In these perilous times for our nation and several of our states and communities, it seems as if new fissure points are deepening in our civil structure. For several decades union membership in the private sector has been declining as our heavy manufacturing industries have relocated to right-to-work states, moved offshore or upgraded to highly automated facilities. The labor unions, thirsting for the constant inflow of dues money, have shifted their focus toward retail establishments, service jobs and public sector employees to maintain their accustomed level of financial and political viability. Overall union membership continues to decline as a percentage of the population, but the militant unionization of the public sector has dramatically altered the dynamics of labor-management relations. Public sector employees negotiate their contracts with unelected supervisors and elected officials who can claim to be neutral even though many of them receive campaign contributions and union-based volunteers at election time.
Because of the dwindling private sector union base, the public sector organization efforts have become more robust and intense. This development, I believe, will become a self-defeating movement for public sector labor and for taxpayer-supported government. By unionizing public sector employees at a dizzying rate, unions have placed the civil service rules of the past century on steroids regarding the government’s ability to remove ineffective or corrupt workers. Many union contracts have constructed various hurdles and barriers to protect the unworthy employee, thereby requiring that others be hired to do the work that doesn’t get completed.
In addition, by funneling millions of dollars of campaign contributions and thousands of campaign “volunteers” into the election efforts of liberals and progressives (primarily), the unions are contributors toward the massive growth of government that so many of them are lusting for. Growing governments yield exploding bureaucracies that exceed the abilities of the political class or the people to control them. The union, nevertheless, is somewhat satiated because of their increasing rolls in the public sector even though their numbers for growth appear to lag behind the private sector losses. So, how many “good-paying middle class jobs” has an overzealous Environmental Protection Agency cost our nation, our local communities….and the unions who organized the laborers? How many union jobs have nit-picking bureaucracies from the entire spectrum of government, controlling departments lost because of their senseless oversight policies? While union leaders and their fundraisers scamper to expand their reach in the public sector, they continue to place private sector jobs at risk. Union members should ask their elitist, socialist-leaning organizers why they insist on killing or maiming hefty private sector jobs so they can squeeze more money for their political cronies.
Private sector workers must realize that their “leaders” are not looking out for them or their welfare. They are merely exchanging public and service dues-paying members for the losers who built their organizations. Every time some big-government rule from the bureaucracy impedes a private sector employer from growing or functioning well, a laid-off or ‘pink-slipped” union employee may be the ultimate recipient of the Big Brother overreach. Big government increases the tax burden for private sector union workers and places their jobs in jeopardy by over-regulating, over-licensing and bureaucratic foot dragging. Big Government’s inherent hostility toward the private sector has undermined its capacity for growth and prosperity…thus diminishing good job opportunities for the workforce.
It should be noted that a labor union wields the most power when it represents skilled workers in a labor-shortage environment. The union leadership’s efforts to organize service and retail workers will fill their financial coffers, but will not result in significant gains for the members. Maids, clerks and wait staff can be hired off the street after a couple of day’s work stoppage. It is more difficult to hire machinists and mechanics because so few people possess the requisite skill set. It seems, therefore, the modern movement to bolster union membership in the public sector could be the saving grace for a dwindling private sector group. The unions may be signing their own death knell with their new emphasis. Private sector workers may finally get a clue, and ignore or dismiss the leaders who have undermined them by promoting big government and massive bureaucracies. The public, the taxpayers, the people may withdraw or resist the expansionist efforts of the unions and big-government advocates. The basket of tolerance can hold only so many eggs of higher taxes, government indebtedness and bureaucratic meddling before the eggs begin to break. The people’s discontent may rise to the point that the entire public sector will be either radically restructured or become so powerful that there will be no one remaining to pay the freight. Either way, the Marxist-leaning unionist’s strategy may backfire….as it should.
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