on balance, government employee labor unions have a positive impact on the united states

I apologize for the delay. I will begin by posting my rebuttals, and then establish my points on the negative. My opponent's first point is that we should not reduce the pay of these government workers. First of all, I find it necessary to point out that there is a difference between arguing against pay increases and advocating pay decreases. Therefore, this point is not relevant to the debate, because as the CON side, in no way do I have to argue for the reduction of these people's pay. I merely have to argue that unions do harm by increasing their pay. My opponent's second point is that the deficit is not the fault of the public sector, and that we should not, again, reduce the pay of these government workers. It is then further asserted that even though the government has made poor investments, these should not factor into a reduction in pensions. However, when we see that according to the Cato Institute, the government has to pay out approximately $1 trillion more than it has funds for in pensions, it is clear that regardless of the "bad investing" that has occurred, the amount that has to be paid out in pensions clearly exceeds anything that is possible for the US to pay. Therefore, the unions have harmed the economy tremendously by advocating and creating these pension systems. My opponent's third point begins with the assertion that an increase in wages inherently attracts well-qualified individuals into the field. However, my opponent provides no analysis for this assumption, and upon further investigation, we realize that an increase in wages will not attract only well-qualified individuals, but also under qualified individuals, as everybody would be interested in higher wages. However, when we see the job security that unions inherently provide, it is clear that the under qualified workers would be more attracted to these jobs because the well-qualified workers do not need this job security, so it is irrelevant to them, but the under qualified workers see this as an opportunity to get higher pay with less effort. My opponent goes on to say that unions have been critical in "overcoming obstacles." However, when we look at the grand scheme of things, since we are debating government employee labor unions as a whole, we must realize that although this one specific union may be beneficial in some regards, the huge amount of money that it has led to in deficits for the United States government clearly outweigh these positive effects, many of which cannot be attributed directly to unions. Although I am sure that my opponent has accurately described these events which he claims the NEA led to, what we must realize is that these unions most certainly were not the sole factor in determining these outcomes, and therefore we cannot make the assumption that unions are beneficial due to things that they may or may not have led to, as again, my opponent has the burden of proof. My opponent's fourth point is that these unions encourage people to enter the public sector, and that these unions are necessary to raise the salaries and benefits of those in the public sector. My opponent also asserts that the private sector offers more lucrative pay and better benefits while employed. However, according to the same article from the Cato Institute that I sourced earlier, the average worker in the public sector already makes approximately 45% more in salary than the average worker in the private sector, and they have considerably higher benefits than in the private sector. Therefore, we can see that there is no need to further increase these wages and benefits in the public sector, as they are already considerably higher than in the private sector. Now I will establish a few points on the negative. My first point is that government employee labor unions lead to a dramatic increase in job security that negatively impacts the public sector. The main example I would like to bring up is the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, or the AFSCME, which is the largest union in the public sector, at 1.4 million members. The AFSCME has been crucial in leading to reforms that make it nigh upon impossible to fire government workers. Through their effective lobbying for these reforms, they have also created laws that regularize the raises of workers, determine promotions almost solely on seniority, ignore the accomplishments of workers, etc. As a consequence of this, more and more under qualified workers are being introduced into the public sector that cannot be eliminated, which ends up costing the government more money to compensate for its lack of efficiency. My second point is the fact that I sourced earlier in my rebuttals, which is that these unions have led to a federal deficit of $1 trillion with respect to pensions. This can be directly attributed to the unions, who have continued to push for these pension increases despite the apparent fact that the United States government does not have the funds to afford these pensions. My third point is that these unions have led to a massive imbalance in pay and benefits that has led to the growth of the public sector and the decline of the private sector, which is clearly harmful for the United States economy. This can be seen through data provided by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, which says that last year the public sector grew by around 16,000 employees, but the private sector lost millions of jobs. As the public sector has better pensions, better pay, and better benefits then the private sector, it has led to an extreme imbalance which has negatively affected the private sector and therefore our economy, as the private sector is responsible for all production within the United States. Sources: http://www.cato.org... http://www.afscme.org... http://www.nytimes.com...