Unions and Government
Posted: Mon Nov 28, 2011 7:37 pm
The Federal Government - now in hock to the SEIU, AFLCIO, and assorted Government Employee Unions - has a long and consistent history of favoring union labor (in a broad sense, to include skilled labor, and "professions") to the detriment of non-union labor.
In its most grotesque manifestation with the bailouts of GM and Chrysler, the Government's patronage of "organized labor" also includes the Davis-Bacon Act, and its constant coddling and support of the NEA, supporting its absolute refusal to allow evaluation of teachers based on results. The current NLRB is almost shocking in its kowtowing to Organized Labor, and threatens an outrageous assault on Boeing for having the temerity to build a manufacturing facility in a right-to-work state.
In a perverse bit of irony, for its own employees the Federal Government has never seen fit to pass enabling legislation for GS employees to have true collective bargaining along with its intrinsic "right" to strike. So Congresspersons - usually with Democrat majorities in both houses - have persistently watched as state after state undertakes the suicidal initiative of permitting their employees full collective bargaining, seen the folly of it all, and refused to take this simple measure in Washington, D.C.
Here in Pennsylvania, we have a perverse, archaic, and anachronistic system of selling wine and liquor through a network of state-owned liquor stores, on the theory that only the State can be trusted to keep the Devil's Brew out of the hands of our impressionable, vulnerable children. The "State Stores" are totally organized, and totally entrenched. Both the Governor and the legislature are determined to end this bizarre monopoly, sell the State Stores to private entrepreneurs, reap a one-time windfall as the franchises are sold - and all without losing a dime in tax revenue from the sale of wine and spirits. But the unions have thus far been able to thwart this eminently reasonable initiative with the single justification that they are well paid, confortably benefitted, and belong to a union, and the franchisees will mainly - if not exclusively - employ a non-union workforce.
There will be just as many employed Pennsylvanians in the privately-owned liquor stores - maybe more - but they will be paid as store clerks and not as Gub'mint teat-suckers.
The question is this: Is there any legitimate government interest in promoting union labor?
I submit that there is no such legitimate government interest, and the government's support of organized labor is entirely political, to the detriment of the U.S. (and state) taxpayers.
Take Davis-Bacon as a case in point (NOTE, D-B does not overtly require union labor, but, as interpreted, it requires that contractors on government construction projects pay union wages). What is the benefit to the taxpayers of having union labor? I submit there is no legitimate government interest in Davis Bacon. The project should go to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder. Period. It's a principle that guides all other federal procurement (don't laugh), except in the rare cases where competitive bidding is not feasible.
History buffs might be interested to know that Davis-Bacon was mainly born in racism. Congress was pissed off because local government construction projects were being won by contractors employing teams of itinerant so-called "Negros," rather than the local workers in the Congressional district. To prevent the "niggers" from getting all the work, they passed a law saying that Federal government construction contractors had to pay the prevailing wages in the locality, regardless of where the workers were from, or were willing to accept as wages. Succeeding Democratic administrations have made this a de facto requirement to pay local union wages, regardless of whether there are more union than non-union workers in the locality. It have personally seen instances where union contractors made up only 15% of the local contractors, but their wages were the ones demanded by the NLRB.
In its most grotesque manifestation with the bailouts of GM and Chrysler, the Government's patronage of "organized labor" also includes the Davis-Bacon Act, and its constant coddling and support of the NEA, supporting its absolute refusal to allow evaluation of teachers based on results. The current NLRB is almost shocking in its kowtowing to Organized Labor, and threatens an outrageous assault on Boeing for having the temerity to build a manufacturing facility in a right-to-work state.
In a perverse bit of irony, for its own employees the Federal Government has never seen fit to pass enabling legislation for GS employees to have true collective bargaining along with its intrinsic "right" to strike. So Congresspersons - usually with Democrat majorities in both houses - have persistently watched as state after state undertakes the suicidal initiative of permitting their employees full collective bargaining, seen the folly of it all, and refused to take this simple measure in Washington, D.C.
Here in Pennsylvania, we have a perverse, archaic, and anachronistic system of selling wine and liquor through a network of state-owned liquor stores, on the theory that only the State can be trusted to keep the Devil's Brew out of the hands of our impressionable, vulnerable children. The "State Stores" are totally organized, and totally entrenched. Both the Governor and the legislature are determined to end this bizarre monopoly, sell the State Stores to private entrepreneurs, reap a one-time windfall as the franchises are sold - and all without losing a dime in tax revenue from the sale of wine and spirits. But the unions have thus far been able to thwart this eminently reasonable initiative with the single justification that they are well paid, confortably benefitted, and belong to a union, and the franchisees will mainly - if not exclusively - employ a non-union workforce.
There will be just as many employed Pennsylvanians in the privately-owned liquor stores - maybe more - but they will be paid as store clerks and not as Gub'mint teat-suckers.
The question is this: Is there any legitimate government interest in promoting union labor?
I submit that there is no such legitimate government interest, and the government's support of organized labor is entirely political, to the detriment of the U.S. (and state) taxpayers.
Take Davis-Bacon as a case in point (NOTE, D-B does not overtly require union labor, but, as interpreted, it requires that contractors on government construction projects pay union wages). What is the benefit to the taxpayers of having union labor? I submit there is no legitimate government interest in Davis Bacon. The project should go to the lowest responsive, responsible bidder. Period. It's a principle that guides all other federal procurement (don't laugh), except in the rare cases where competitive bidding is not feasible.
History buffs might be interested to know that Davis-Bacon was mainly born in racism. Congress was pissed off because local government construction projects were being won by contractors employing teams of itinerant so-called "Negros," rather than the local workers in the Congressional district. To prevent the "niggers" from getting all the work, they passed a law saying that Federal government construction contractors had to pay the prevailing wages in the locality, regardless of where the workers were from, or were willing to accept as wages. Succeeding Democratic administrations have made this a de facto requirement to pay local union wages, regardless of whether there are more union than non-union workers in the locality. It have personally seen instances where union contractors made up only 15% of the local contractors, but their wages were the ones demanded by the NLRB.
