One of the themes some commentators have adopted is that private-sector unions are fine -- important, even -- but public-sector unions have to be stopped. Or at least it's all right if they're stopped. The difference, as Joe Klein puts it, is that "Industrial unions are organized against the might and greed of ownership. Public employees unions are organized against the might and greed ... of the public?"
I don't think this really holds up. Labor unions organize to get the best possible deal -- or what they think of as the best possible deal -- for their workers. This usually pits them against managers who want to get the best possible deal -- or what they see as the best possible deal -- for their institution. Unions are not just about challenging the "might and greed" of private-sector CEOs, but about recognizing the different incentives faced by managers and workers, and about correcting the tremendous power imbalance between those who can be fired for asking too many questions or demanding a different bargain and those who get to do the firing and would prefer a more submissive workforce and a status quo that they've created and defined.
And let's let go of the idea that the public is on the hook for unions made up of government workers but not for unions made up of janitors in Las Vegas hotels. If private-sector unions negotiate higher wages that lead to higher corporate costs, those costs are passed on to the consumer. If public unions negotiate higher wages that lead to higher taxes, those taxes are paid for by the taxpayer. If public or private unions negotiate work rules that stifle innovation or impede good service, the public bears the brunt of that, too.
But that goes in the other direction, too: Just as the public pays some of the costs of unions, they also reap many of the benefits. The weekend is one of those benefits, and so too are the pensions and health-care packages that many employers offer. A lot of the safety rules that many workers take for granted were the product of union agitation and pressure. Plenty of industries have had to increase their wages because unions took root in certain companies and the threat of their spread forced the non-unionized companies to give their employees gains similar to those made by the unionized workers. Unions are also the most powerful lobby fighting against things like tax cuts for the rich and for things like universal health care. And those benefits, just like those costs, have come from the labor power provided by the combined strength of public and private unions. Solidarity, and all that.
For the record, I'd happily take a deal wherein the collective bargaining rights of public workers were weakened but private workers were given card check and the other labor-law reforms needed to create some semblance of fair elections. But that deal is not on the table. For a variety of reasons -- some relating to international competition, some to the changing nature of the American economy, some relating to political decisions -- private-sector unions have been all but destroyed in recent decades. In fact, it's the opposite of the deal on the table, which, by weakening public-sector unions, would accelerate the destruction of private-sector unions.
American labor -- and all the good and the bad that it does -- is one unit, combining the density and dues of both its public- and private-sector members. If public-sector unions had never been founded, labor would've been much weaker in the 20th century. If they're killed now, a resurgence of private-sector unions becomes even more unlikely going forward. The stakes here are for American labor -- and the public -- as a whole. They are not limited to a few public-sector unions.
Source: http://feeds.voices.washingtonpost.com/click.phdo?i=ee5de888a3ccfb7f54ef01e6e2301aef
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