Government unions

[dogtowner]

An interesting piece on this from the NYT (I know a poor source if ever there was one). I was surprised to learn that FDR was against them.

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”


That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movement once thought the idea absurd.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”


Government collective bargaining means voters do not have the final say on public policy. Instead their elected representatives must negotiate spending and policy decisions with unions. That is not exactly democratic – a fact that unions once recognized.



George Meany was not alone. Up through the 1950s, unions widely agreed that collective bargaining had no place in government. But starting with Wisconsin in 1959, states began to allow collective bargaining in government. The influx of dues and members quickly changed the union movement’s tune, and collective bargaining in government is now widespread. As a result unions can now insist on laws that serve their interests – at the expense of the common good.

 

[Rick]

Government unions should be abolished. Private sector unions came into existence as a means to represent the workers in a situation of competing interests - labor and management. There is nothing really like that with government unions. The legislatures, the presumably "other side" in negotiations with government unions, have nothing to lose personally by giving unions anything they want, because they just cash a check signed by taxpayers to pay for it. That is in fact what has happened in places like wisconsin, california, illinois, and new jersey, and many other states, which are teetering near bankruptcy.

 

[Gipper]

An interesting piece on this from the NYT (I know a poor source if ever there was one). I was surprised to learn that FDR was against them.

That is surprising about FDR, but does show how far left the Dem Party has gone.

The union movement is nearly dead in the private sector, but thrives in the public sector.

 

[dogtowner]

That is surprising about FDR, but does show how far left the Dem Party has gone.

The union movement is nearly dead in the private sector, but thrives in the public sector.

FDR was a bit of a paradox. He was pro business in some regards and not in others. Maybe what they were saying of him is true, he may have been a little "touched".