“The community cannot tolerate the notion that it is defenseless at the hands of organized workers to whom it has entrusted responsibility for essential services.” - A.H. Raskin, former labor reporter for the New York Times.
The issue of collective bargaining rights for public employee unions is a partisan fight.
That wasn’t always the case.
“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.”
Those were not the words of Chris Christie; they were uttered by FDR, a champion of the labor movement.
President Jimmy Carter supported and signed the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978 that firmly established job performance as the basis for compensation (the complete Act can be found here).
It became a partisan issue once public unions figured out they could influence the outcome of collective bargaining by funneling campaign contributions to sympathetic candidates and ballot measures.
That support overwhelmingly went to Democratic candidates, although the Republicans have had loyal allies from labor, too.
I happen to be a Democrat – a Blue Dog Democrat, for sure – and I am embarrassed by the incestuous relationship my party has with public unions.
Our situation in California is more dire than Wisconsin’s. At least there is a balance of power in Wisconsin when it comes to negotiating compensation with the unions. There is none here.
Governor Walker does not really need to impose a cap on wage negotiations based on the CPI – I have a problem with tieing such matters to indexes or other standards. For example, Los Angeles City Council member salary increases are based on raises paid to Superior Court Judges. You see where that got us – governance by overpaid and underperforming officials.
Legislative discretion that takes into account the budget, the long and short-term direction of the economy, and the ability of the taxpayers to absorb personnel costs is what is really needed to determine compensation.
But Governor Walker is right to pursue restrictions. Collective bargaining is incompatible with protecting the general public from wage and benefit inflation.
In negotiations between private sector unions and companies, there is an arm’s length relationship. Neither side can influence the other; they can only resolutely represent their respective constituencies.
In the public sector, campaign contributions not only muddy the waters, they turn them into stagnant pools. In states that allow unrestricted collective bargaining, the majority party will honor its commitments to its key financial supporters; not to the general population.
Most of us would like nothing better but to ban contributions to candidates or causes from unions, corporations or other entities with limited agendas. However, the Supreme Court ruled otherwise.
In Wisconsin, labor is referring to Governor Walker’s bill as an attempt to bust unions. Nothing can be further from the truth.
Unions still have the right to organize and raise money to endorse or oppose candidates. Who knows, they might even be successful in running the Republicans out of Madison.
But exerting financial leverage should have nothing to do with collective bargaining because it’s the taxpayers’ money at stake. The only way to avoid a conflict of interest is by establishing parameters that prevent either side from extorting the other.
Without controls, states and local governments will not have the ability to reduce structural deficits created by compensation and benefit plans. That is a point opponents of Governor Walker conveniently overlook. It is not just about this year’s budget, but all that follow.
Concessions made by unions for the current year or contract period can easily be reversed down the road, setting up future budgetary crises. A government should have the ability to raise, freeze or reduce compensation as well as increase or decrease employee contributions to benefit plans within a reasonable range.
Without that power, the taxpayers will be at the mercy of selfish interest groups.
Paul Hatfield
Suzanne Lauer
I’m starting to worry about you.
http://blogs.forbes.com/rickungar/2011/02/25/the-wisconsin-lie-exposed-taxpayers-actually-contribute-nothing-to-public-employee-pensions/
Joe, I can always count on you to come up with someone’s convoluted logic.
First of all, if in fact the employees were participating in a true deferred comp plan (aka 401K), we would not have a problem. The employees would bear the risk and the taxpayers would only be on the hook for the partial matching contribution, which is fairly standard in these plans. Another misconception that union shills like to perpetuate is that individual employees would have to make investment decisions. Pure rubbuish. Today’s plans are lifestyle funds where participants’ contributions are invested in pools of assets that are automatically re-mixed as the members age, becoming more conservative the older they get.
What risks employees face would be mitigated by the partial employer match.
Under current union defined benefit plans, the employees are guaranteed a fixed and generous return for their deferred wages. Who do you think pays for that?
The trade off, then, between current compensation and deferred earnings, as the author suggests, does not hold water.
Paul, it takes two to tango. Here in LA, the decisions on where organizations like LACERS should invest this pension money is based on people the Mayor appoints. It was their conflict of interest and bad investments that did in the Pension Fund. It wasn’t the unions or the employees. We, as employees, would like to have what the private sector has available to its employees; Stock Options, 401Ks and Social Security. All we have is our pensions and our dedication to a career with the City. If we had Social Security we could just find another job with another company and still contribute to the same Social Security, without any penalties. Could we do that with our City Pensions…without a penalty? No, we can’t.
If the unions where as powerful as you make them out to be, Bernard Parks would never have been a Councilman, as well as many who now sit on the City Council and supported furloughs and layoffs. The same City leaders that, through their negligence and incompetence, drove us all into the ditch.
Let’s not forget that this Country started out as a Union.
Let’s also not forget who is bankrolling Governor Walkers’ efforts to pass this bill against collective bargaining. Who is paying for busing his supporters, who is paying for the supporting ads in the Wisconsin media.
This was never about balancing a budget. This is about Wall Streeters getting rid of the “competition”.
Dan, I wish the city employees were on social security and had 401K plans invested in lifestyle funds with partial matching contributions and bonuses based on individual performance.
Basically, the city has put its workforce in golden handcuffs. I understand why no one wants to give that up, but we need to transition to a 401K style plan while boosting contributions by current employees so we can reduce the unfunded pension liability – if in fact that is doable on contributions alone.
I think many in City Hall hold their seats because of voter apathy/ignorance. Thin turnouts magnify the effect of union money.
Lack of well-funded competition plays a role, too. Parks has not been up against big money and was popular with the black community when he ran back in 2003. He had little or no competition in 2007. He now faces a real challenge with an opponent backed by union money. His attempts to win broader offices have been crushed, partly due to union-backed candidates.
No one is denying the generous support Walker is receiving from the Koch brothers. But is that any worse than union money?
As always, I appreciate your opinion.