Collective Bargaining needs Balance
October 29, 2011 2 Comments
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The Ohio state teachers union wants the California teachers union to support them. There is a move in Ohio like the one in Wisconsin to reduce collective-bargaining rights. We’ve been asked to make phone calls to support the Ohio teachers union. I myself was disgusted by the childish behavior of the Wisconsin unions and liberal politicians in regard to these collective-bargaining votes back in the spring.
There comes a time in getting on a budget that requires sacrifice. When a family is trying to clean up their financial mess, they have to choose some areas to cut back their lifestyle. When a government is trying to clean up their financial mess, they have to choose some spending areas to cut back on. Those Wisconsin protesters did not seem to understand this and basically raised a big stink and cost their state time and money instead.
Collective bargaining has a place in balancing the needs of individual workers with the needs of the organization. Unfortunately some of the contractual obligations organizations have become entrapped by are no longer viable. Refusing to back off on these is ruins what Steven Covey called the production capacity of an organization. Basically killing the goose that lays the golden egg.
In recent years and in the coming months and years more of us in education are going to be called on to make some sacrifice because of the poor financial state of our nation and/or state. When that time comes for me, I don’t plan to whine, protest, or complain. I will do what must be done. I don’t plan to call anyone in Ohio to encourage them to do otherwise. I suspect there are many other teachers who did not agree with the unruly protests last spring in Wisconsin. I would be interested in your take on it.
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Agree Cliff! I would also dispute the right of public employees’ unions to collectively bargain, or even really to exist at all. Unions were created so that employees could leverage their combined force to pressure an employer to give them more (money, safety, time, etc.). As long as their methods are peaceful and legal, this respects the free market to some extent. An employer can choose to not give in to their demands and then suffer lost business, having to train a new workforce, lower morale, etc. He has choices. It’s his (or her) business and he or she can decide what to do. But who is the employer in the case of Public Employees’ Unions? Is it not us? And them? The taxpayers are the employers ultimately. By allowing public employees’ unions (I don’t believe federal employees unions have the right to collectively bargain), we are essentially saying that employees can work to elect their own bosses, then go on strike against them if they don’t pay them more. And rather than worry about the bottom line, their “bosses” are worried about getting re-elected, so many get in bed with these very unions who provide ground game on election day. Then they get in office, and give them big raises, ala Gray Davis and the Prison Guards. Why do we allow public employees unions to extort tax payers with disruption of government services (that we voted for and pay for) if we don’t pay them what they demand? If you don’t like your government job, go work in the private sector! Government work should be service, and I say that as a public school teacher.
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