Tag: unions

Categories
general freedom

Rauner on a Roll

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Last week I came not to bury a newly elected chief executive but to praise him — for not merely paying lip service to term limits, but for in fact making the passage of state legislative term limits a high-priority, line-in-the-sand policy goal.

I refer, of course, to Illinois’s new governor, Bruce Rauner.

Another controversy catching my attention pertains to union-bullying. Governor Rauner hopes to stop public-employee unions from extracting dues from the unwilling. These “fair share” dues are spent on bargaining strategies or political causes with which the dues-payer may be wholly unsympathetic. Why should workers be compelled to part with part of their income to support activities they don’t consider beneficial?

Rauner is using both an executive order and a lawsuit to try to outlaw coercive unionizing of public employees. (He has also acted to liberate private-sector employees from unions.) The order declares that dues may no longer be extracted from unwilling non-members. The complementary lawsuit is a preemptive bid to get the order judicially sanctioned as legal.

Governor Rauner is not a union member. He therefore lacks standing in the lawsuit, so three public union members have joined as plaintiffs. Representing them is Jacob Huebert, an attorney with the Liberty Justice Center (and author of the book Libertarianism Today).

Again, I say: Yes!

To be sure, I wouldn’t endorse everything that Rauner is saying or doing, even on issues where we’re simpatico. But when you’re right, you’re right. Good going, Governor.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

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Labor Unions

 

Categories
national politics & policies too much government

Bakers’ Bailout

Bailouts aren’t just for big businesses any more.

Just a few years ago the “too big to fail” argument meant spending trillions on financial institutions and auto companies. Now it appears that rewarding failure — indeed, outright perverse dealing — has a new and eager beneficiary: the federal loot goes directly to unions.

Well, a union, at least. The Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers & Grain Millers International, whose brinksmanship shut down Hostess, Inc., has former Twinkie techs pulling in money earmarked in a specific way:

This week, the Labor Department decided to shower Hostess workers with Trade Adjustment Assistance, a multibillion-dollar pork barrel program that was beefed up as a bone to Democrats, who were blocking passage of three free-trade treaties in Congress in 2012.

TAA is a lavish program doled out by the Labor Department for laid-off workers who’ve lost their jobs due to “global trade.”

Of course, those 18,500 Hostess jobs were not lost to global trade. They were lost to union pig-headedness. The AFL-CIO-affiliated union was warned that without some cuts, the company would go under. The Teamsters entreated the bakers’ union to play ball. But no deal happened. And Hostess went under.

If the union’s negotiation tactic appeared as risky as a banker’s credit default swap portfolio on mortgage-backed securities, it’s now proved to be as un-risky as the same. The union may not be “too big to fail,” but it appears to be “too well-connected to fail.” The Obama administration is intent on throwing money at the group’s outrageous folly.

And so we continue to reward idiocy, well into the 21st century.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
crime and punishment free trade & free markets

The Union Label

Uniting together to form mutual aid groups is a very old idea. Workers do it; professionals, too — even consumers. It’s usually a great idea, contributing a lot to human welfare.

But what we call “labor unions” have a problem: They tend to be, well . . . violent.

Why?

One of the main practices of unions has been (though it need not be) the monopolization of labor into a union-run pool, disallowing non-union workers from taking jobs in targeted plants, businesses, industries, what-have-you. Labor legislation in America and elsewhere generally shores up and regulates that power — which, by definition, is thuggish.

So we’ve come to expect thuggishness from existing unions. Members of unions feel they have the right to exclude non-union workers, and they will intimidate, threaten, and attack both “scabs” (competing workers) and “evil businesses.”

Which now includes a Quaker meeting place expansion project.

In one of the best-titled stories of recent times, “Union Workers *Probably* Torched a Quaker Meetinghouse Over Christmas,” we learn that an under-construction building was torched this holiday season, and that the culprits were “almost certainly” union members.

To call them “disgruntled” would be to euphemize. To attack a Quaker meetinghouse takes quite a bit of . . . well, you fill in the blank.

In one sense, unions are doing nothing different than hundreds of other organizations do, seeking special privileges from government. But unions continue to use the basic tactics of force when the “rule of law” fails them.

That they would do so even against another group known for the heritage of peace and non-aggression and even non-retaliation is breathtaking in its . . . honesty?

I’ll let you pick your own word.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
initiative, referendum, and recall

A Right, Yet Wrong

Wisconsin Democrats turned in more than a million signatures yesterday to force a recall election for Republican Gov. Scott Walker. That’s far more than the 540,000 signatures required by law.

State officials will now check the signatures and, barring tremendous irregularities, will set an election six to ten weeks after that, depending on whether a primary is needed to determine the Democrats’ candidate. Some recall processes require an up-or-down vote on the official being recalled, but Wisconsin simply holds a new election.

Only two state governors have been successfully recalled in the nation’s entire history: California’s Gray Davis (2003) and North Dakota’s Lynn Frazier (1921). Both deserved it.

Yet, while I applaud the recall as a good process and a fundamental right of citizens — not only did I personally work on the recall of the mayor of Omaha, Nebraska, in 2010, I wholeheartedly cheered the recall of Davis — I hope the people of Badger Nation will vote to keep their gutsy governor.

Walker’s reform, making public employees pay more toward their hefty healthcare and pension benefits and restricting collective bargaining by public employee unions, understandably angered the state’s labor unions. But the reform has already saved overburdened taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars. Meanwhile, a report released by the Wisconsin Association of School District Administrators shows that districts across the state are financially more secure and have been able to hire more teachers.

The right to recall is essential, but replacing Gov. Walker would punish him for doing what’s right.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
free trade & free markets too much government

A Necessary Solution?

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is playing hardball. On Meet the Press, he defended himself:

Wisconsin is “broke,” and unions use their power to block necessary cost-saving measures, Walker said.

“It’s about time somebody stood up and told the truth in this state, and said, ‘Here’s our problem, here’s the solution,’ and acted on it,” he said.

But how sensible is his proposal to remove collective bargaining regarding benefits for most public employee unions? As everyone points out, the unions are agreeing to his other proposals, such as paying for more of their insurance than before.

Why is he being so unreasonable, so “arrogant”?

Last Sunday, I considered the whys on Townhall. Contracts with public employees are completely out of whack because compensation is negotiated outside market competition and by politicians more afraid of the political clout of the powerful unions than their principals (the taxpayers) whose money they’re spending. So, wage rates and especially promises of future medical and pension benefits are sky high and open to abuse.

The union reps can’t be trusted, either. So honed to getting the most for union members (their principals), their monomaniacal purpose washes away every other thought. Now that the corner they’ve shoved the state into has been made apparent, they’ll concede points, sure. But taking away bargaining leverage?

No way. They want to be able to do it all over, when good times roll.

And that is why Gov. Walker’s proposal seems so sound.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Categories
too much government

Paying the Right Wage

Local government is hard. In rural areas, it can be like organizing an ongoing bake-sale. In metropolitan areas, it’s more like running a small country.

Today’s big metropolitan governments tend to be run by un-term-limited oligarchs, so of course corruption is endemic. When there’s little competition for power and scant oversight, then the “above-board deals” become, de facto, insider deals.

And we wind up paying more in salaries and benefits for government workers than anything else. Recently, George Will off-handedly noted that in California “80 cents of every government dollar goes for government employees’ pay and benefits.”

Is that “too much”? Had we limited government, we would still expect salaries to make up a huge chunk of government. But since transfer payments are part and parcel of so much of modern governance, the fact that employee compensation packages are actually crowding out other line items should give us more than pause.

Truth is, though, it needn’t be hard to tell who is over- or under-paid, according to economist Arnold Kling:

If you do not have enough sanitation workers because you cannot fill job openings at the current level of pay, then those government workers are underpaid.

On the other hand, if you do not have enough sanitation workers because your budget is busted by the ones you have, then those government workers are overpaid.

Take that notion to your next local government board meeting. Big or small.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.