Why State Workers should Retain Collective Bargaining Rights – Yes
Proponents of small government have decided that the only good government is a dead government, and the best way to kill it is to starve it to death. No one wants to pay taxes, and the middle class feels that it would be best if they could access the services rendered by government without having to actually pay for them. Well, we’re willing to pay a little but we certainly do not want to fund healthcare and pension benefits for the people who actually do the work.
It is not that we dislike the government workers who have been getting fat on these benefits. It is just that we can no longer afford it. This is the logic being touted by elected officials all over the United States. Actually, according to these government officials, we could never afford it. The fear of not having paved roads, staffed schools, and patrolled streets, was so great that we caved whenever faced with a negotiation with state unions.
The governors of Wisconsin and New Jersey have been widely quoted as saying that they are finally telling their people the truth. Their respective states are broke, so even if they did negotiate with the state workers they have nothing to negotiate with. After decades of signing insanely rich deals with the unions, the new Republicans have come in to say, “Hey State Employees, you know those pension and health benefits you thought you had? Well, hate to break it to you like this, but it ain’t gonna happen. We’re broke, busted, flat, dead blooded out. We don’t have a pot nor a window and what’s worse we won’t have any money any time soon. So – and you are going to have to trust us – in return for your getting to keep your job, we are going to take away you right to negotiate.” I’m not making this up. The governor of Wisconsin actually made this offer.
The problem is that the State workers may be a tad slow on the uptake, but they are not stupid. It is difficult to believe a politician who first tells you that his predecessors were blindly optimistic liars, and now that the state is out of money and deep in debt he is going to let you keep your job as long as you never ask for any money ever again. Government workers understand that once they give up their right to negotiate the State will privatize every sector they can get their hands on so that they can off load the costly pension and healthcare benefits.
The collective lie detector of every worker in Wisconsin went haywire, and they understood that if they gave up their right to negotiate, they would eventually abdicate their right to work. So asking if State workers should have the right to collective bargaining is essentially asking if State workers have a right to exist, or if the State should outsource all of the services it delivers.
