Unions

[Marvin S]

We have a new guy on POTUS who seems to know a little about unions, welcome JS - not the usual "Oh you're conservative so you don't like unions garbage". Having sat on both sides of the fence, served as a negotiator in a public setting, been asked to negotiate in a private setting which I turned down & administered contracts, also working under them, I have found many of the comments in the past on this forum not worthy of further discussion.

There is more than 1 side to this discussion - Public-private, Union management-worker -

Let's discuss the good & bad about unions -

& as union membership is 11% of the workforce & JS did not answer my query - what percentage of that 11% is public & what percent private - My guess is that it's tilted 70-30 toward public sector .

[JS]

Oh, but I did answer your query. Post #58 in that thread:

I would estimate that the private sector number is now somewhere between 5 & 10 ... probably closer to 5%.

Last I read the public sector was around 40%. Higher percentage but smaller number.

JS

And I acknowledged it is an estimate but it's pretty close. Your figures are outside my margin of error ... if you're saying 70% of public sector workers, I dispute that. Show me.

JS

[BonMallari]

I am a member of Culinary #226, which is an subdivision of the SEIU...the good is that I have a "cadillac" insurance plan, the bad is that I had no say in how funds were spent in backing a candidate for office..in order to have the job I have now I had to join the union...I do not support my union's stance on political issues...

here is something telling about my particular union...the motto on the union hall says "..in solidarity, we will win.."

IMO its that us vs them mentality that starts us in the wrong direction

[JS]

Marvin, maybe I misread your question. I understood you to ask what percentage of each sector of the job market is organized.

My answer is somewhere around 5% to 10% of the private sector is organized and around 40% of the public sector jobs are organized.

If you are asking what is the body count ratio of organized public workers to private, I’m not sure. But I’ll bet you have an idea and are going somewhere with this.

Help me out.

JS

And Marvin, I am not "a new guy on POTUS". I only look in occasionally for entertainment purposes. The discourse reminds me of driving on vacation with my 5 daughters in the back of the station wagon. And there is no way I can stop THIS car.

This is a very boring time of year between the water getting too cold and the winter trip still a couple months off. I was lured into participating out of boredom.

[Marvin S]

Marvin, maybe I misread your question. I understood you to ask what percentage of each sector of the job market is organized.

My answer is somewhere around 5% to 10% of the private sector is organized and around 40% of the public sector jobs are organized.

If you are asking what is the body count ratio of organized public workers to private, I’m not sure. But I’ll bet you have an idea and are going somewhere with this.

Help me out.

JS

I live in a heavily unionized state - so I don't follow unions because it raises my blood pressure - but I have a strong interest in them as I believe unions capable of bringing benefit to workers - just not as they are presently run, I'm about as much a fan of union management as I am most democrat politicians - I thought from your posts you could equate what you had posted with numbers.

Now don't quote me, but an article that I read some time past I think I remember stating about 7% of the private sector were unionized & it was like 70% on the public side - this is from memory - & as the KState coach said when asked to compare this team with his 98 team "I'm 72 & have a hard time remembering what I had for dinner last night". I beat the age considerably so only remember what I am really interested in .

[JS]

I live in a heavily unionized state - so I don't follow unions because it raises my blood pressure - but I have a strong interest in them as I believe unions capable of bringing benefit to workers - just not as they are presently run, I'm about as much a fan of union management as I am most democrat politicians - I thought from your posts you could equate what you had posted with numbers.

Now don't quote me, but an article that I read some time past I think I remember stating about 7% of the private sector were unionized & it was like 70% on the public side - this is from memory - & as the KState coach said when asked to compare this team with his 98 team "I'm 72 & have a hard time remembering what I had for dinner last night". I beat the age considerably so only remember what I am really interested in .

Marvin, you make me happy! I'm 74 and I was not that far off. You, however, have some catching up to do.

From the accompanying link ... BLS 2011 http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm

• 7.6 million public sector employees belonged to a union. That constituted 37% of the total public sector employment.

• 7.2 million private sector employees belonged to a union. That constitutes only 6.9% which by my calculation indicates there are roughly 5 times as many private sector workers as those in the public sector.

I'm sorry that this conflicts with commonly held beliefs regarding the preponderance of government workers in the country but I guess numbers are numbers.

JS

[HPL]

Howdy JS,
Appreciate your deigning to grace us with your presence in these boring times. I am pretty sure that what Marvin was asking was what percentage of all union members work in the public sector and what percentage are employed in the private sector. That is to say, for every 100 union members, how may hold jobs where the tax payer is picking up the tab? As an example, it you picked 1000 union members at random, and found that 670 of those 1000 union members were paid by tax money, then one could estimate that 67% of union members are in the public sector, leaving 33% working in the private sector.

[JS]

Howdy JS,
Appreciate your deigning to grace us with your presence in these boring times. I am pretty sure that what Marvin was asking was what percentage of all union members work in the public sector and what percentage are employed in the private sector. That is to say, for every 100 union members, how may hold jobs where the tax payer is picking up the tab? As an example, it you picked 1000 union members at random, and found that 670 of those 1000 union members were paid by tax money, then one could estimate that 67% of union members are in the public sector, leaving 23% working in the private sector.

Well, Marvin is the engineer not me, and I am not a mathematician either but using the numbers I just posted, I would calculate roughly 122 million workers, about 20.5 million of them public employees and 102 million in the private sector. Since the number of union members is roughly equal in each group, as I showed above, and you picked from union members only, then the ratio would be about 50/50. If you picked your random sample from the entire workforce the ratio would be more like 5/1 toward the private side.

Still not sure what you're after.

JS

[Marvin S]

• 7.6 million public sector employees belonged to a union. That constituted 37% of the total public sector employment.
• 7.2 million private sector employees belonged to a union. That constitutes only 6.9% which by my calculation indicates there are roughly 5 times as many private sector workers as those in the public sector. JS

That's what I was lookijng for . It's possible the article I read had a stated goal of 70% organized . Be that as it may - it gives some good numbers for discussion.

[HPL]

Well, Marvin is the engineer not me, and I am not a mathematician either but using the numbers I just posted, I would calculate roughly 122 million workers, about 20.5 million of them public employees and 102 million in the private sector. Since the number of union members is roughly equal in each group, as I showed above, and you picked from union members only, then the ratio would be about 50/50. If you picked your random sample from the entire workforce the ratio would be more like 5/1 toward the private side.

Still not sure what you're after.

JS

I have read and re-read Marvin's initial post here and as it reads, he was simply asking what proportion of unionized workers are in the "public" sector and what proportion are in the private sector. Your post indicating that approximately 50% of union workers are in the public sector actually finally answered Marvin's initial question and at the same time showed that those being paid by the taxpayer are disproportionately unionized, and that last part is what is really worth discussing.