[greenflash245]

union hides the crooked cops. go figure.

[arbajeda]

The whole argument is moot. The Supreme Court has held that monetary contributions are protected free speech. Until that decision is overturned the only real solution is for the electorate to vote in governors/mayors/councilmen (and women)/sheriffs who will implement reforms that outlaw bad behavior, negotiate CBAs that permit dismissal of bad actors and revoke laws that make it impossible to prosecute police whose conduct would put ordinary citizens in jail.

[allsport]

Actually there are many more lawyers that are disbarred than docs who lose their license. I was in a position where I regularly reviewed state board information for nurses who had licensing issues and there were pages in the state who were in trouble. Never were there any docs in trouble because they never policed their own. When I heard them complain about the cost of malpractice insurance, I always told them to police their profession and the cost would drop.

[Dust Bunny]

Bill Clinton was disbarred and paid a fine as well

[coconutmama]

Originally Posted by Dust Bunny

Bill Clinton was disbarred and paid a fine as well

Not disbarred. Arkansas license suspended for 5 years over Monica affair. Did pay a fine.

[jbrown132]

Originally Posted by ColdNoMore

Yeah BUT, the last I checked we don't have a real problem with teachers killing, or even using excessive force...with their students.

Yeah but, but what the union does do is protect some teachers that are utterly incompetent and should never be in a class room. They may not physically abuse the children but the do leave life long scars on their minds.

[roscoguy]

Originally Posted by J1ceasar

Unions got workers healthcare and $60 an hour .
But unions killed GM and Chrysler etc . you see there is no middle ground to be fair in business or public works . everyone wants MORE . you can say because of unions and over regulation , China has succeeded in taking over our manufacturing.

Which unions "got workers healthcare and $60 an hour"??? Please show some factual basis for this claim. For the U.S. auto companies, a very large part of the average cost per vehicle difference is due to legacy/retiree costs, something the 'imports' aren't yet paying for. Foreign automakers have also been offered huge incentives to build, primarily in the south, which further reduced their costs.
Unions haven't "killed GM and Chrysler etc". This is a totally one-sided argument & completely exonerates the U.S. auto companies for their uninspiring design & poor business decisions from the 60's onward that concentrated on profitability to the detriment of innovation, quality and design. Unions aren't blameless in regards to the higher costs per vehicle, but dropping it all on their laps is pure BS.

[cheweycat]

That’s a broad generalization!

[cheweycat]

Another broad generalization. The topic is Police Unions.

[cheweycat]

Yes, and I saw ir on Fox news. LOL

[sloanst]

I don't believe in public sector unions at all. We should have a more direct control of our tax dollars and being able to terminate bad apples quickly should be at the forefront of that control.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by roscoguy

Which unions "got workers healthcare and $60 an hour"??? Please show some factual basis for this claim. For the U.S. auto companies, a very large part of the average cost per vehicle difference is due to legacy/retiree costs, something the 'imports' aren't yet paying for. Foreign automakers have also been offered huge incentives to build, primarily in the south, which further reduced their costs.
Unions haven't "killed GM and Chrysler etc". This is a totally one-sided argument & completely exonerates the U.S. auto companies for their uninspiring design & poor business decisions from the 60's onward that concentrated on profitability to the detriment of innovation, quality and design. Unions aren't blameless in regards to the higher costs per vehicle, but dropping it all on their laps is pure BS.

With the automakers plenty of blame to go around. Poor management and unions that allowed their members to do shoddy work and not be accountable for such.

[Stu from NYC]

Originally Posted by jbrown132

Yeah but, but what the union does do is protect some teachers that are utterly incompetent and should never be in a class room. They may not physically abuse the children but the do leave life long scars on their minds.

Very true. It is sad that unions do not promote the cause of improving education and getting rid of incompetents or ones who do not perform..

[transplanted]

Okay - I'm going to give you a real life example that I lived through with the FOP and the union and their defense of an accused police officer. January 2019. A police officer was the second on scene of a domestic issue, I'll call him Cliff. A drunk and high woman was, let's say acting out, at her "baby daddy's" home, demanding immediate physical custody of their 5 year-old daughter. The solution decided by the on scene commander was to remove the woman from the scene. Showing a bit of compassion, he chose to relocate her rather than arrest her. Cliff, deciding not to just drive her down the street and dump her at the 7-11, because she would just walk back to the scene and start up again, offered her a ride to the metro (subway) station so she could get home. She didn't have any money, having spent it all on a taxi to take her to another county to get to the scene. Upon arriving at the station and parking under a security camera at 5:30 in the morning, the woman refused to get out of the cruiser. Cliff offers to call a friend to come get her if she didn't want to take the metro. He calls the friend (with his number blocked) and leaves voice message. He calls back a few minutes later and the friend answers. Cliff gets out of the cruiser and walks a few feet away and offers the phone to the woman -- which gets her out of the cruiser, which he immediately locks. The woman talks to her friend on the phone, with people walking by, into the station to get the metro to go to work. When she is done, she demands Cliff take her all the way home - to a county outside his jurisdiction and he refuses. She asks for money to ride the metro and he gives her a $ rather than just totally leave her stranded. She then tells him "if you leave me here, you'll regret it." And Cliff drives off. Ninety minutes later, while finishing up his shift, Cliff gets a call to come straight away to the station. Upon arrival, he is swabbed for dna, his uniform, weapon, credentials, cruiser, etc., is confiscated and he's told he's under suspension due to an accusation of 'inappropriate touching' -- the actual description is over the top, but that's the category used. Allegedly all this touching, by the woman, who was wearing long pants, occurred in the front seat and in the back seat of the cruiser, in the metro parking lot, under the camera, and while all these people were walking by, and she was under NO restraints. The woman walks into the metro station and makes the accusation and is rushed off to a hospital for all kinds of testing. This is in today's world of the phone camera, where anyone would have heard any screams or seen any kind of scuffle, etc... yet there is no one reporting anything, no one filming anything - nothing. Okay - Cliff is sent off to suspension land to guess what the H is going on; having been officer of the year the previous year and awarded a medal of valor for stepping into a shoot-out to save a toddler's life. He must undergo psych therapy, wear civilian clothes to work at a desk job, be buzzed in and out of the office, give up ALL off-duty work and sit at a desk where all he can do is answer the phone and call someone in off the street if a report needs to be taken. Metro says they have jurisdiction to investigate and his own IA can't investigate until metro is finished. Of course the hospital tests reveal all kinds of 'activity' by the woman, but none of the 4 dna's they gather match Cliff's. A multitude of illicit drugs and an elevated level of alcohol are also found. By the next day, the local media catches wind and runs out to the metro to interview random people, telling them of the broad accusation and recording their shock at such behavior by the police. This is played on tv for several days, along with teasers that say "see the evidence at 9". I have recorded all those shows, and am still waiting to see any evidence related to the case. Okay - Cliff asks for an attorney as he wants to have the woman prosecuted when it's all over 'cause he knows he didn't do anything and the investigations will bear it out. He's told he'll get an attorney if he needs one during the investigations. Jump to May - 5 months later - metro has finished it's investigation and has been unsuccessful in finding the woman so they can ask her more about her side of the story, and baby-daddy refuses to cooperate with any investigation, 'cause he's the first to call the police for help, but doesn't want to help with any investigation... stellar citizenry in action. The local prosecutor sends EVERYTHING to a grand jury if it involves police, 'cause she wants to protect her backside - forget about the police officer. And since, you guessed it, this is a white officer and an african-american woman, we better triple make sure he didn't look at her cross-eyed. The grand jury subpoena's baby-daddy who still won't cooperate, and baby-mama is still hiding out. I say tell ME where baby-daddy lives and I'll FIND baby-mama... those two are gonna meet up over that child at some point! Grand jury says the case is BS and doesn't indict. Where is the media and their follow-up reporting... crickets... crickets... the crickets are deafening. So that all happens by May. IA now does their thing and finally, in August, Cliff is returned to duty. Having lost about $50,000 in moonlighting, having been shamed by the accusations, having gotten a good case of PTSD -- he has been refused a body cam, even offered to pay for it himself and told no, only certain units can have them, and he no longer wants to be alone in any fashion with a female 'suspect' for lack of a better word. And, oh by the way, all accusations, unfounded or not, stay in the record. And here's the best prize - for both him and the taxpayer who spent over $60,000 for the investigations, hospital tests, etc., they won't prosecute the woman because it might discourage true victims from coming forward if they think they might be prosecuted. Seriously. So forgive me if I seem a bit jaded about how the police unions, etc., protect the police officer. I lived this one - Cliff is my brother and I was living there when it all happened. Sorry to take up so much space, but this experience has greatly colored my world and vision of what I see on the news and what I know goes on in the background. I know he is not the only one who has experienced such politically correct nonsense.

[John_W]

Some large companies without a union will do anything they want without regard to their employees. My wife worked at Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Maryland from 1969 until 1993. One day they called her into the office and said, you can resign now and we'll give you three months pay or if you go back to your desk, we'll fire you and you will get nothing. Of course she resigned, they replaced her with a temp at $15 an hour with no benefits. She applied for unemployment, and even though she had quit, she received full benefits because they said, they know what Blue Cross does to their employees.

She started as a file clerk and worked her way up to an underwriter, she had great healthcare with zero deductible, six weeks vacation a year but the pay wasn't great, it was in the low $30's. Two years before the new president of the company, William Jews who was paid $5 million a year salary. Decided he liked the suburb of Owings Mills better than Towson, so he bought a million dollar house in Owings Mills. He sold the company's headquarters, a small high-rise building in Towson to Baltimore County for $7 million and they moved their police headquarters into the building.

William Jews, the man who used Blue Cross of Maryland as his own cash cow!!



The Towson Blue Cross building that Jews determined was no longer suitable and sold for $7 million, the county moved their police headquarters into the building.



William Jews had the company build two new high-rise buildings on the edge of Owings Mills Mall for several million more and the company moved there.



The company got such a bad reputation by denying claims, raising premiums. I had my coverage at $200 a month, they attempted to raise it to $250 a month for several years and causing me to raise my deductible every year, until it got to $3,000 deductible and then I finally dropped them. My wife said they many security guards at the new buildings because so many irate customers attempted to do harm to the company. In the end, she was glad she no longer had to work there.

Jews attempted to sell the company in 2001 for $1.3 billion which would of generated him a $39 million bonus. It was eventually blocked and the state assembly stepped in and replaced most of the company's board. Instead Jews gave himself a $9 million bonus in 2002. Jews finally left Blue Cross in 2006 and received a golden parachute of $18 million dollars.