From CatholicVote.org
By Tom Crowe
The Wisconsin Senate has passed the measure stripping government unions of the ability to collude with willing partisans to increase their largesse in exchange for loads of political support and campaign contributions. The state Assembly is expected to take up the legislation today.
In other words, the Wisconsin Senate voted to end collective bargaining for government unions.
This is not about hatin’ on teachers. This is not about trying to destroy all unions. This is about ending a corrupt system.
The president of the AFL-CIO, who naturally took the side of the aggrieved government proletarians against the interests of his private-sector members, said, unironically, that “[Governor] Scott Walker and the GOP have eviscerated both the letter and the spirit of the law and our democratic process to ram through their payback to their deep-pocketed friends.”
To review, the law allows for laws that do not spend money to be passed with a lower quorum threshold; it’s the other party that fled the state and is thereby taking advantage of the nuances of the law to try to force their will in spite of their minority status; they are in the minority because the voters democratically elected the GOP to the majority; and union bosses, especially government unions, are the deepest of deep pockets around when it comes to buying political influence. (#1: National Education Association; #5: SEIU; #11: AFSCME; with the first “Corporate America” group, a natural gas lobbying group, coming in at #13 and giving roughly 1/3 of what the NEA gives. Hmm, I *wonder* why teachers unions are especially exercised at the gall of the Wisconsin GOP?)
As I wrote earlier on this topic, the problem here is the manifestly unfair advantage government union workers have in the labor marketplace.
When government workers and an elected official sit down to bargain wages and benefits, they both know that the money used to pay the government workers comes from tax dollars. They both know* that all the elected official has to do to be able to pay higher wages and increase benefits is raise taxes or (if it’s the federal government) borrow more money. They both also know that the elected official most willing to increase their wages and benefits will get the lion’s share of government union worker support in the next election cycle.
So where’s the brake on this little you-scratch-my-back-I’ll-scratch-yours dynamo? We need a stuxnet. Or a tea party.
In the private sector, as evil and selfish as corporate bosses can sometimes be, there still is a real limit to the amount the captain of industry can take for himself in salary and benefits, or promise to the workers in same: that limit is revenue. The business simply cannot pay out more money than it took in. The business can’t raise taxes, can’t raise fees, can’t force anyone to buy its product, and cannot raise its prices beyond what the law of supply and demand will support, because consumers will stop buying that product, and then no one gets paid. Private sector unions and private enterprise managers have a real bargaining process over a finite pool of resources. Responsible managers will bargain in good faith, make reasonable concessions, but be firm that the company cannot mortgage the future with unrealistic retirement and benefits packages.
Overpromising the future causes real problems. Ask GM. Heck, ask the Social Security Administration.
So what is happening in Wisconsin, purely from the perspective of responsible governance, is a good thing for everyone. It is responsible governance by those entrusted with the public trust. It is moral. And it is necessary in more states, as well as at the federal level.
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*They assume this, really. Because it’s not true.
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