By Richard Larsen
Published – Idaho State Journal, 06/12/11
Some things just outlive their usefulness. Except for the
eccentric few among us, car starter cranks, buggy whips, and 8-track tape
players come to mind. Add unions to that list.
One cannot be a student of history without recognizing the
tremendous contributions unions made to the emergence of the middle class in
early to mid 20th century
America. They forced improved working conditions, workweek hours, and
compensation levels. But they have become primarily political entities, with
forced union dues used heavily for amassing power in the political arena. Even
Bob Chanin, former top lawyer for the National Education Association, admitted
that in a moment of unabashed frankness in his farewell speech two years ago,
when he said, “It’s not about the kids…it’s about power.”
In a local union gathering this week in Pocatello,
organizers lectured to a compliant small crowd that “Attacks on unions is (sic)
an attack on the middle class.” Actually they are not. The Department of Labor
classifies 55% of Americans as middle class. Union membership constitutes a
fraction of those households as union membership has dropped to 70-year lows at
11.9% of the working population according to statistics released in January.
Economist Thomas Sowell recapitulated the sentiment
brilliantly recently when he wrote, “The biggest myth about labor unions is
that unions are for workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are
for corporations and politicians are for politicians.”
In the public sector, unions have forced several states to
the brink of bankruptcy, as brought to light recently in Wisconsin and Ohio.
The Investor’s Business Daily phrased this verity in stark terms recently when
it stated, “Public-sector unions serve no legitimate function except to feed at
the public trough of governments that have gone broke seeking their political
support.”
Former AFL-CIO president George Meany once said, “The main
function of American trade unions is collective bargaining. It is impossible to
bargain collectively with the government.” They’ve obviously figured out how to
do it, and to do it well, since the public sector is the only growing area of
union membership.
There is a fundamental problem with unions’ collective
bargaining with governmental entities, which invariably results in unions being
represented on both sides of the negotiating table since the government
officials representing tax-payers interests are largely bought and paid for by
union campaign contributions. This places the taxpayer in the unenviable
position of not truly being represented at the negotiation table. After all,
politicians are unlikely to “bite the hand that feeds them.” The result is
imbalanced and irreconcilable budgets, as evidenced by the fact that the ten
states with the most budgetary red ink are those where organized labor hold the
states hostage to their negotiated entitlements.
A friend of mine who used to be a local union president told
me recently, “Unions, at least in my opinion, did valuable work in the ‘30s
when employees were being abused. Now, unions are destroying the very
industries they work for. Huge labor union leadership is woefully out of touch
with its rank and file membership. It truly is all about power and money.”
In the private sector, there is overwhelming evidence that
unions have outlived their usefulness, not least of which is the way the United
Auto Workers contracts nearly destroyed the U.S. auto industry. But the data
are indisputable that unions in the private sector severely restrict economic
growth and output.
Idaho is a “right-to-work” state. That means that workers
can have a right to work without being forced to join a union and pay union
dues. This actually makes Idaho, and the other 22 right-to-work states
compliant with the Universal Declaration of Human Rights which says in article
20, “No one may be compelled to belong to an association.” After all, there is
no logical reason to require workers to join partisan political organizations
as a condition of their employment. The only possible reason to force political
organization membership is for the aggrandizement of the organization itself.
The Investor’s Business Daily analyzed data from the
National Institute for Labor Relations Research recently and the results were
revelatory. From 1999 to 2009, real personal income in right-to-work states
grew 28.3% versus 14.7% in forced-union states. That’s almost twice the growth.
Disposable income in right-to-work states stood at $35,543 per capita in 2009
vs. $33,389, and growth in real manufacturing GDP jumped 20.9% compared with
6.5% in non right-to-work states. IBD also points out from Bureau of Labor
Statistics data that right-to-work states added 1.5 million private-sector jobs
from 1999 to 2009 for a 3.7% increase; states that are not right-to-work lost
1.8 million jobs over the same period, a decline of 2.3%.
Clearly unions in the public sector are
budget-busters, and impede growth in the private sector. Their obsolescence is
indubitable.