Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Striking Overpaid Workers, Public Unions Should be Banned

Politics / Social Issues Jul 06, 2010 - 04:32 AM GMT

By: Mike_Shedlock

Politics

Illinois construction workers live in fantasy land of business-as-usual. They are demanding 15% pay hikes when everyone of them ought to be fired with their jobs outsourced to the cheapest non-union shop.


Please consider Construction Workers Go On Strike.

Here in the Chicago area the highway construction workers went on strike....the reason they want a 5% raise each year over the next three year contract.....to cover the cost of increase healthcare cost!

The current salary for construction workers is between $50.00 and $68.00 per hour which include benefits.

Illinois is suffering from one of the worst recessions since the depression.... over 700,000 unemployed....Walmart has just announced they plan to build 24 new stores in the Chicagoland area.....most of the new jobs will pay $9.50 per hour....and there are conversations to raise this salary to $10.50 per hour....hundreds of unemployed workers have expressed willingness to take on these new jobs....with pleasure.....many people just want to work and get a paycheck.

Prevailing Wages

I am trying to get a more specific handle on the wages of an average construction worker. It is difficult because Illinois goes by prevailing wages (by county). Moreover, there are approximately 70 different labor classifications for Cook County, none of which is construction worker.

Click here the Illinois Department of Labor Prevailing Wage Documents.

Cook Country Highway Operating Engineer base pay ranges from $38-46 with benefits amounting to approximately another $20, not counting overtime, holiday pay, etc.

Interestingly, Cook Country painters get $38 an hour with health care benefits amounting to $8.35 an hour and pension benefits at $9.40 an hour.

The general category of Cook Country laborer gets $35.20 an hour with $9.13 in health care benefits and another $8.37 in pension benefits.

One also has to factor in pension and health care benefits to arrive at the totals mentioned in the first article.

However, given that many in the private sector do not have health care and most do not have pension plans anywhere close to what public workers get, favoring in pensions and health care benefits is the correct thing to do.

Any way you slice it, the whole prevailing wage concept is madness. It guarantees taxpayers pay the highest rate possible for every job filled by a union worker.

If given the chance, people would be lining up for miles for the jobs at $2 more than minimum wage.

There is a three-fold solution to this madness

1. Make Illinois a right-to work-state
2. Scrap Davis-Bacon
3. Require competitive non-union bidding on all projects involving Federal funds.

Please see Thoughts on the Davis Bacon Act for more on the insanity of prevailing wage laws.

In 1999 Ron Paul introduced a measure to repeal Davis-Bacon. Someone needs to try again, and again, and again, until that mad relic of the Great Depression is repealed.

Actually public unions should be banned completely.

Government should try to provide the most services for the least amount of money, not the fewest services for the least amount of money.

Sadly, public unions, in conjunction with prevailing wages laws, collective bargaining, and corrupt politicians all combine to insure taxpayers get the least for their hard earned dollars. Adding insult to injury, public unions have the gall to whine about it.

By Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com

Click Here To Scroll Thru My Recent Post List

Mike Shedlock / Mish is a registered investment advisor representative for SitkaPacific Capital Management . Sitka Pacific is an asset management firm whose goal is strong performance and low volatility, regardless of market direction.

Visit Sitka Pacific's Account Management Page to learn more about wealth management and capital preservation strategies of Sitka Pacific.

I do weekly podcasts every Thursday on HoweStreet and a brief 7 minute segment on Saturday on CKNW AM 980 in Vancouver.

When not writing about stocks or the economy I spends a great deal of time on photography and in the garden. I have over 80 magazine and book cover credits. Some of my Wisconsin and gardening images can be seen at MichaelShedlock.com .

© 2010 Mike Shedlock, All Rights Reserved.


© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in