Paul Krugman in the 2.20.11 NYT in an op-ed opposing Wisconsin Governor Walker's attempts to deprive public employee unions of collective bargaining rights:
In principle, every American citizen has an equal say in our political process. In practice, of course, some of us are more equal than others. Billionaires can field armies of lobbyists; they can finance think tanks that put the desired spin on policy issues; they can funnel cash to politicians with sympathetic views (as the Koch brothers did in the case of Mr. Walker). On paper, we’re a one-person-one-vote nation; in reality, we’re more than a bit of an oligarchy, in which a handful of wealthy people dominate.
Given this reality, it’s important to have institutions that can act as counterweights to the power of big money. And unions are among the most important of these institutions.
You don’t have to love unions, you don’t have to believe that their policy positions are always right, to recognize that they’re among the few influential players in our political system representing the interests of middle- and working-class Americans, as opposed to the wealthy. Indeed, if America has become more oligarchic and less democratic over the last 30 years — which it has — that’s to an important extent due to the decline of private-sector unions.
And now Mr. Walker and his backers are trying to get rid of public-sector unions, too.
There’s a bitter irony here. The fiscal crisis in Wisconsin, as in other states, was largely caused by the increasing power of America’s oligarchy. After all, it was superwealthy players, not the general public, who pushed for financial deregulation and thereby set the stage for the economic crisis of 2008-9, a crisis whose aftermath is the main reason for the current budget crunch. And now the political right is trying to exploit that very crisis, using it to remove one of the few remaining checks on oligarchic influence.
You can't compare public and private unions. You may as well try to compare a car and a bicycle as the same because they are both forms of transportation.
ReplyDeletePublic employee unions have a disproportionate amount of power relative to private unions. Unions like the retail clerks have to negotiate with (against) a parent company that has a bottom line to meet. If they give away too much in the negotiations, they lose their ability to make a profit and they have to shut down their stores. It is a true negotiation because management can push just as hard as the union. Management has a limit to what they can do for their employees.
Case in point: the retail clerks strike in 2003. The union went on strike over contributions to medical plans and the stores held out for months. They couldn't afford to do what the union wanted.
Now, public unions have a lot more power because "management" (politicians) is/are in bed with the unions. They don't push back the same way management does in a private union negotiation. Politicians in general, and Democratic politicians in particular, are more than happy to give public employee unions expensive pension and benefit packages because these same unions line their pockets with political donations. The largest contributors to Democratic candidates are the teachers' unions.
So there is an inherent conflict of interest in the public union negotiations. Who is the management or state legislators supposed to be looking out for or representing? The taxpayers or the public employees? Both? It is stupid to think that anyone would look at this arrangement and think it was a good idea. Jimmy Carter signed a bill that prohibited federal employees from negotiating collectively on wages and benefits. 21 states restrict public employee unions in wage and benefit negotiations. How is OK for the federal government (Democratic president and congress) to pass a law that denies federal employees the right to collectively negotiate but it is somehow wrong for the governor of Wisconsin to suggest the same thing for his state employees? The answer to that is long but put simply, liberals have no core belief system. They look for causes to jump on to win political points.
It is silly to suggest that the political right is trying to exploit this "crisis" (remember, it wasn't our side that said "never waste a good crisis"). Sometimes the adults have to be in charge. That is what the Wisconsin governor is doing: being the adult in charge. The kids have given away the store and now the states are broke. California is a good case in point. Now it is time to reign in the abuse. For decades the state legislatures have given away ridiculous retirement and benefit packages in exchange for political donations and they didn't have to worry because the day of reckoning wouldn't come until long after they were gone. Well judgment day is here and it is time to pay up. We're broke. Public employee unions were a bad idea and need to be shut down.
I just took a new job at San Diego State and if you saw my benefit package that was put together through the collective bargaining process, you would scream. If the people of California knew what I was getting, and what my contribution was, the taxpayers would be demonstrating at the capitol just like the unions. The first thing I said to the HR person at the college was, "Now I know why the state is broke."
Private unions: good. Public unions: ridiculously stupid.