Wisconsin’s in the news, and not just because their Packers beat my Steelers in the Super Bowl. The GOP governor and Congress want to pass a bill that will dramatically reign in Wisconsin’s public sector unions. Before I go there in Part 2, I’ll lay out some of my general views. I have a mixed view of unions. I’ll start private and go public.
On one hand, they were responsible for some very positive advances in workers’ rights throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. I don’t think they’re as broadly necessary as they once were. A much more extensive legal framework to protect workers’ rights is in place today (OSHA, for example), though in certain organizational settings, a union is still vital. For example, my girlfriend’s father is a union worker. Basically, it’s his job to make the final decision whether parts for jet turbine engines are safe to use. If he wasn’t union, then the organization could put pressure on him to sign off on something he shouldn’t in the interest of being able to use the part versus scrapping it. Being in the union protects him greatly from such tactics. I encounter similar pressure in my own job on the design side versus his pressures on the manufacturing side, but it’s nothing like what he deals with, so it’s not necessary for me to be a union worker.
On the other hand, if unions are allowed to have too much power, then nothing good comes of it for anyone. Look at General Motors. Ultimately, it was GM’s management that led to its downfall. They made two crucial mistakes. First, they fielded an uncompetitive product mix and failed to react to the gas price surge. Second, they allowed the company to have an uncompetitive cost structure. This contributed greatly to the first issue. GM couldn’t make the profits they needed by selling smaller cars, so they had to push big cars. Why was their cost structure uncompetitive? Simply put, they allowed the unions to run amok. They gave the unions far more than they deserved and far more than GM could afford. Supposedly, the unions were acting in the workers’ best interests, but were they really doing that if they were getting short-term gains that clearly proved unsustainable (and fatal) for GM in the longer term? Methinks not.
GM’s management didn’t take the hard line in negotiations that they had to take, and as a result, we the taxpayers bailed out GM. The structure of the bailout also infuriates me because the bondholders and stockholders got completely screwed. Obama and friends wanted to give the unions their piece, in the process turning bankruptcy law upside down. The GM bailout was a give-away to the unions at the expense of the owners. Karl Marx and company would be proud, but I digress.
Before we go public, I’d like to discuss union legalities. I see unions as legitimate entities, and laws restricting their formation can run astray of the 1st amendment (right of assembly, and also petition in the case of public unions). That said, I’ve never liked the idea of workers having to join a union as a condition of employment. That’s an infringement on the worker’s individual rights. I’ve never been a union worker, and I’ve turned down jobs because of such requirements. Why should I have to join if I don’t want to? Also, the vote for workers to decide to union up must remain unanimous, otherwise voter intimidation would lead to a fraudulent election. It’s also interesting to note that union representation is concentrated in the public sector. In 2008, 38% of state and local workers were union, according to the Cato Institute, five times the private sector level.
There’s one major difference between the public and private unions. The public unions are made up of public workers, also known as civil servants. We as taxpayers pay their salaries, and as a result, they are there to serve us. We do not serve them. If we did, they’d be called civil overlords or whatever. Elected officials are also civil servants. They serve us, not the other way around (both parties should take note of this vital point). The Founding Fathers generally viewed jobs in public office as an honor and a service to America, not as an entitlement or career. Don’t get me wrong, they deserve fair compensation and work conditions as all workers do, but everyone should remember that they’re civil servants rather than civil overlords.
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