Just as the textile looms moved from Europe through the northern states, to the southern states, and away to over seas markets, so goes unions. In the hay day of the American textile industry, Americans in the north, many immigrants from Europe, were willing to work for lower wages than Europeans and the European economy suffered. Once we had plenty of employment, then we also wanted more pay. But, pay is related to the difficulty in finding work, or the supply of employment and demand for workers, go figure. America had plenty of workers and more arriving every day. Industrial businessmen figured out that helping people get elected who were friendly to their activities produced regulations that allowed them to treat workers in a way which they could not otherwise. The Government enforces contracts, among other things. Businesses enticed workers into unfair contracts and used government to enforce them. The employees organized under the belief that through solidarity, the business/government partner could not put them all in jail. They used their numbers to intimidate strike breakers and slow down or halt commerce.
Eventually, the unions put up candidates of their own for government positions and the practice of government enforcement of unfair labor practices was replaced with regulatory protections against them. However, just as business used this influence to their advantage, unions worked to enact legislation favorable to themselves through their elected officials. Eventually, all truly unfair business/employment practices were eliminated by legislation. Unions were no longer relevant in matters of fairness. To remain relevant, they negotiated from a position of solidarity for better than fair pay and benefits. Pay to union employees rose above non-union pay and unions could not persist. Businesses resisted hiring union employees, knowing pay and benefits would be extorted above market price. In some areas of the country, unions were influential enough to successfully support a sufficient number of elected officials to make it legal to force businesses of a certain size to only hire union employees. The concept of a closed shop was born. Join the union, or don’t bother applying for a job. Favoritism and nepotism replaced merit and production.
Businesses that could not survive the new burdens of employee strikes and unfair legislation, did not survive. They either moved to more business friendly environments following the paths of looms past, or businesses formed by others in such friendlier locals put them out of business. This cycle of business start up, unionization of the successful ones, and their eventual demise continued until all but the large industrial employers with factories and plants too large to move easily were gone. Now, a business opens in a union state and makes a profit long enough to get the attention of a union. The union convinces the employees that they deserve a larger portion of the difference between their current pay, and the profit retained by the owner, real or imagined. This is an easy sell in union states as it is common knowledge in such states that union jobs can pay several times what non-union work pays. The owner is told that the union will supply well trained employees and the increased pay will be an advantage as the unions will not tolerate non-union shops which might open to compete with the union shop. This is an easy sell as well, since the owners often grew up in the union rich society of the union state. The owner tolerates the union and can sometimes negotiate help from the union elected government officials in the form of competition limiting regulation in return for better pay and benefits for the employees. Over time, the negotiated arrangement is re-visited and changes in favor of the employees creep in. Rarely does an economically weak company gain relief with newly negotiated employee contracts, as the union continually attempts to get as much of the profits for employees and the union as is possible, while threatening to interfere with commerce if any reduction is requested. Often, concessions in good economic periods render the business unprofitable in another. High labor costs in high skill, labor intensive fields encourage automation in competitors where such automation would prove too costly without the union bolstered pay scales. Eventually, unionized industries fail more often in union states and less often in non-union states or countries. Unions fail and disappear in direct relation to the death of the host organism they helped starve. As profits shrink in favor of high pay, even the large industrial employers are replaced by foreign competitors. Unions could have educated and trained their members to be more competitive than non-union workers, instead they worked for conditions where they would not have to compete.
There is one industry however, which can never be outsourced. There is one industry which has almost no connection between the existence of the employer and the financial feasibility of the employee pay package. There is one industry where competition for survival has no connection to the production of the workers. This industry is government. Union organized public employees can pay dues to support the election of union compliant officials, and then “negotiate” a “fair” pay and benefits package with those same officials. Since unfair business practices or unfair pay and benefits are no longer left to fight, the union must fabricate such in order to remain relevant. This is exactly what happened in Wisconsin. The “union busting” legislation proposed in the Wisconsin legislature, if passed, would only make Wisconsin state teachers’ bargaining abilities equal to those for unionized Federal employees. The proposed legislation would not however bring the teacher’s union employee’s pension or health insurance contributions in line with either non-union Wisconsin residents or in many cases, other union employees. So why would the unions and their members take an extremely hard stance on an incremental loss in abilities which are out of line with most other employees’ abilities? They are not fighting for safe working conditions. They are fighting to be able to re-negotiate when the electoral pendulum swings back in their favor and they once again choose the government negotiator. They are fighting to continue to negotiate from both sides of the table. They are trying to make the voters, their employers, regret challenging the status quo.
The unions have drawn the line in the sand. The risk is that voters will not regret challenging the unions, but regret allowing them to exist at all. If the proposed Wisconsin legislation passes, I believe this will be the first time that public sector employee unions have lost any significant gains for their employees. There have been some temporary decreases in benefits, or temporary freezes on pay raises, or temporary freezes in hiring. I assert that this is the first permanent setback in the slow progression of pay and benefit improvements. I assert that this is the first setback that will not be re-negotiated with the elected official of their construction. If this legislation passes, the unions will have to negotiate in the open venue of public elections directly with their employer, the voters, instead of behind closed doors with someone who owes them for their job. They will have to stand in the public square and convince them that union members are entitled to pay raises when everyone else is taking cuts. They will have to convince the public that higher union pay will lead to better educated students, . . . this time. They will have to convince the voting public that tax increases best balance a bloated education budget, coincident with rising teacher pay. If the proposed legislation passes it could indicate a realization by the public that unions are obsolete, to be replaced by automation or at least, lower paid labor. I first suspected they recognize this too when I noticed the unprecedented pressure being brought to bare on Madison Wisconsin by the union friendly, union elected power players outside of Wisconsin. The unions are calling in their chips and the union elected officials are doing what they promised to do, knowing this will not go unnoticed by the voting public. President Obama publically put his support behind the unions. I assert that he does this as a knee jerk reaction resulting from his coming through the union rich political machinery of Chicago somewhat oblivious that his actions caused most of the rest of the country to pause at their own jobs and look up to see what he has done. The DNC sent their chairman, Tim Kaine to help with organizing protests, knowing(?) the people in the right to work state of Virginia will not understand his support for a union fight against negotiating directly with the tax payer over tax payer supplied pensions, and may not vote him into office again. President Obama put his left-over campaign resources into the fight via his campaign organization, Organizing for America. Solidarity. President Obama’s oath is to the Constitution. He is an employee of the very tax payers he has sided against. It seems lost on him that the fact he cannot represent “US” and “THEM” at the same time and that he chose to move to this side of the table. It seems lost on him that the fact the taxpayers have realized this is the very basis for the November upset in Wisconsin, and the new support for union restraint there. Is it more likely that such support for a union is because teachers are barely being fairly compensated in union negotiated contracts, or that the union contracts are so lucrative that the union members will pay dearly to keep them?
Consider this: If the school system took bids for teaching jobs, union and otherwise, would the low bids from out of work teachers be the same as the current teacher pay? Or, could current teachers be replaced from the free market for a price much lower?
So long as there are out of work teachers, the pay is too high. We expect the highest moral character in our teachers. We want them to be attracted to teaching because of a heartfelt desire to be in the profession. We want teachers driven with a desire to encourage such character in our children through example. What I see in Madison are teachers apparently attracted to teaching by a strong union, lying to their employers the taxpayers, saying they are sick and cannot work. I see them doing so in public, in front of their students, in front of an electorate not stupid enough to believe them. I see them doing so, knowing that no one believes the obvious lie, yet they persist. I see doctors lying on camera, writing notes to the very teachers who would not accept a bogus doctor’s note from their students. I see the kind of lying and cheating that money buys. I see teachers claiming that an education is a right while interfering with said education. I see them causing a stop to education activities and claiming without the union, education of the children will cease. I see teachers willing to teach children that lying for money is acceptable. I see teachers deliberately confusing the difference between rights and privileges, for their personal monetary gain. I see teachers using school yard bully tactics against legitimately elected officials with whom they disagree, for the purpose of interfering with the sworn duties of teacher and Congressman alike. I am not alone when I plainly see what an entrenched union will do when challenged.
What the union members do not realize is that much of the country is watching. Most of us did not grow up believing that such poor behavior is acceptable in the protection of the union interest. What they do not realize is how disgusted I am with the thought of my personal friends who are teachers, being forced to support and pay dues to such an organization as a condition of their being allowed to teach my children. I find it particularly unsavory that one of my teacher friends would be required to pay to support the election of a particular candidate as a condition of employment. I am not alone. The line has been drawn. Tremendous force is being applied in Madison in the protection of the unions. I find it a little ironic that their “fight for the freedom to negotiate” as unions could lead to Wisconsin’s freedom from them. All that stands between union survival and union oblivion is freedom to work without paying the union for the privilege. Simply allowing a teacher to work as a non-union teacher for the same pay as a union teacher will mark the end of teacher’s unions. The teacher’s union could have simply allowed this proposed bill to pass, quietly, then wait a couple of years and have the union supported Congress that would one day return, “fix it,” and get back to negotiating ever increasing benefits. Instead, they want to end challenges to public employee unions by their employers, and punish those who dare to do so. I wholeheartedly hope they succeed in doing just that. I hope that freedom ends this debate once and for all. What a fitting place for the progressive movement to have gained an early foothold, and ultimately the place where it shot itself in the foot, marking the end of the belief in the long term sustainability of socialist tenants. What a fitting end to public sector union conflict-of-interest, at the hands of voter solidarity.