The recent labor protests (and counter-protests) in Wisconsin are part of a long tradition of politicians letting public unions take the heat for government fiscal woes.
By Elizabeth G. Olson, contributor
The tumultuous scenes in Wisconsin's capital -- with public workers fiercely defending their collective bargaining rights and opponents calling for their curtailment -- might seem to come out of nowhere.
But the recent events in Madison are part of a long, and rocky, history between public employees and the governments they serve -- a relationship that often turns especially sour during harsh economic times.
The vast majority of states have allowed collective bargaining for some 50 years, and three-fourths of states allow it for most or all public sector employees.
"It's largely been non-controversial, and the basic right to bargain has been well established for decades," says Joseph Slater, a professor of labor law at the University of Toledo College of Law.
Such rights became commonplace after World War II. In 1959, Wisconsin, ironically enough, became the first state to allow public employees to bargain collectively.
But despite the middle-class financial security that union-negotiated pacts bring to workers, their ranks have steadily diminished over the years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that last year just under 12% of American workers were unionized. That figure was lower than previous years, and was nearly half the 20.1% of unionized workers recorded in 1983, the first year such information was collected officially.
Union membership for public sector workers, however, has always been a rocky proposition for the American public. The latest federal figures, from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, show that union membership among public sector workers was 36.2% last year, a rate about five times higher than the 6.9% for private sector workers -- a divide that appears to have been widened by the troubled economy.
The current conflict, which already has spread to Ohio and Indiana, states that are also facing crippling budget problems, highlights a continuing public unease over whether public workers should unionize.
The inflammatory issue has cropped up from time to time, notably when former President Ronald Reagan fired the nation's air traffic controllers en masse when they refused to return to work after striking for better working conditions.
The issue surfaced again during the George W. Bush years over whether government employees who work in homeland or airport security could join unions, and have the right to strike. And, public resentment and anger flared recently when Detroit automakers needed federal assistance to dig out of their financial hole, some of which was blamed on overly generous wage and benefit packages for unionized auto workers.
This time, gaping shortfalls in state budgets have pushed the contentious issue to the fore, as public officials scramble to slash expenditures without taking the universally unpopular step of raising taxes.
Some officials blame generous union-negotiated health and other benefits for budget overruns. Scott Walker, Wisconsin's Republican governor, is trying to limit union bargaining strictly to wages, and eliminate negotiation over other aspects including working hours, health care and vacations. So far, the state's assembly -- without a quorum that requires Democratic lawmakers -- voted to strip public workers of their collective bargaining rights in an early-morning vote last Friday, but the conflict is far from settled.
Union critics, such as James Sherk, a labor economist at the conservative Heritage Foundation, call union benefits "gold-plated" and far more generous than what other workers receive -- using money, he maintains, that should be spent on services or returned to taxpayers.
Public unions, he says, "don't negotiate over how to divide profits, they negotiate for the government to spend more on their members."
As a result, he said, "unionized government employees enjoy benefits that few private-sector workers can dream of." That includes job security, retiring with a full pension in their mid-50s, contributing little or nothing to their health-care costs and ample health benefits.
These benefits, he argues, "are driving state and local governments into insolvency." Retirement plans for state and local governments are "$3 trillion in the red."
Despite what are viewed as steep overruns generated by public benefits programs, are unions and public employee benefits really to blame for the enormous budget crises throughout the nation?
"Unionized workers didn't sow the seeds of the economic downturn, deregulation of the financial industry did," says Robert Bruno, a University of Illinois professor of labor and employment relations. "We've suffered billions in losses because of greed, gross mismanagement and illegal activity in the financial industry."
"Unions are an easy target because the largest cost in a state budget is always labor," says Bruno, who studies employee and union issues. "Why are we scapegoating teachers? Is the American love affair with capitalism so irrational that it knows no bounds?"
Joseph Slater at Toledo's law school agrees: "It's easy to paint a portrait of public workers as overpaid, not working very hard and being fat cats on the tax dollar. But there's no correlation between collective bargaining and the state budget crises."
For example, huge state pension obligations - which have grabbed headlines because of state underfunding, and which Sherk points to as a major deficit-maker for states, are not the result of collective bargaining.
"The vast majority of states have pensions set by law, not by collective bargaining," Slater says. "So it's a common misperception that these costs are a result of collective bargaining."
For now, cash-strapped states are not allowed to go bankrupt, but negotiated public employee benefits and wages could be wiped out if states like Wisconsin or Ohio require a bailout from the federal government.
If states were allowed to declare bankruptcy, Bruno says, "that could spell the wholesale destruction of all state-based union contracts, as well as provisions for pensions and health care.
"In one broad stroke, you could de-unionize the public sector," says Bruno.
Labor supporters fear that in the short-term labor unions may well be dealt a major blow. President Barack Obama did not help, says Bruno, when he ordered a two-year freeze of government employee salaries as part of trimming the federal government deficit.
"He sent a signal that public sector workers do not merit a raise, therefore they are part of the problem," Bruno says.
Abridging worker rights "can do serious damage to a modern working economy," he says. "A whole lot more is at risk than balancing the budget in a few states."
But by trying to eviscerate collective bargaining, officials also may "tap into the American sense of fair play and things could change," he adds, "Americans don't like bullies."
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It's disgusting how so many blame the unions for GM's problems but never the CEOs with their golden parachutes and horrible decision making. It wasn't union workers that decided to focus on the SUV balloon that popped.
When I see how MUCH it costs TAXPAYERS to fund: SUVs; credit cards (abused by many for personal gas/repairs, starbux, pole dance clubs, dinners etc); cell phones for FREE; and really JUICY retirement plans (don't take sick nor vacation days - BANK them for 3-5 years, and DOUBLE your RETIREMENT PAY FOR 25-35 years???????).
Havent we all read our local NEWSPAPERS about Child Protective Services, AIDING the abuse of children? How about police brutality/gun-slinging and the HUGE payouts for wrongful behavior - then they are ALLOWED to resign, and get another job close by. Hiring totally UNQUALIFIED people, who end up costing taxpayers millions in fraud or damages? Yeah...MANY good folks DO WORK at Govt, but BOTH political parties treat it as their PRIVATE fiefdom to enjoy and PROFIT FROM.
We NEED ABSOLUTE AUDITS and massive jailings or firings ... no more 'resigning.'
GM just posted the highest yearly profit, but that's after they were allowed to remove themselves from funding the UAWs medical plan due to bankruptcy. I don't blame unions for downturns, but unions want a share of the profits if the company does really well, which means they get to take a hit in proportion to that taken by the company in a downturn.
All I know is I have a union job. It doesn't pay much & w/ inflation I can barely make ends meet, but at least it's secure. And it's a good thing I have a union job because I'm currently supporting three other people in my family who lost their private-sector jobs when the economy headed south, no thanks to the gamblers on Wallstreet. One of my family members worked for the same retail company for nearly 20 years and was laid off because it cost the company (Target) more to keep someone with seniority than hire someone off the stree--what a waste of 20 years!! But my real concern here is who's controlling the narrative and who are the benfactors of this growing manufactured hatred of unions. Well, it ain't YOU and it ain't ME...Follow the money & figure it out. And if you don't know how to "follow the money," it's really very easy. All you need to do is watch a little TV and take note of the commercials and who's sponsoring them. Gee, I haven't seen to many PSA's advocating unions lately, have you. Of course not, they don't have control of mainstream communications like Dupont, Pfizer, Exxon, etc. These mega moguls ARE in charge of the narrative and they have been very successful in pitting poor people against poor people, middle class against middle class...As long as mainstream American isn't pointing at them, life is rosy! And BTW, thanks Shannon from Fairview, NJ for keeping it real with humor.
Correction to "Americans don't like bullies", it should be "Americans don't like being bullied".
@ Jonathon Dunnwest, the auto companies and airline industries killed them selves my manufacturing products that no one wanted at too high a price, it had nothing to do with unions. please explain how collective bargaining caused GM or any airline financial problems. And by the way GM just posted the highest yearly profits in the HISTORY OF THE COMPANY, Unions and all, so clearly unions effecting GM's profits was and is not the problem.
Interesting set of observations and comments. I especially liked the use of the statistics. The one critical set of numbers that are missing, however, is what percentage of the individual state's budges are mandated 'setasides' for public employee salaries and benefits?
I love these people who say "I'm in the private sector (non-union), and the company froze my salary/eliminated my pension/cut my benefits, so why shouldn't the unionized folks in the public sector suffer?", or some variant thereof. (I'm not going to single folks out, but you know who you are.) When did we become a nation that wants to bring everyone else down to our level (or below), rather than striving to reach theirs? When I see the salary & benefits of union folks, I think that being in a union did those folks some good, and I try to figure out how I can either get a union job, or unionize the folks who work in my current field. --- I can appreciate that there is some corruption in unions, but that's human nature. There's corruption everywhere that money and/or power resides; Politics and corporations also have their fair share of greed and abuse of power. We should never accept corrupt individuals, but we shouldn't punish everyone for the sins of the few, either. --- Every time individuals band together to consolidate their power and use it to get what they want (including these "tea parties," 527's that can spend unlimited amounts of cash on our elections, the explosion of corporate/special interest lobbyists, and even corporate boards), they're in effect, unionizing. --- I'm all for punishing those caught with their hand in the money/power cookie jar, but I support the legal right and moral necessity of unions of all kinds. We can accomplish far more working together, than we can accomplish as individuals.
Are you ready to pay more to attract and retain good teachers? Good police officers? I too want the best and the brightest teaching my kids and protecting us. The unions do go too far in protecting bad teachers - but the pay and benifits teachers receive are probably too low, not too high.
I doubt there are many white collar professionals, often with a masters degree that make less than a teacher.
I do not want teaching to become a low-wage job.
Unions have their place, protect the rights of workers etc. However, once unions are given too much power they become short-sighted, greedy entities. The members conveniently look the other way if the union is bumping up their incomes and taking anything they can get out of the public (or company)purse. There should be limits to what unions can bargain for, such as raises based on inflation and any and all health benefits that are bargained for should be considered a raise in income as well. If a recession takes place, then there should be absolutely no increase at all in income. Just because they have the large number of employees, they shouldn't be allowed to strike for anything they can dream up. In Canada the politicians didn't have the political will to control unions and they have gouged their way to relative wealth compared to non-union workers and expect it to stay that way.
Try working at a state prison for 20 plus years and see what you think it's worth in terms of benefits and rate of pay. If you cut out the benefits, you will not attract new employees and you will lose many workers. Many state pension plans sound too good to be true and in reality they are too good to be true. At prisons they are too good to be true because most new hires only last a few months. They just cannot deal with the constant crushing stress of the job. Pensions and benefits are the only reason most people stay in jobs that are totally miserable places to work.
"But despite the middle-class financial security that union-negotiated pacts bring to workers, their ranks have steadily diminished over the years. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that last year just under 12% of American workers were unionized." This assertion is dishonest, in the context of this issue, and the author should know better. This controversy is over public employee unions, not ALL unions. To cite falling union membership in general as some measure of waning public employee union power is nonsense. Public employee unions have been growing steadily, just as their cost to taxpayers has, over the previous 3 decades. The American people have decided enough. The least the money-losing press can do is report the issue honestly.
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