Are Public Unions Necessary?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Wisconsin is raising hell in its attempts to balance a budget that's heavily weighed down by union-bargained benefits for public employees. Of course, they're taking the "nuke it from orbit" approach and removing collective bargaining rights from public employees.

My question is this: Why do we have collective bargaining for public employees at all? After all, unions grew out of the need for a power capable of balancing that of capital. But there's no real need for that in the public sector, right? Public sector workers are extremely powerful in the political process, "selecting the elected officials with whom they (ultimately) bargain." There's the argument that government, sheltered as it is from immediate consequences and business incentives, is unresponsive to economic realities to begin with - and needing to kowtow to powerful unions only makes that worse. For most jobs, from what I can tell, skills that are valuable in the public sector are equally valuable, or more valuable, in the private sector. Someone who knows, and can enforce regulations is very useful for a company seeking to comply with them. Administrative work is largely similar between corporate and public jobs. So for many public employees there is no real need for unionization - the government's need to compete with the private sector should keep pay and benefits roughly commensurate, but there is some disparity in public employees' favor. FDR, famous backer of unions though he was, opposed public unions as "intolerable."

The counter-argument I've heard is that many fields only offer employment in the public sector (teachers spring to mind). This means that the same dynamic exists as existed between the Company Town bosses and the laborers. There, I can see an argument. But for government construction workers, plumbers, lawyers, and administrative personnel, skills are essentially fungible, and competition with the private sector for those skills should keep compensation competitive.

So what are your thoughts? I'll grant that teachers, social workers, and other gov't-exclusive jobs may need unions. But what about the rest? Why does the DMV clerk have a union membership?

ETA: My state's recent experience with unions in the public sector has been a case study in why they suck. In New Hampshire, our budget was seriously unbalanced (most of our tax base comes from property taxes, and as property values fell, so did gov't revenues), and we needed to cut public services. The unions refused to take job cuts, preferring instead to foist the additional costs off on local government (cities/towns). So we had more employees doing less work. Public services were worse-impacted because the Governor was forced to institute furlough days, rather than simply leaving everything open but with fewer staff members. In the meantime, our court system was forced to cut so deep they had to suspend trials for a month, and they're not even open normal business hours anymore. As a result, the courts are facing constitutional challenges for failure to provide speedy trials.

Comments

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Except society was willing to cut back on the services the state offered. It was not willing to increase taxes to pay for services it considered unnecessary. Society might have a cost, but surely the voters get to say what they're going to buy, yeah? The price tag was accurate, the buyers simply decided to put it back on the shelf.

Who are the unions to stand in the way of the decision of the populace on spending issues? This isn't a civil rights issue or the like, where the tyranny of the majority is a serious problem. It was a spending decision. The state decided not to spend, and thus did not raise taxes to compensate. The unions decided to stand in the way of this. As a result, the vast majority got hurt to shield a small minority from changing positions. Union employees who would've been laid off were not, forcing us to continue paying them. Union employees who would not have been laid off were forced to take pay cuts via furlough days to pay for their colleagues. Taxpayers got reduced services availability.

The only people who won were the small minority of union workers who still have jobs that wouldn't have otherwise. And it's not like NH is gripped with an unemployment crisis - even at its height, our unemployment was several points below the national average (I think we topped out at around 6%; we're now down to 5.5%).

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Who are the unions to stand in the way of the decision of the populace on
spending issues?

I'm sorry, are the members of the union not part of the populace?

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

Ah. So if I don't want the government to institute a new program, I can simply refuse to acquiesce? Oh, wait, no. Because I'm just a voter, not an executive with veto power.

Even were they not so influential in elections, unions in NH are super-citizens WRT public spending. They get to dictate policy without input from the rest of society, because they can refuse changes to their working conditions or job security. How is that not a problem?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

once again, you shouldn't be asking why they have it so good, but why you have it so bad.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

So... every citizen should be able to veto spending changes?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Big business has huge influence over governments. Unions help to balance that influence. I don't see that as a bad thing.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

How do public employee unions balance big business? It's not like they can negotiate with GE or anything.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Well, frequently, when a business comes to a town or city, they demand tax breaks. Individual citizens aren't going to be able to fight that very effectively, but a union can.

[a-new-machine.livejournal.com]

OK. None of which happened in NH, by the way. The union stood in the way of positive change, and we ended up with a serious net negative.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

I never suggested they were infaillable.

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Altho in some cases, the unions are pushing for the companies to come in, so they are supporting it. Case in point, all the big build up in Los Angeles of hotels, the convention center, and now a new football stadium. The unions (who as you say, represent citizens too) are pretty much gung ho behind all of it, because it does mean jobs (and more union members, who cares if they are legal or not, as long as they pay their dues) Meanwhile the Billionaires want subsidies and tax breaks. So who gets to pay for it, yep, the average citizen, who doesn't belong to one of the unions. Usually in the form of a "temporary" sales tax hike (the last one is only about a year or 2 old, and the one before that was made permanent).

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Like I said, they're not always right. But neither are the businesses.

Wait, what.....

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

"But neither are the businesses."
Is this germain?
Did I imply that?

Re: Wait, what.....

[dwer.livejournal.com]

of course it's relevant. Meanwhile the Billionaires want subsidies and tax breaks.

Oh, and I didn't notice this part before:

So who gets to pay for it, yep, the average citizen, who doesn't belong to one of the unions.

Because... union members don't pay taxes?

Meh

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

My meaning was that, bringing in businesses in the manner you did was a "but THEY" type argument, and I expect better from you.


Hmm, 2-500 extra union members paying taxes somehow doesn't justify raising taxes on 8 million people so city coucil members can get good tickets to football games; but it's possible I'm missing something.

Re: Meh

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Well, I'm sorry you don't see any other benefit to building a football stadium, but that's not really the point. As I said, Unions can be wrong, but they're a vital part of trying to balance between big business and the working class.

Re: Meh

[geezer-also.livejournal.com]

Actually I doubt that I disagree with you as much as you thinnk I do since I'm not anti-union.

As for football stadiums, we have 2 of them now, excuse me L.A. has one and Pasedena has one, and I shouldn't use we since I moved out of both L.A. city and county 30 years ago, but the bulk of my work is there, as is my business.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

So, if government is unduly influenced by Big Business, to the detriment of ordinary citizens, your solution is to introduce another group with disproportionate influence over the goverment, Big Labour. To the detriment of ordinary citizens. Is that what you consider balanced?

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Unions ARE the ordinary citizens.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

No, they aren't. Unions are organizations.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

made up of ordinary working class people.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Wrong again. Unions aren't run by workers, but by union executives.
Even union workers form an exclusive elite with privileges that far exceed those of ordinary working class people, and this is particularly true for public sector unions.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

And where do union executives come from?

Even union workers form an exclusive elite with privileges that far exceed those of ordinary working class people, and this is particularly true for public sector unions.

Not really.

[harry-beast.livejournal.com]

Where do business executives come from? Where do politicians come from? Where do babies come from? You may want to do some reading.

If you believe that union membership doesn't make any difference, then I all those union dues aren't buying them much.

[dwer.livejournal.com]

Of course union membership makes a difference. The difference it makes is helping members of the union be able to bargain with the company from a position of equality. That doesn't make them elite. It tries to make them equal