Championship Subdivision Football | FCS Football | Stadiums | Blogs | Forums

Are unions popular? Sort of. According to a new NYT/CBS poll, a third of Americans view them favorably, a quarter of Americans view them unfavorably, and the rest are undecided. But are efforts to attack unions popular? Not at all. The same poll showed Americans opposed weakening the bargaining rights of union members by an almost two-to-one margin.

Nor does the public like the idea of cutting the pay or benefits of union employees to balance budgets: 56 percent opposed that strategy, while 37 percent supported it. You can find the reason for that in another question: Only 26 percent of Americans think public employees are overpaid. Another 37 percent think their pay is about right, and a further 25 percent think their pay is too low.

And that's not an isolated survey. A Pew poll released yesterday found the unions winning over the public in Wisconsin -- they led Walker by 11 points.

I've actually been surprised at how well unions have held up in the polling. My gut instinct was that Scott Walker's campaign would be popular, and resistance to it would be a minority sentiment. My gut was very, very wrong. I wonder whether Scott Walker is beginning to get the creeping suspicion that his gut was wrong, too? A new PPP poll of Wisconsin shows that if the Badger State's voters could do it over again, they'd elect Walker's opponent as governor. The change in sentiment is almost entirely attributable to self-identified Republicans who are also union members. They voted for Walker in November, and now wish they hadn't. According to the PPP poll, if the election was run again, 10 percent of Republicans would defect from Walker, up from only 3 percent who voted Democratic in November.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:"The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Feb. 24-27 with 984 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all adults. Of those surveyed, 20 percent said there was a union member in their household, and 25 percent said there was a public employee in their household. "

Somewhat skewed to get the desired answer, isn't it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/us/01poll.html?_r=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

. In the 2000 presidential election, 26 percent of voters said they or someone in their household was a union member, while in 2004, that number was 24 percent. In 2008, the share of voters from union households was down to 21 percent of all voters.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:"The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Feb. 24-27 with 984 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all adults. Of those surveyed, 20 percent said there was a union member in their household, and 25 percent said there was a public employee in their household. "

Somewhat skewed to get the desired answer, isn't it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/us/01poll.html?_r=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Appaholic wrote: Republicans Losing PR Battle on Collective Bargaining According to Union, Public Employee Households.

Skjellyfetti wrote:

TheDancinMonarch wrote:"The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Feb. 24-27 with 984 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all adults. Of those surveyed, 20 percent said there was a union member in their household, and 25 percent said there was a public employee in their household. "

Somewhat skewed to get the desired answer, isn't it?

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/01/us/01poll.html?_r=2" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not really. ~20 percent of voters have a Union member in household. That number seems to be right on the money.

. In the 2000 presidential election, 26 percent of voters said they or someone in their household was a union member, while in 2004, that number was 24 percent. In 2008, the share of voters from union households was down to 21 percent of all voters.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011 ... s-in-2010/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not sure on public employees, but I'd assume it would also line up with the demographic data used to poll.

These types of polls are based on large, costly demographic studies. I guess it's easier to just claim "liberal bias" whenever you see a poll you don't like, though.

TheDancinMonarch wrote:
So we use a lie from the NY Times to prove that anotherr lie from the NY Time is not a lie. Got it. Read from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

TheDancinMonarch wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
Not really. ~20 percent of voters have a Union member in household. That number seems to be right on the money.


http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2011 ... s-in-2010/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Not sure on public employees, but I'd assume it would also line up with the demographic data used to poll.

These types of polls are based on large, costly demographic studies. I guess it's easier to just claim "liberal bias" whenever you see a poll you don't like, though.

So we use a lie from the NY Times to prove that anotherr lie from the NY Time is not a lie. Got it. Read from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Skjellyfetti wrote:

Appaholic wrote: Republicans Losing PR Battle on Collective Bargaining According to Union, Public Employee Households.

21% of households voting in 2008 had a union member in household. How is that misleading to conduct a poll with 20% of respondents coming from a household with a union member?

What % would have been a fair amount in your mind? 5%? 1%?

ASUG8 wrote:I thought it was pretty classy for the 14 Dems to migrate to Illinois to avoid the vote in WI.

Appaholic wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
21% of households voting in 2008 had a union member in household. How is that misleading to conduct a poll with 20% of respondents coming from a household with a union member?

What % would have been a fair amount in your mind? 5%? 1%?

Actually, I'm more interested in the actual question asked of the respondents. Was the question should public employee unions have the right to collective bargain? or should unions in general have the right to collective bargain? Should unions have the right to walk off the job in a general strike? Or do teachers / police / public employees have the right to walk off the job in a general strike? I didn't read the article, so I'll stand corrected if they did...either way, I don't give a **** as NC public employees are not allowed to collective bargain as a union...so it doesn't affect me. I will say collective bargaining should be allowed for all aspects of private industry unions, but should be allowed, if at all, only to bargain for actual wages and not benefits with regard to public employee unions....and quite frankly, I find it offensive that public employees are allowed to unionize at all....

89Hen wrote:In a similar poll, 87% of those polled didn't know what collective bargaining is.

Appaholic wrote:

Skjellyfetti wrote:
21% of households voting in 2008 had a union member in household. How is that misleading to conduct a poll with 20% of respondents coming from a household with a union member?

What % would have been a fair amount in your mind? 5%? 1%?

Actually, I'm more interested in the actual question asked of the respondents. Was the question should public employee unions have the right to collective bargain? or should unions in general have the right to collective bargain? Should unions have the right to walk off the job in a general strike? Or do teachers / police / public employees have the right to walk off the job in a general strike? I didn't read the article, so I'll stand corrected if they did...either way, I don't give a shit as NC public employees are not allowed to collective bargain as a union...so it doesn't affect me. I will say collective bargaining should be allowed for all aspects of private industry unions, but should be allowed, if at all, only to bargain for actual wages and not benefits with regard to public employee unions....and quite frankly, I find it offensive that public employees are allowed to unionize at all....

Bronco wrote:When the economy is rolling along and unemployment is low people don't really pay much attention to issues like this.

When the economy collapses and folks are looking at ways to save money in their own household they start paying attention to these types of issues.

The unions would be smart to get this off the news as fast as possible. The longer this goes on the more the folks who pay taxes will be learning....and they won't like what they see.

HI54UNI wrote:

Appaholic wrote:
Actually, I'm more interested in the actual question asked of the respondents. Was the question should public employee unions have the right to collective bargain? or should unions in general have the right to collective bargain? Should unions have the right to walk off the job in a general strike? Or do teachers / police / public employees have the right to walk off the job in a general strike? I didn't read the article, so I'll stand corrected if they did...either way, I don't give a shit as NC public employees are not allowed to collective bargain as a union...so it doesn't affect me. I will say collective bargaining should be allowed for all aspects of private industry unions, but should be allowed, if at all, only to bargain for actual wages and not benefits with regard to public employee unions....and quite frankly, I find it offensive that public employees are allowed to unionize at all....

You bring up an interesting point. I was listening to a local talk show guy on the drive home yesterday. Caller was bitching that Walker was going to take away the rights of everyone to organize. The caller didn't understand that it was only limiting public employee unions. I wonder how many other people think that?

HI54UNI wrote:You bring up an interesting point. I was listening to a local talk show guy on the drive home yesterday. Caller was bitching that Walker was going to take away the rights of everyone to organize. The caller didn't understand that it was only limiting public employee unions. I wonder how many other people think that?

89Hen wrote:

HI54UNI wrote:You bring up an interesting point. I was listening to a local talk show guy on the drive home yesterday. Caller was bitching that Walker was going to take away the rights of everyone to organize. The caller didn't understand that it was only limiting public employee unions. I wonder how many other people think that?

All the spoon fed Libs out there listening to Maddow, Schultz, NPR...

ALPHAGRIZ1 wrote:I dont give a fu*k about PR.

I dont care if each member of congress were to kill one infant as long as they cut spending, its worth it.

TwinTownBisonFan wrote:

TheDancinMonarch wrote:
So we use a lie from the NY Times to prove that anotherr lie from the NY Time is not a lie. Got it. Read from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.nr0.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

there's a difference between "all workers" and "registered voters" chief.

Union households are much more likely to be registered and active voters. and when you figure that somewhere around 10% of our workforce is unionized, many of them have spouses, and they vote in significantly higher numbers than non-union households... they likely are 20%.

in truth - nobody gives a real **** what the whole of the population thinks about an issue - what matters, is what VOTERS think... moreover than REGISTERED voters... I'd love to see a poll of people who have voted in 3 of the last 4 federal elections... THAT would be a much more accurate measure of the political implications of this ****. It's what we in the business called the "likely voter model" it's all we ever poll internally (it's also more expensive, which is why media doesn't do it)

HI54UNI wrote:

89Hen wrote: All the spoon fed Libs out there listening to Maddow, Schultz, NPR...

Don't forget the union sheep listening to their union masters......