Union Busting in the Modern Age

Very troubling doings in Wisconsin.  The all-GOP government there has decided to destroy public sector unions, manufacturing a budget crisis as an excuse.  In fact, the state had no budget problems at all before the recession, and recently passed a series of tax cuts on business that depressed revenue and make budget projections look much worse.  See Ezra Klein for more details

So what we have here is a budget crisis caused by a Wall Street-driven recession and exacerbated by recent tax cuts, which Republicans propose to solve by destroying public sector unions.  How do they plan to destroy the unions?  Proposed legislation would:

• Not allow unions to negotiate benefits or work rules
• Not allow them to negotiate wages beyond a certain point
• Forbid union dues deductions from paychecks
• Mandate new union votes annually

So we're not talking about weakening the unions, or about givebacks- we're talking about union-busting, pure and simple, except instead of a corporation sending in thugs to do it, now we have the government doing it by law.

And that's not even the whole thing- there's more!  The Wisconsin law exempts police and fire departments and other public safety unions.  Why might that be?  Turns out, those unions supported the governor in the election campaign.  So much for principles.  Are we trying to claim that state child protective service workers and teachers are more corrupt than cops and firemen?  Cops and firefighters had better understand that they're next.

Lots of people are really mad that unionized government workers still get defined pensions, generous health care benefits, and guarantees of safe workplaces.  There was a time when workers got that stuff in the private sector too.  But the solution isn't to screw public employees- it's to fight to get those kind of working conditions back for private sector blue collar and service workers.  I understand why Big Business doesn't want that, but for the rest of us it ought to be pretty clear.