Public Unions Must Go

First, let me say that I despise unions. They distort the labor market, drive up costs for companies, and thus the customers of those companies, and have grown increasingly corrupt. At this point in time, they exist for little more than preserving the power of their leadership.

That being said, though, I don’t have (much of) a problem with unions in private industry. There have certainly been abuses by business owners in the past, and unions of the late 19th and early 20th century played a significant role in correcting those abuses. Every worker today, union or not, owes those early unions for the various work rules we largely take for granted now.

Beyond that, when a company and it’s workers have a dispute, I have alternatives. If Safeway’s cashiers go on strike, I can get food at Target or Walmart or Albertson’s. If United has a pilot walkout, I can be rebooked on Delta or American or (shudder) Southwest. I always have another source for whatever a given company provides, so I can work around a strike (or lockout) if I have to. Granted, it might cost me a little more, or come without all of the particular services I like-there’s a reason I choose a particular grocery store, airline or whatever over it’s competitors-but I still have options.

With a public union, this is not so. If government employees go on strike, that means the potholes don’t get filled, or the kids don’t get taught, or the driver’s licenses aren’t issued, marriages go unrecorded, fires aren’t put out, criminals don’t get caught. Government services are monopolies-you can’t just godown the block to Ed’s Discount Fire Protection; you get the service from your local employees, or you don’t get it at all.

Beyond that, the fiscal incentives are different for governments and their employees than those faced in industry. A CEO has an incentive to resolve a strike as quickly as possible for the same reason I don’t mind private unions quite as much-customer choice. If we can’t go to our regular provider of some product or service, we can get something similar somewhere else. Companies run a risk that an extended strike leads customers to decide they like the competition better, and may just decide to stay with the competition even after the contract is resolved.

Of course, the unions know this, too, which is why they go on strike in the first place. It’s also true, though, that the unions know there are limits to what a company can do in terms of increasing their own costs via massive giveaways in their contracts. This acts as a brake (however weak) on unions asking for the moon in negotiations. If this company runs up wages so high that they can’t compete on price with that company over there, it will go out of business, and then the employees are all making nothing at all.

With a public union, this isn’t true. The executives-especially Democrats, though historically Republicans much of the time, too-figure, “Well, we have to get them back to work, so let’s give the union what it wants, and we can just raise taxes to cover the costs.” Governments can decree how much you will pay them, whether you like it or not, and you have limited options for applying market pressure to them to hold costs down. There are many states these days which require a vote to approve new taxes, so that’s something, but you’re never told it’s because of union wages exerting an upward pressure on government costs.

The union model for public sector employees is simply unsustainable. Thee is no more economy to tax. Government budgets must shrink, or this nation will go bankrupt. The Tea Parties have put some spine into some Republicans, finally, and we might just have a shot at actually containing costs and-dare I dream-reducing the size of governments at all levels.