiently isolated from rapidly changing political pressures to ensure the rights of workers and to avoid the inherent issues involved in political control of a large group of government workers?
The alternative is that public sector unions funnel money to career politicians. The latter are signing checks using other people's money (i.e. the tax payers) and it's in their (the politicans') interest to give in to union demands as they get a voting block come election season.
You misunderstand the problem. The problem is that in the public sector, "labor" and "management" are on the same side of the negotiating table, shaking hands and slapping backs about how much money they're going to bleed from the taxpayer. Our "public servants" generally stand to personally benefit from increasing spending and worsening performance. That's not a dynamic that exists in a for-profit business.
We don't call them civil masters. They work for us. The conditions of that employment are definitely our business, and the only reason to keep it from us can only be intended to hurt us in our role as the billpayers
So labor should just take whatever management and politicians feel like giving them like obedient little servants?
When they're public servants, yes.
Do we feel that the civil service is sufficiently isolated from rapidly changing political pressures to ensure the rights of workers and to avoid the inherent issues involved in political control of a large group of government workers?
Why is that the goal? A shift in public attitude should result in a change in public servant staffing and behavior.
> > Do we feel that the civil service is sufficiently isolated from rapidly changing political pressures to ensure the rights of workers and to avoid the inherent issues involved in political control of a large group of government workers?
> Why is that the goal?
The reason it became the goal is that there was a time when it wasn't, and people saw what that became once the people in power realized what it enabled them to do, and said, "Hey, that sucks, we should stop that."
Because you don't want someone clearing out the FDA, FAA, or whatever when they're elected and making their third cousin an air traffic controller because he's too drunk to keep his current job at Denny's
The public sector is one of the few places that needs a union. There is no competition, no free market to determine wages and benefits, and often no private sector equivalent of the positions involved. There is one monolithic, powerful entity that doesn't move quickly or respond well to changing labour market conditions, and many small, powerless employees whose skills are not always transferable to the private sector.
Without unions, it's a setup that would almost guarantee abuse. Unions are certainly not ideal, but they are necessary for that kind of industry.
The problem with public unions is that they are not negotiating with an entity that has the motivation to save every penny, which does in fact remove one of the major needs to unionize. Governments care less about giving away money, especially if they're building a voter base in the process. And history rather strongly suggests that governments downright love promising the world tomorrow if you'll just smile for the cameras today. It ends up being both the unions and the government against the tax payer too easily.
> The problem with public unions is that they are not negotiating with an entity that has the motivation to save every penny
The current UK Government is trying to "save every penny". This isn't unique to the UK. Surely some US states face financial hardship or have ideological motivations to cut spending.
Governments enjoy giving money away to donors, other smaller governments and large private employers, not government employees. Ask any government employee how easy it is to get cash or a raise
There seems to me to be a lot of equivocation in all these replies between "unions" and "employees", substituting whichever one makes the best argument at the time. That's not valid. When discussing "governments negotiating with unions", you can't just suddenly substitute "government negotiating with employees individually"; the incentives are not the same.
The governments have little incentive to pay a given individual; they have a lot of incentive to pay blocks of voters, and the especially have a lot of incentive to do so with money from the future, a point I note none of the replies cared to engage with, which I find is a big tell. Since a huge element of the problem with public unions was the enormous pension giveaways, which are now coming due and crushing the ability of the "blue model" to keep the rest of its promises. While everyone here is fiddling, the cities are burning.
You can't write about these issues as if we're debating creating public unions for the first time and seeing what happened. We created them. They are, present tense, in the process of crushing city finances, in the most concretely real, dollar-based, actually happening way possible. This is a present fact that must be accounted for, not a hypothetical bad thing that may happen in the future. Unfortunately, yelling "Oh, those wacky libertarians! Well, that concludes that debate." doesn't add a single dollar to the tax base.
Oh my goodness, look up from your Economist occasionally and read some history. New York didn't go broke in the 70s because of lazy union members, but because Wall Street hung it out to dry. California didn't bankrupt it's schools and parks in the 70s because of unions but because of prop 13. Unions didn't kill Detroit.
In general, cities bend over to grant ludicrous tax breaks to corporations that then soak up city services and resources, and then bitch and moan when teachers or MTA workers want more than a 3% raise. Union-hostile city managers are everywhere, bringing Flint Michigan-water scandals your way.
By your line of argument, having public transportation, or a decent homeless shelter system, or funding public schools "crushes finances" "in a concretely real, dollar-based" way -- i.e. the same zero-sum, deficit-baiting neoliberalist ideology.
Your caricature of government may be pleasing, but it bears very little resemblance to reality. Government is inefficient, and often wasteful, but not because they don't care about wasting taxpayers' money. They're just (often) bad at spending it responsibly.
And public sector employees are often the first target of any politician elected on a promise of "getting rid of waste".
Exactly, and government is the largest bureaucracy out there. My point is that people, particularly libertarians, like to ascribe to malfeasance government behaviours that are better explained by poorly designed systems and misaligned incentives.
There are very few government employees and elected officials actively looking to screw over taxpayers. Almost every single public employee I've spoken to has expressed how much they care about the job they do and how constrained they are by bureaucracy and lack of resources. And elected officials are overwhelmingly concerned citizens who want to do everything they can to help their constituents.
The fact that they often fail to do so has much more to do with maladaptive systems and perverse incentives than it does with the motivations of the people involved. It's tragically comic that the people on this site, who should be hyper aware of the effects of bad architecture on an system's output, are so quick to write it off as a cause and instead resort to facile ad hominems about the people in question.
You don't blame the silicon when your app becomes unresponsive. It's weird that we do so for countries.
>The problem with public unions is that they are not negotiating with an entity that has the motivation to save every penny, which does in fact remove one of the major needs to unionize
That explains why the public sector pays better than the private sector.
Ehh I think there is definitely a value in allowing a large group of employees to collectively negotiate as one entity with their employer (if only to ensure parity of resources & skills at the negotiating table) but the results should definitely be public (for public service employees).
The most commonly cited issue with this line of reasoning is that the root reason for private sector unions (massive power disparity between employers and employees) simply don't exist in the public sphere.
Public sector employees often vote for or against their current bosses directly.
> Public sector employees often vote for or against their current bosses directly.
That's a very weak bargaining position: Give us what we want or our members, a small minority of the electorate, won't vote for you in two years. Why should they be weaker than other unions?
It isn't just the vote of the membership. It is the dollars of the organization. In California, the California Teachers Union and SEIU are regularly 2 of the top 3 campaign spenders.
EDIT: Comment below is hysterical and political. This book is a good read. Chuck Reed, former mayor of San Jose, says this about it: "Daniel DiSalvo has laid bare the harsh political realities facing mayors across the country who want to improve the quality of life in their cities. In the annual battles over cutting services, raising taxes or controlling costs to balance the budget, public employee unions usually have the upper hand. In many jurisdictions, costs are skyrocketing, taxes are up and services are deteriorating, yet fiscal reform seems impossible. This book explains how and why the narrow interests of unions in improving pay and benefits frequently overwhelm the broader interests of the people in improving services."
Except that book is a pretty shallow hatchet job on the subject of public unions, with a clear agenda.
The argument for public unions (aside from all of the private sector arguments that also apply to public unions) is as follows:
- Government is often subject to swings in power, political party, budget crises, etc. that are much less common in private sector jobs. There's a value in giving people job stability here - case in point, a new school board is elected and decides they want to purge anyone from the science department district-wide who doesn't believe in creationism. The union acts to protect those people.
- Politics, by its nature, has been bedeviled by cronyism and favoritism. Unions are one of many ways that situation can be helped, but helping to insure continuity across administrations or preventing punitive actions towards people of a different political party, for example, has real value.
I'm not thrilled with the behavior of a lot of unions in the US, but I disagree with the premise that "public unions are clearly bad".
Plenty of governments do not permit collective bargaining by their employees--including parts of the U.S. federal government--and those employees do not suffer the problems you imply they should. Federal workers, even unorganized federal workers, are generally well-protected from political interference and politically-motivated layoffs.
There are arguments for public unions, but protecting employees from political machinations is not one of them--especially since unions themselves are usually politically active, attempting to influence elections and legislation.
>There are arguments for public unions, but protecting employees from political machinations is not one of them--especially since unions themselves are usually politically active, attempting to influence elections and legislation.
Which serves as a useful counterbalance to corporations doing the exact same thing.
As do workers in the private sector. The higher prevailing market wages are why private sector bosses are so desperate to dismantle public sector unions.
Destroying public sector unions is one of the major bullet points on the right wing agenda.
Posting a book funded by the Manhattan Institute (i.e. Richard Mellon Scaife, Bill Kristol, etc) should have exactly zero power to convince anyone not interested in being a part of that agenda.
EDIT: Wait it gets better, the comment I am responding to was actually posted by someone who has themselves been supported by the Manhattan Institute: http://malchow.com/about/
I guess that's how this all works isn't it.
EDIT 2: The above commented was edited to read "EDIT: Comment below is hysterical and political. This book is a good read. Chuck Reed, former mayor of San Jose, says this about it..."
And 30 second Google search reveals:
"San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, in his quest to put a state pension reform measure on next year’s ballot, appears to be buddying up with the Manhattan Institute and possibly its chairman Paul Singer."
I bow to the above poster for illuminating better than I possibly could how the wealthy benefactors of the right wing movement operate on a day to day basis to influence public opinion against labor, right down to comments on HN.
Feel free to make a cogent argument in favor of public sector unions rather than just saying "I've heard Republicans make your argument before, therefore I disagree with it" and making personal attacks against the poster.
Public sector unions help protect public employees from the very strong tendency towards abuse and corruption inherent in political control of large numbers of people's salaries. They provide a counterweight to the bargaining power of government/management in sectors where it's not reasonable to expect people to change careers, and they are a subset of collective bargaining in general, which I believe is one of the cornerstones of a properly functioning labor market.
I do not accept your premise and I have zero intention of investing money and the time required to read a book to find out what your argument is. Perhaps you could expand on it here?
malchow: I think the other poster raises a legitimate point: Is it true you are connected to the Manhatten Institute, the publisher of that book? What is their agenda on this issue? There's no reason not to have full disclosure.
"I agree. Collective bargaining for public workers is overall absurd, IMHO."
What's absurd is that there is some special category of speech called "collective bargaining" and that we treat labor/union/striking speech as somehow different than other speech.
I have no idea what collective bargaining is - it just looks like speech to me. I have no idea what a strike is - it just looks like free assembly to me.
The point of contention is that in some jurisdictions the law forces every covered public sector employee to pay into the union that negotiated the agreement--whether that employee wants to or not.
The intention of this rule is to prevent "free riders"--employees who benefit from the union-negotiated agreement, but don't contribute anything to ensure its success.
Voluntary unions (no forced contributions) are legal basically everywhere, as you think they would be. But they are obviously less powerful because they have fewer resources, and can't claim that they represent all the workers.
People should be allowed to associate with any clubs, partnerships, unions, corporations or organizations that they want to and the other party is agreeable. If you don't want to join, then don't join. If you don't want to do business with a company or a union, then don't do business with them.
There is no need for the government to massively interfere unless there is a real physical danger to citizens.
In some cases you're required to pay union dues regardless of whether you join or not. This is apparently the case for teacher's unions in 22 states + DC.[1] So "don't do business with them" isn't even always an option.
Those are agency fees, not union dues. Quoting from the link you gave, "This fee costs the same as union dues, minus the cost of the union’s direct political giving".
Edit: Downvotes for making a minor vocabulary correction? Imagine what would happen if I had pointed out that tomato is botanically a fruit, even if it is the state vegetable of New Jersey. (And yes, this topic made it to the Supreme Court in Nix v. Hedden.)
But if this is collective bargaining involving tax money and people who enforce laws with weapons then this is potentially affecting people who can't choose whether or not they like what's happening. I'm not saying public employees should have no privacy - but this is certainly not a situation where everyone can just do what they want and be left alone. Collective bargaining with the government should be transparent. That doesn't necessarily justify leaking what might contain people's personal information without their consent, but just a point that needs remain in the discussion.
Personally, I'm not a fan of the Fraternal Order of Police. We used to support them financially but they were extremely rude and harassed us when we had to step down our donations a bit. There were many people who called us who certainly did not have service to the public as their priority. I don't know much of the context of the dump nor have I viewed it myself, but I'm inclined to be suspicious of them.
>"There is no need for the government to massively interfere unless there is a real physical danger to citizens."
Generally, I'd agree with you. Individuals should be allowed to associate with whoever they wish.
Unfortunately, when it comes to unions, they're most often awarded special privileges by government. At the very least, they make large-scale organized strikes more likely to happen. And those strikes are protected, giving the unions power to wield over business, and to "convince" people to join.
I'm generally against unions because I think they too easily and often evolve into serving the organization at the expense of the members. However, if the purpose of a union is to protect against an abusive monopsony, who could be more of an abusive and myopic buyer than the average taxpayer?
> Don't bother with legal threats or trying to get UK law enforcement to seek revenge. This is me playing nice.
If you want to go nuclear with me, feel free to do so, but trust me when I say you might want to think long and hard before you do.
> I'm not known for bluffing, and I know many more of your secrets. About 18TB all in all actually, all unpublished yet.
I wonder what's in the unpublished docs, and why they're remaining unpublished.
Who has time to go through 18TB of data? The guy probably hasn't even viewed the data. Maybe it includes information from PC hard drives and he doesn't want to just release it without review.
A topic analysis using LDA would be pretty neat. It would take a really really long time with 18TB of text but in general it would be pretty cool to get an overall picture of what, generally, is in those docs. For those parties who are interested. Generally speaking of course..
> I wonder what's in the unpublished docs, and why they're remaining unpublished.
Probably something damning/valuable/devastating.
Probably so that whoever this is has something of value to further prove authenticity and to hold as leverage against retaliation (hence the OP words you quoted).
But what's the alternative? They either release everything eventually, and the leverage is lost, or they don't, and damning/valuable/devastating information about corruption or whatever else is there does the public zero good, or it's somehow destroyed and we get the worst of both.
Dribbling the data out slowly is the best move from a PR standpoint but dangerous if you hold on to the worst of the worst info.
They are trying to extort money. They are always trying to extort money.
Look at all these nasty things I released about you. I wonder what else is in this large trove of files that I can slowly leak over a few years to keep you in the news. Maybe if somebody sent me some money....
He has previously released an archive for "insurance" and I imagine either him or his legal team can give the pass phrase to it when he meets some criteria of urgency (gitmo'd)
I don't know how large that archive is, but it probably is nowhere near 18tb. 18TB is a huge size to be honest. If it was all text dumps, what would 18TB compress down to?
It all depends on the details of the dead man switch.
The lawyers wouldn't be risking much if they have standing instructions to call his brother/sister/mother in the event that they can't reach him for 48 hours(or any other arbitrary time period) and that person updates social media while an agent in a different jurisdiction watches, waiting for the signal to release.
Everyone that they know about and can verify has a connection to him has a plausible explanation for their actions. A lawyer should contact a client's family if s/he can't be reached. It's perfectly reasonable for a relative of a missing person to use social media to put out the word.
Depending on how incendiary the withheld information is, that may be enough of an incentive for law enforcement to be polite.
Wow. This is going to be interesting... The page even includes the key to decrypt the encrypted fields in the dump. Is pg_crypto that easy to crack, or is it more likely the key was stored somewhere in plaintext (e.g., email, pdf, etc.)?
The key is "Nipper47". Only 8 characters in the standard "short english-ish word starting with a capital letter followed by a couple numbers"-pattern. I'd say it's less that pg_crypto is easy to crack, and more that the key is trivially insecure and easy to brute-force. But sibling is probably right that it was just sitting there.
8 chars, including numeric, uppercase and lowercase...
With sufficient GPU resources (being in possession of a working rig, cloud-based or standalone and air-gapped, all powered-up and running operable software) and talent (experience, and familiarity with an existing framework and an established code base), I'm thinking one person could brute force that, in the privacy of their own home, in a trivial amount of time.
> one person could brute force that, in the privacy of their own home, in a trivial amount of time.
Yes. And that's assuming your pattern (26+26+10)^8 ~ 2e14, but the basic character pattern here is 26 * 26^5 * 10^2 ~ 3e10, almost 10000 times weaker. This is an extremely common pattern, most passwords don't follow a uniform distribution of those "numeric, uppercase and lowercase" characters.
Or if nipper is in your dictionary (likely, there's a wikipedia page with that title and there's only a handful of million articles, trivial to add every title, or even every word), then assuming a dictionary of 10 million words, the pattern is 2e710*10, another order of magnitude reduction.
One would assume the key was simply pilfered as well vs the crypto being cracked, but that's just a gut reaction. Human opsec is almost universally worse than any crypto, even ones that have already been broken.
Don't have any background, but from what I've seen so far (a small handful of the tons of docs) it's collective bargaining agreements between various police unions and the cities they operate in. Haven't seen one more recent than 2012.
Been looking through it for a bit - found pretty much no mention in here except for a few vague legalese.
Found this gem, though:
Would you send me the AVL info. Our Chief has indicated to us, not only can he track our locations from his home computer and Blackberry using AVL, but can access the on board camera system as well. This includes the ONLY interior car camera that ONLY monitors the driver. That's right, it doesn't monitor the criminal in the back seat, just the driver. He says this can only be done when the system is active such as on a car stop. I am not aware of any incident in which he has done this.\r\n\r\nHe has also installed cameras in the station that only target the receptionst in the enclosed office and the squad room where officers do their paperwork. On occassion he has called the night dispatcher and commented on what she was having for dinner and called the station to comment that he can see officers talking and not typing. BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING.\r\n\r\nI understand these cameras have been placed for "security" purposes. The building is posted to inform people that video monitoring is in use. Is there a limit to their use? Re:Contract language covering use of AVL for discipline
That gem sounds like a union member asking his representative about overreaching power of management for a purpose not traditionally thought of as why cops need cams, so...checks out to me.
Not sure why you're being downvoted, this is all very pertinent information to be looking for in collective bargaining agreements, even if they are a few years old.
We should expect the FBI to become involved if there is any credence to this, and the domain name thecthulhu.com (Namecheap with WhoisGuard) should be taken down shortly.
Heads will roll, that much is certain.
Does anyone have a file listing for this? Is it just a PGDATA dump, or are there more interesting things?
> the domain name thecthulhu.com (Namecheap with WhoisGuard) should be taken down shortly.
In which case, here's the magnet link for posterity. data:text/plain;base64,bWFnbmV0Oj94dD11cm46YnRpaDpGOEUwRkM5QzExRThGQzVGOThBQjZCNTg4N0UyNDNGN0MwRjIwNDEz
>Does anyone have a file listing for this? Is it just a PGDATA dump, or are there more interesting things?
I see a lot of text files (docx, doc, rtf, txt), and two DB dumps.
Not sure how/where to start looking. Opening files at random yields things like collective bargaining agreements and legal briefs. Any suggestions for munging through all of this?
There should be tools for crowdsourcing this sort of thing. It's only going to become more common. Does such a tool already exist? Something to help split up a corpus so people can collaborate on it.
Yes, there are tools exploring a couple different approaches. It's a tough problem if you want solid results, verification to avoid forged documents inserted alongside authentic ones, building tools to facilitate finding the important stuff in all the minutia of day to day exchanges. Some stuff isn't easily fully crowdsourced because the domain knowledge to find the smoking gun among the jargon of a particular field. A good tool will at least let the average citizen distill information into a form an expert can quickly digest large numbers of documents though.
Thanks for this! I hate the FOP with a passion - it's a RICO as far as I'm concerned and I look forward to the day when its leaders are rotting in jail cells.
Without espousing an opinion one way or the other, I think the point that is most striking to me is the relatively civilized manner we're all discussing a contentious topic. Hat's off to hackernews readers for navigating tough issues with class!
I was JUST solicited by phone on the day before yesterday, by our local FOP in Jupiter, FL.
Let me tell you how that went (I'll call the caller Albert, to avoid using his real name):
Albert: Hi, <my full name>. This is Albert from the Jupiter Police Department...
Me: Hi (...shit, did I cut somebody off and they called the cops?).
Albert: [nothing for 3 seconds while I ruminate in my paranoia]
Albert: Don't worry, there's nothing wrong. I'm calling about officers in need. I'm from the Fraternal Order of Police... Each year we... yata yata... we help officers that have been injured on the job and officers whose families are in need... can you help us out?
Me: [how does this guy know my mobile phone number and full name, anyway]
Me: Possibly.
... some back and forth - him trying to convince me that the only amount that can be accepted is $285. Me having patience, thinking about how, despite all the police brutality reports out there, etc., there are also a lot of public servants in need that are now doubly screwed by all the bad press, as a result of the few that do bad things, also how the Jupiter Police Department has always been really great compared to anywhere else I've lived... basically, I'm sympathizing with the officers, rather than wondering what this FOP organization is, and why they're being allowed to say they're calling FROM the Jupiter Police Department.
Me: Ok, I'll donate $90.
... quick discussion about check / payable to, etc...
Albert: Ok, I've got you at <my address>. Is that correct?
Me: [what, does the police department give him the address from my license?]
Me: Yes.
Albert: Ok, I'll have our guy come pick up the check tomorrow.
The call basically ends there, but I'm left with this uncomfortable "well, that guy seemed like a hustler to me" feeling. I do a quick search, pull up their website, and immediately find that they offer legal services, etc. Instantly, I'm thinking, "wait, I was just bamboozled into donating to a fund that is probably used for lobbying / bargaining, and for protecting police that are charged with murdering innocent people! I was donating to help officers directly in need!". I called back and cancelled the donation.
Organizations like this are, sadly, basically large gangs, and they only serve to ruin the establishments they "serve" by adding unnatural protections that lead to corruption and abuse.
Note: My full name is on my profile page. I only mask it here, in case this comment was, for some reason, copy/paste quoted on NYT or something ridiculous.
The caller went through his spiel and asked if I'd like to make a $100 donation. I politely informed him that I would not. He tried again at $50. I declined and again for $20.
He said something along the lines of if I can't afford a larger donation, anything would help. I explained to him that I had the money. $100 isn't the problem. I was unwilling to donate money to the FOP.
He laughed, told me that he understood and we wished each other a good day as the call ended.
I think this is a fair question. From other comments it sounds like there are union agreements that may not have been available before, and it can be argued that the public should know what their governments have contracted with police unions. Another item mentioned in other comments is what looks like a forum database dump, so people could find out what the police say about various subjects when they expect nobody to hear.
This planet will be pulverized by an asteroid before this 18TB is released in plain text for the entire world to freely peruse. The entire hacker/anonymous phenomenon is a complete fraud run by western intelligence/police agencies with the corporate media’s cooperation.
IMPORTANT: This is a collection of files from an anonymous hacker including file formats such as docx that are known for carrying malware. Safe handling means opening them only on a virtual machine with nothing of value inside it and no access to your internal network. You have been warned.
Oh come on, we might as well start posting this warning every time someone links to any files on HN.
In fact, websites are known for carrying malware.
Especially considering that at the point where you have the docs you have already opened the torrent, and torrent clients are known for being super secure
I think it's worth reminding people that there's a huge difference between harmless text files and MS Office documents that can carry all kinds of malware.
And what makes the files in this context stand out as particularly dangerous?
I don't know what kind of attacks you work with but in my experience people usually try to be at least somewhat stealthy, this wouldn't be it.
And anyway, how would you even get those files without downloading the torrent in the first place? Sounds like you might be placing a little unwarranted trust on your torrent client.
