SOLIDARITY FOREVER

Union bargaining is a two-edged sword that Management is about to start swinging.

Dr. Robert Beeman
©2011 all rights reserved

Instead of going to the bargaining table back in February, Wisconsin’s Governor Walker chose to confront his public sector unions in Wisconsin’s political arena. Being a Republican, he had to. Public sector unions, hugely Democratic, have been accustomed to sitting across the bargaining table from ‘bosses’ they help to re-elect.

Finally the bad old Republicans were shoved into power by a Wisconsin electorate fed up with sweetheart contracts and backdoor deals between unions and Democrat power brokers. And what did the Democrats do? Ran like hell. And what did the public unions do? Went to mob rule and violence, just as all liberals eventually do when faced with realities — in Wisconsin\’s case lack of money — that political correctness can\’t wish away.

For decades most people have viewed union bargaining as a process wherein you get a little bit more each round of talks, but the simple fact is this:

the current contract being renegotiated is not a “floor” from which everything needs to go upwards. In in theory the existing Agreement is irrelevant to current talks except to show how well or poorly things worked out in the past.

Here’s the Dirty Little Secret of union bargaining that unions hate admitting:

Either management OR labor can put ANYTHING it wants on the bargaining table, no matter how bizarre or punishing if within the law.

It’s perfectly ok for the Protectors of the Downtrodden and Defenders of the Little Guy, hereinafter referred to as The Union, to demand a gold door on the Men’s Room.

And it’s equally ok for the Evil, Grasping Beak-Nosed Old Capitalist Widow-and-Orphan Stompers, hereinafter referred to as The Employer, to demand a reduction of benefits or even a decrease in Union power.

The only legal requirement is something called “good-faith bargaining,” which is as common in American labor relations as implants at a N.O.W conference. It means both sides have to agree to abide by anything they agree to. Yeah, right.

So Republican Governor Walker could have added his requirements to strip Union power to the state’s upcoming contract proposals. But in the public sector, contract talks consist of a stylized dance whose every step is choreographed against a backdrop of political arm twisting.

It would be impossible for the Governor to keep his negotiating position intact through months and years of bargaining, and that’s what he’d face. The Union would simply stonewall him until his term ran out. Then they’d accuse him of screwing Union members out of a contract by him stonewalling them!

In the Political Theatre of public sector bargaining, the state has always been a bunch of extras from Central Casting and The Union is John Wayne. However, once the Wisconsin changes are in place for awhile and the state’s budget starts emerging from the fiscal toilet, other states are going to start stripping public unions of their strangleholds. Ohio already has. At this writing The Buckeye State, so nicknamed for buckeye trees, whatever they are, has scrubbed its public sector unions’ power.

And, as a kick out the door, the Ohio bill forbids anyone to raise taxes to make up the shortfall! Woo Hoo! What Cubes they have!

But can public sector unions swing this big a hammer when private sector unions wield nowhere near this kind of power? The difference lies in the difference in employers.

When a private sector labor union calls a strike there’s a flurry of news, some b-roll film of picket lines, and a couple of local media talking heads working the main plant entrance hoping for a little a-roll violence. But short of union thugs rolling a truck through the plant door filled with explosives or management goons spraying the union hall with automatic weapons, nothing is going to stir the public from its Oprah-induced stupor. The only parties who really care about a private sector strike are the union and the company itself. The Union doesn’t get its demands? So what? The company folds from the loss of business? Oh well…

But!

When a pure, underdog-protecting, little-guy saving PUBLIC sector labor union strikes against its greedy, blood sucking, capitalist bosses, the walls of the political kraal shiver and shake. Deep mutterings and rumblings as the great beasts enclosed therein – the politicians caught in the middle – gesture and lumber about trying to stretch their mouths to satisfy union members and constituents at the same time.

The contract that finally emerges will have been crafted, not by economic realities, or even good-faith bargaining if it comes to that, but by the political clout the union is able to slam around, and the amount of cash slipping back into politicians’ campaign chests from union coffers. Make no mistake about this: it isn’t illegal, but it’s bribery plain and simple. What else would you call the implicit assumption that if you give your employees what they want, they’ll help you keep your job next election?

In the public sector, collective bargaining for wages, hours, and conditions of work is an inherent conflict of interest because public sector union members elect their own bosses! There is no possible pressure a union can exert in the private sector comparable to the threat in the public sector of firing its own boss.

Public sector bargaining is inherently unfair because the union has complete control of the entire process. If a union actually strikes a public employer it curtails services to an entire population – county, township, or state. If a union threatens strike, it is actually putting its political employer on notice that the employer will be held to account at the ballotbox.

In the private sector, The Union is obviously the champion of the downtrodden, saving the powerless worker whose lot would be pitiable if not succored by high-minded idealistic union activists ready to sacrifice all to The Cause.

Management consists of feckless, grasping, atavistic heathens ready to drink blood if it will tick their shares up a couple of points. This is not precisely the image that employers hold of themselves, but it’s a fair synopsis of the landscape painted by Liberal labor unions whose leaders control the liberal-biased media and generally get the last word. All management usually wants is to be left alone, but who would believe those fatcat Capitalist slugs anyway?

OK, enough of the silly stereotypes…but wait! In public sector bargaining, the employers — the Bad Guys, those nasty, selfish, little-guy-screwing, do-anything-for-a-buck ‘malefactors of great wealth’…are us!. You and I. WE are the evil Capitalist Pigs with our foot on Labor’s neck. Public sector unions negotiate against YOU, my friend, and me. WE are the Bad Guys. WE taxpayers, who might ourselves be union members, are Holding Back Progress, stifling the yearnings of poor workers, taking the bread out of the mouths of children, and generally running down everyone’s quality of life.

So, my friend, as one greasy Capitalist pig to another…stomp any widows and orphans lately?

Author Bio: Dr. Robert Beeman\’s current novel, No More Time for Sorrow, is a rousing adventure story of the next terrorist attack on the Homeland this time with atom bombs. Let\’s DESTROY global terrorism! Visit No More Time for Sorrow, Visit Dr. Beeman\’s anti-terrorist web site, Visit Dr. Beeman\’s blog site

Category: Jobs
Keywords: politics,unions,bargaining,