Frontal Assault on Public Sector Unions

[dgs49]

The Arizona State Legislature held its first hearings this week on new pieces of legislation that would strip all public employees of collective bargaining rights. Union leaders are already threatening political push back against Republican lawmakers in the state if they go through with passing the bills.

Federal government employees have never had collective bargaining over wages or benefits (though they have a union and do bargain over working conditions).

FDR famously said that public sector unions would be a disaster, and must never be.

While it goes without saying that Government employees ought to be compensated fairly, and have employee benefits that are at least comparable with those of solid private-sector employers (e.g., large banks), it also goes without saying (or it should) that in many instances, collective bargaining in the public sector has left taxpayers holding the bag for exhorbitant pay and benefits that can only be explained by a combination of politicians' wanting to buy the votes of government employees, and government "management" simply lacking any vital stake in the results of the negotiations.

Most acute are the financial crises to governments at all levels caused by absurdly-early retirements, with generous compensation and fully-paid health benefits, for life. Such plans are all-but-unheard of in the private sector, and there is a long list of companies that have gone down the tubes because they agreed to such defined-benefit programs when times were better.

The examples of absurd pay and benefits in the public sector, particularly in California, New York, Massachusetts, and other Democrat strongholds, are too numerous to count. These states are, in all senses but legally, bankrupt, due to their "generosity" to their unionized employees.

OTOH, many government employees, particularly at the local level, are pointedly left behind, for reasons that are also political. Public defenders, welfare caseworkers, probation and parole officers, and many, many others are performing vital yet thankless jobs for compensation that is well-nigh embarrassing, so it will not do to state broadly that "all" government employees - or even all government employees who have collective bargaining rights - are on the "gravy train."

Still, it's a problem. The U.S. taxpaying population simply cannot afford to keep the promises that our governments, as employers, have made to their employees. It is a mathematical fact.

So how can you criticize the Republicans in Arizona (it is definitely a partisan thing) for trying to put a lid on it?

[Long Run]

My problem is with the term "collective bargaining". When you have on one side of the table the union representing the employees, and on the other side of the table people elected in large part through public union funding (or persons who answer to such local politicians), you can't call that "bargaining". Public unions should be allowed to either bargain over wages and other working conditions, or be allowed to engage in political activity, but not both.

Public unions are so dissimilar to private unions as to be completely different creatures, and yet the public unions hold themselves out as if they represent people who are in jobs that have historically needed the protection of a union. The only effective constraint on public unions in many jurisdictions is the taxpayers who rise up and revolt (usually implementing hatchet initiatives to control the ability of politicians to raise their taxes).

[Andrew D]

Public unions should be allowed to either bargain over wages and other working conditions, or be allowed to engage in political activity, but not both.

Same for corporations?

[Scooter]

When you have on one side of the table the union representing the employees, and on the other side of the table people elected in large part through public union funding (or persons who answer to such local politicians), you can't call that "bargaining".

And when you have legislators examining bills that affect corporations whose money elected them, what is that?

This crap about governments being too beholden to unions to effectively bargain with them is just that, crap. There are multitudes of political influences on the decision making processes of government; to single out public sector unions and say they have no right to fight for their own interests is ridiculous.

[Long Run]

I am talking local government and you are talking state or federal level. On a local level -- city, county and school -- there is usually only one well-organized and funded public interest group, the public unions. In many cities on the West Coast (can't speak for every where), you cannot get elected to a school board or local government position unless the public unions are satisfied that you are philosophically aligned with them. Similarly, a Democratic politician on the state level (and often on the federal level) can get no where unless they are completely aligned with the public unions.

Only in odd circumstances is there corporate money involved in the local races. Most corporate interest is directed at higher levels of government. At those higher levels, there is, of course, well-organized and funded opposition to the corporate position. On the local level there is no organization to represent the taxpayers, and yet taxpayer dollars go straight from the collection office to the checking account of the public union --never stopping in the employee bank account -- to be used to advocate that the public give them more money and to elect simpatico politicians to pay public union member more.

Corporations don't use public money to advocate their political position, just like private unions don't use public money. The rules governing both of those type of entities involvement in politics are not perfect, but at least those groups aren't using taxpayer dollars, and at least there is an opposition that is organized and make for a fair debate.

[Scooter]

I am talking local government and you are talking state or federal level. On a local level -- city, county and school -- there is usually only one well-organized and funded public interest group, the public unions.

Again, a complete load of crap. Money from developers, etc. influences and swings local elections all the time.

You aren't even attempting to inject a dose of reality into your posts anymore.

Corporations don't use public money to advocate their political position

Oh yeah? And money that flows into corporate coffers from the government contracts and subsidies they receive is what then, exactly?

[Long Run]

Scooter, you are changing the subject. Nothing you have said opposes the arguments made above by me or dgs. You simply point to other areas, that can indeed be problems, e.g., corporate money or developer money and try to take the argument to these other issues. The point being, corporate or developer money in only rare situations opposes public unions on anything local or regional, so those are not relevant to the discussion of public unions operating in an environment they dominate through their funding and organization. Pointing to another problem hardly refutes this obvious problem that has been a major factor in creating the funding crises for state and local governments.

[rubato]

Arizona is trying hard to be the "Mississippi of the West".



yrs,
rubato

[Scooter]

Scooter, you are changing the subject. Nothing you have said opposes the arguments made above by me or dgs. You simply point to other areas, that can indeed be problems, e.g., corporate money or developer money and try to take the argument to these other issues. The point being, corporate or developer money in only rare situations opposes public unions on anything local or regional, so those are not relevant to the discussion of public unions operating in an environment they dominate through their funding and organization. Pointing to another problem hardly refutes this obvious problem that has been a major factor in creating the funding crises for state and local governments.

What I am saying is that you are isolating one element having political influence, with whose agenda you don't happen to agree, and say that they shouldn't be able to have that influence. You then invent all sorts of specious reasoning and back it up with zero evidence. So I guess you're right, nothing I have said opposes your argument because you haven't made one.

[Scooter]

To those who claim that that public sector unions serve no purpose, I would remind them of how the public service operated before the advent of unions, i.e. as a source of pork for the government of the day. Changes in government would bring clean sweeps of public service jobs, replacing existing workers with supporters of the new regime as a reward for their support and to ensure their agenda was carrried out. Public sector unions arose as a defence to such politicization of the public service and are all that stands in the way of it happening again.