Where will it end

[fraser]

sags is spot on. Everything has a cost.

And those employees who are not part of bargaining units makes job choices based on many factors, including compensation, ie the structure of the entire package. In my case it consisted of a combination of pension, health benefits, stock option grants, bonus, commissions at various points in my carreer. I would not have wanted say, a public service DB pension benefit scheme vs the one that I have at the expense of stock option grants or performance bonus payments. Everyone has different priorities and different compensation opportunities.

In my experience though, total benefits in some non union sectors are dropping. I know of one multinational that has reducted it's salary add on cost from 43 percent to the mid twenties (ie the real cost of an employee went from 1.43 times salary to 1.24 times salary. They did it by reducting health benefits, changing and capping vacation entitlements, closing and grandfathering the DB plan in favour of a DC plan, freezing salaries, lowering performance bonus money, etc. etc Then they made further reductions by offshore outsourcing of every function possible.

[sags]

Companies are cutting back in union shops as well...........although unionized workers may fare a little better than their non union management counterparts.

At the end of the day..........the corporations start with all the power and all union representation can hope to do is put restrictions on some of that power.

Every discussion comes back to the same starting point eventually.

The problem isn't the quantity of money circulating in the world.

It is how the money is being distributed.

[1.5M]

In my experience though, total benefits in some non union sectors are dropping. I know of one multinational that has reducted it's salary add on cost from 43 percent to the mid twenties (ie the real cost of an employee went from 1.43 times salary to 1.24 times salary. They did it by reducting health benefits, changing and capping vacation entitlements, closing and grandfathering the DB plan in favour of a DC plan, freezing salaries, lowering performance bonus money, etc. etc Then they made further reductions by offshore outsourcing of every function possible.

That's another problem with all those benefits. You don't really know how much you're paid. I don't think a corporation should be offering any of those benefits. I work for money. Give me money. I know what I want to do with it better than the gov or the corporation I'm working for.

[HaroldCrump]

fraser is correct that these benefits are part of total compensation.
A monetary value can be assigned to each of these gold-plated benefits - from a DBP plan, bridge, buybacks, cashable sick days, 5 year sabbaticals, etc.

And that precisely is the problem - at least in the public sector.
Total compensation is too damn high.