President Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Meany, the first president of the AFL-CIO, warned of the dangers of public employee collective bargaining. From Daniel DiSalvo’s The Trouble with Public Sector Unions:
The emergence of powerful public-sector unions was by no means inevitable. Prior to the 1950s, as labor lawyer Ida Klaus remarked in 1965, “the subject of labor relations in public employment could not have meant less to more people, both in and out of government.” To the extent that people thought about it, most politicians, labor leaders, economists, and judges opposed collective bargaining in the public sector. Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: “Meticulous attention,” the president insisted in 1937, “should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” The reason? F.D.R. believed that “[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” Roosevelt was hardly alone in holding these views, even among the champions of organized labor. Indeed, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, believed it was “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”
In New Jersey, the unions run our governments on the state, county and municipal levels. Fortunately, Governor Chris Christie is fighting to correct some of the economic imbalances the unions have imposed upon the people with the cooperation of their lap dogs…previous governors and legislatures that the unions elected and shared the largess with. Yet Christie is fighting to only tame the beast while killing the beast is appropriate.
Examples of unions dictating government policy, spending and even risking public safety are so prevalent that we don’t even notice. The unions tyranny is so complete that we just surrender rather than fight.
A minor example is Christie choosing not to layoff government workers during the current budget cycle. Governor Corzine signed a no layoff contract with the unions just prior to his reelection campaign kickoff. Vice President Joe Biden told Corzine that he wouldn’t cross a union picket line to appear at Corzine’s event. Corzine caved to the unions demands and signed a deal that tied his successor’s hands.
Much more serious examples come from our cities of Newark and Camden. Both cities are in serious fiscal trouble. Both cities, already high crime areas, are experiencing increases in violent crime. In both cities unions forced police layoffs. The most senior and highest paid members of the police department got to keep their jobs while younger junior officers were let go. The younger officers are being recruited to join police departments in other states for less pay. The unions didn’t even give them the option of accepting less pay to keep working at home. Our leaders, the governor and the cities mayors accepted this situation because they had no choice.
The police situation in Newark and Camden is insane. It is not government of the people, by the people and for the people. It is government of the unions, by the unions and for the unions.
Unions, and their lap dog lawmakers have designed a system that trumps the economic law of supply and demand. There is a huge supply of labor available. Millions of those people are getting by with checks from the government. The government can’t put these people to work, as police officers or in other functions, because of union rules and contracts. This situation is insane. We are living it.
This is not a system that protects the middle class, as the unions are protesting. This is a system that rewards the few at the expense of, and literally to the detriment to the safety of us, the many.
Is there any doubt that Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Camden Mayor Dana Reed would hire as many police officers as they could and pay them the wages they could afford if “the system” allowed them to? Is there any doubt that those jobs would be filled and that there would be a waiting list to fill vacancies? I think not.
Newark and Camden are extreme but real examples of unions controlling our government and public safety. There are less extreme but just as real examples all over New Jersey. Our elected leaders throughout the state on all levels of government are constrained primarily by union contracts and civil service rules in their efforts to reform their jurisdictions and deliver government services efficiently.
It is insanity and we are living it. It is tyranny and we are subject to it.
That’s a shame because public employee unions are as serious a threat to Americans’ freedom as is radical Islam. Maybe more so.
In many states throughout the union, including New Jersey, public employee unions have more power and influence over government policy, operations and spending than our elected representatives. From our governor down to the councilman and school board member, elected office holders ability to manage and govern their jurisdictions are constrained by laws and contracts that protect employees from the public will.
Walker’s proposal in Wisconsin to remove unions ability to negotiate for pensions and benefits and Governor Christie’s reform agenda in New Jersey are considered bold because over the last 50 years unions have systematically and gradually taken over our governments. Their political power was extreme and unchecked. Before Christie took on the NJEA over the last year and thrived, no politician dared take on such a powerful special interest. Sure there where those who tried, but you don’t remember who they are and neither do I, because the unions destroyed them. Christie, and now apparently Walker, could be the right men at the right time to lead America back to a truly representative form of government in the States.
Yet, as bold and radical as the governors seem in the context of the last 50 years of growing union power, their proposals are relatively modest. Far from really “turning Trenton(or Madison) upside down” or doing “big things” Christie and Walker are modestly tinkering with the existing systems.
Christie has created a big storm, in part because of his aggressive style. But what he’s proposed is not that controversial. It leaves intact the entire collective bargaining structure. Yes, he would impose short-term pain, but the Walker plan goes to the root of the problem.
Walker’s plan might go to the root of the problem, but it only exposes the root, it doesn’t cut it:
Q. Is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker really proposing to end collective bargaining?
A. Not exactly. He’ll retain it for police, firefighters and state troopers. But he is proposing a drastic rollback for teachers and other public employees. They will retain the right to bargain over wages, but not benefits.
Politically, Christie’s success over the last year and Walker’s anticipated success could well be due to the moderateness of their proposals being sold to the public with bold rhetoric. Christie took on the NJEA last year by calling for wage freezes and health care contributions of only 1.5% of teacher salaries in order to save jobs. The union looked petty in their vocal opposition and the public sided with the Governor by overwhelmingly rejecting school budgets at the ballot boxes. The public continues to support Christie’s agenda and now the debate in Trenton is over how much spending to cut, not whether to cut. That’s a big change, but it is not systematic change.
But systematic change was not politically possible a year ago. It is becoming possible, but it won’t be swift. The unions took over our governments incrementally over a period of a half century. We, the people, did not notice it happening for the most part. Now that the public is waking up to the relative largess of public employee compensation and benefits, systematic change becomes increasingly possible, but it will have to be accomplished incrementally.
DiSalvo makes the case why public employee unions must be broken in his National Affairs article published last fall. Every political leader should take the time to read the article.
