The Incomplete Cynic
The Republican legislature in Michigan is trying to push through a truly frightening bill. Basically, House Bill 4465 would punish striking teachers by revoking their license for two years.
Honestly, there is no domestic issue that disgusts me more than this anti-union propaganda in 2011. I guess the rich will be happy when 99% of the wealth is concentrated in the hands of a few individuals. (We’re accelerating in that direction)
I’ll leave you with a few words from Republican Dwight Eisenhower:
“Workers have a right to organize into unions and to bargain collectively with their employers. And a strong, free labor movement is an invigorating and necessary part of our industrial society”
You’re right. If we allow the government to restrict the power of public-sector unions, all wealth in the country will be immediately and irrevocably absorbed by greedy rich folk. I’m glad you’ve pointed that out.
Workers have the right to organize and bargain with their employers. You seem to have forgotten, though (like many others) that in bargaining, both sides have rights. So employers have the right to refuse the contract terms offered by the union. They can propose their own nonnegotiables. In this case, the employer is setting up a consequence for choosing to go on strike: you can’t work here for two years.
The employers can do this because (a) the employees choose whether or not to go on strike with full knowledge of the likely consequence, and (b) they clearly have the upper hand in the situation, because there are more teachers than there are jobs.
If that situation changes, or the teachers are able to hold their members in check so they don’t cross picket lines when the state starts offering the jobs of the striking teachers, they would then have the power to return to the table and have the state eliminate that provision from the contract (or from the state books, in this case). Either way, they have to weigh the costs and benefits of striking and choose for themselves.
8. Wisconsin teachers’-union leaders: Is closing schools for days (especially in places like Milwaukee, where students can least afford it) so teachers can go to the state capital to protest really the best way to persuade the public that this is all about serving children? (Comment on this story.)
9. National and Wisconsin union leaders: The assertion being made on the union side is that absent collective bargaining, Wisconsin public-sector workers would be left unprotected in the workplace. But wouldn’t they, in fact, still be protected by a variety of federal and state statutes protecting workers from various discriminatory and unfair practices?
10. Wisconsin’s Democratic legislators: Do you really think you’re helping to solve this crisis by going into hiding?
Collective bargaining for public-sector unions began in the late 1950s and exists for all government workers in only 26 states. It is not sacrosanct or even particularly longstanding. Indiana’s Gov. Mitch Daniels suspended collective bargaining on his first day on the job, six years ago, by executive order. The state of Indiana has not imploded.
In the spirit of “follow the money,” there’s an additional issue: public-sector union check-offs, which automatically deduct a portion of unionized government workers’ salaries and direct them to union coffers. In the case of the two national teachers’ unions, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers, the check-offs amount to $2 billion a year, a portly portion of which goes to campaigns and ballot initiatives. This is taxpayer money being automatically redirected to partisan politics to advance special-interest aims. I would much rather have that money remain in the workers’ wallets or given back to the taxpayers to curtail other cuts in a time of multibillion-dollar budget gaps.
The idea that Gov. Walker was trying to do nothing but bust the unions never bothered me. Now I’m totally in favor of it.
It’s a good thing Gov. Walker and the Assembly Republicans are acting like adults. The Democrats in the state assembly are acting like drama-prone adolescents, and the public employees are acting like my 3-year-old when I tell him he can’t have a cookie.
And a cookie is what this fight is over. The state can’t afford to plush benefits the public employees get right now, so he’s asking them to contribute the national average to their pensions and half the national average to their insurance. Essentially he said they can have half a cookie after lunch…and now they’re throwing a tantrum.
“But this isn’t about benefits, it’s about collective bargaining rights and worker power!” “Rights”? Last I checked, collective bargaining was a privilege granted through a legal agreement. Legal agreements can be modified and restructured, and they usually are when the privileges they grant are abused.
And these workers aren’t in any danger of being abused or oppressed. I actually read an article that lamented the loss of the right to negotiate “working conditions”, like we’re talking about 19th century factory workers. If anything really serious were going on, the union could sue, or they could enter arbitration. They could deal with real problems. This isn’t about any real problems though. It’s about toddlers wanting cookies for breakfast.
