Market Fundamentalists on the Issue of Collective Bargaining
By Rob Schofield
“Fighting the last war”: It’s a common (and often understandable) mistake made not just by generals but by politicians, football coaches, corporate executives, journalists, and even policy analysts and advocates. It’s natural for people to base their opinions and decision patterns on the past. Often, experience and old stories are all we have to go on.
Indeed, in many instances, society would be better off if more people paid more attention to history, rather than repeating the same mistakes over and over.
The trick, of course, is to find the right balance. The best analysts and decision makers are those who know their history, but who also pay close attention to the changing circumstances – especially in today’s rapidly changing world. Just as it’s a mistake to ignore the past, it’s also a mistake to be led by it exclusively – especially when the passage of time transforms history into mythology and so distorts one’s vision that he or she can’t accurately perceive present day reality.
Nowhere is this latter phenomenon better illustrated than in the absurd and overcooked opposition voiced of late by North Carolina’s market fundamentalists to the idea of collective bargaining for public employees.
This month’s edition of the Locke Foundation’s Carolina Journal features an article entitled “Government Collective Bargaining Means Higher Taxes” (see page 27). Earlier this year, the Locke crowd’s cousins over at the Pope-Civitas Institute put out a similar “Policy Briefing.” Both were penned in response to the state House of Representatives’ consideration of a simple bill to repeal the state’s post-McCarthy era ban on collective bargaining for public sector employees – the infamous law known as G.S. 95-98.
To read these attacks, you’d think that Jimmy Hoffa had risen from the grave and was leading a convoy of bat-wielding truck drivers down I-95 to take over the DOT offices. Not only do both articles make wild, sky-is-falling assertions, but some of the statements are just plain inaccurate and/or irrelevant.
“Highlights” from the Locke article include:
“It [repeal of 95-98] would inflate taxpayer-funded jobs, discourage economic development, and limit government workers from negotiating their own individual employment contracts.”
“…[G]overnment employees are more than four times more likely to unionize than those in the private sector, costing the taxpayer plenty.”
“North Carolina residents could pay 4.57 percent less in state income taxes if they weren’t paying for inflated government employee union wages. In collective bargaining, it is the role of the unions to make demands of the government. When those demands are not met, unions often strike. In a government strike, the union’s demands are usually met to avoid a shutdown of essential services. Imagine what would happen if teachers decided to strike during the school year.”
And these from Pope-Civitas:
“Collective bargaining will force pay increases for state employees and teachers to become mandatory expenses, much like entitlement programs.”
“Taxpayers cannot choose to go to lower-cost public schools or drive on lower-cost roads, but consumers can choose to buy a less expensive car — say a Toyota — manufactured in a state – such as Mississippi — that does not allow collective bargaining.”
The excerpts above are just a few of the numerous over-, under- and just plain misstatements in the two articles. The basic gist of most of them, however, is the same: repeal of G.S. 95-98 would empower a militant movement of union toughs who would effect a takeover of state government, unleash a wave of strikes that threaten essential services (and maybe even public safety), and jack taxes into the stratosphere as political leaders vainly strive to comply with ever-escalating pay demands.
Setting the Record Straight
Aside from the most obvious and flip response that union folks might have to such wild allegations – “Would that we could ever have that kind of clout!” – a couple of more serious responses should be set forth.
First and foremost, it is simply inaccurate to state that the presence of public employee collective bargaining will automatically drive up the cost of government and/or taxes. Notwithstanding the claims of the so-called “Center for Union Facts” cited in the Locke piece (a notorious, yet mysterious, union busting front group started by a tobacco industry lobbyist), there is compelling new research that any costs associated with higher wages for public employees in strong union states is made up for through higher worker efficiency and productivity.
According to a forthcoming paper by Professor Jeffrey Leiter of N.C. State and his coauthor Susan Twiddy entitled “The Impact of Public Sector Unions on Government Operations and Worker Welfare in the United States,” the impact of somewhat higher public employee wages in states with a strong public employee union presence is generally compensated for by the fact that such states have, on the whole, fewer public employees per capita. In general, according to the research, strong public employee unions strengthen government performance and efficiency – principally by raising worker satisfaction with their jobs and thereby reducing employee turnover. Job turnover, of course, is an exploding cost in the modern world of employment and is a huge problem and cost for government.
In short, according to the findings of Leiter and Twiddy, strong public employee unions make for a workforce that is, on the whole, happier, more productive, more experienced, more stable, and more efficient. While there are some places where the cost of government has risen with the presence of public employee unions, some of this cost increase was a simple matter of reversing years of employee underpayment and maltreatment.
This latter point is a reminder of a second fundamental flaw in the Locke and Pope-Civitas pieces, i.e., the notion that higher wages for public employees are a bad thing. According to the Locke piece, public employee wages outpace private sector wages by around $4,800 per year. Assuming this is true (some union folks have questioned the number), who is to say that the jobs in question are completely comparable? More to the point, just because “the market” has determined that North Carolina workers must, on the whole, make do on lower average wages than other Americans does not mean that this is proper or just.
Among the many more specific errors and misstatements in the two pieces:
- The Locke piece’s claim that collective bargaining would “limit government workers from negotiating their own individual employment contracts.” How the author reached this conclusion is unclear given the fact that only upper level employees (a group that would undoubtedly be excluded from collective bargaining) have anything approximating such power now.
- The Locke claim that economic development would be “discouraged.” Huh? By such reasoning anti-union Mississippi would be a better bet for economic development than, say, pro-union states like Connecticut or Minnesota.
- Speaking of Mississippi, Pope-Civitas errs when it says that Toyotas manufactured in Mississippi are cheaper because the state “does not allow collective bargaining.” First of all, Toyota does not yet make cars in Mississippi. Second of all, Toyotas are, on the whole, more expensive than several American brands – even with the company’s less unionized workforce. Third, Mississippi does not (and cannot under federal law) ban collective bargaining for private sector employees.
- The claim by Locke that repeal of G.S. 95-98 will lead to public employee strikes is also wrong. Such strikes are and would remain illegal.
- Finally, Locke alleges that for public employee unions, “A large portion of the dues collected goes into political campaigns for candidates and to support issues many workers do not believe in.” In North Carolina this is simply untrue – at least for the State Employees Association, which collects political contributions in a wholly voluntary system that is separate from dues.
The bottom line? Like private corporations and government itself, most unions are far from perfect. Many have made their share of missteps through the years. On the whole, however, most 21st century American labor unions little resemble the stereotypical image of the old-fashioned factory trade union – especially public sector unions. It’s critical that North Carolina policymakers move past right wing mythology as they examine the potential pulses and minuses of repealing the collective bargaining ban.
For more information on this issue, readers may want to check out the website of the N.C. HOPE (Hear Our Public Employees) Coalition at http://www.nchope.org/.
