By David Harsanyi
Friday, March 02, 2018
How does a public-sector union work? Easy.
First, the state creates a monopoly. The monopoly forces
taxpayers to fund those workers, whether they do a good job or not. The union
then coerces workers to pay dues regardless of whether or not they want to.
Then the union uses those dues to help fund political advocacy that perpetuates
their monopoly and the union’s influence. So, in other words: racketeering.
Among many significant problems with this arrangement,
the most obvious is that it’s an assault on freedom of association. If there is
another organization in American life that has a license to compel workers to
participate in their nongovernmental organization simply to secure a job, I
haven’t heard of it.
The Supreme Court recently heard oral arguments in Janus v. AFSCME, a case in which a man
named Mark Janus, a non-union child-support specialist in Illinois, argued that
his First Amendment rights were violated because he is forced to pay “agency
fees” to a public-sector union. It was dismaying, though not unexpected, that
during oral arguments, justices including Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan, and
Sonia Sotomayor concerned themselves with the impact the decision would have on
union membership rather than concerning themselves with the impact this kind of
policy has on the Constitution.
The vast majority of media coverage on the topic
similarly relied on euphemism-heavy stories that did everything possible to
avoid words like “compelling,” “forcing,” or “coercing.” Most outlets framed
the entire case as a concerted partisan attack on unions and, by extension, the
Democratic party. As a matter of legality, the intentions of those involved
shouldn’t matter much. But the reason disparate groups attack public-sector
unions is that the institution’s survival often rests on coercing Americans and
undermining the First Amendment. If stripping a political advocacy group of the
power to force workers to join their efforts is a crippling event, then it’s an
event worth celebrating.
As it is, workers in union-heavy industries are typically
under incredible pressure to join — in my experience, there are few bigger
bullies in everyday American life than the union boss. Yet general union
membership continues to crater. Those who resist these efforts are often
accused of being “free riders,” because they purportedly benefit from collective
bargaining but refuse to pay in. This is an exceptionally peculiar argument
coming from organizations for which the central mission, as far as I can tell,
is to ensure that the least effective workers are protected at the expense of
the most effective workers.
More than that, though, the entire case against Janus
rests not only on coercion, but also on a debatable, if not dubious, notion. John Doe must join a union, because he
already benefits from collective-bargaining negotiations, union advocates
argue. Does he? Even if we concede that collective-bargaining negotiations
might raise the average salary of teachers, it may very well depress his
salary. It is just as easy to argue that collective bargaining hurts the good
teacher. Public-sector unions are arguing not only that workers must join a
collective and subvert their individual rights, but that they must accept an
ideological contention.
In many states, public-sector unions don’t have
collective-bargaining rights. Yet, as I write this, every school in all 55
counties of one of those states — West Virginia, where the average teacher’s
salary is a bit higher than the average worker’s — are now closed due to an
illegal teachers’ strike. Most of those average workers in West Virginia have
no choice when it comes to their children’s educations.
Yet nearly every story about this situation focuses on
the plight of poor teachers rather than powerless parents. On one hand, we hear
that teachers’ unions are vital to the economy because teachers would make far
less in the private sector. In the next breath, we hear them argue that teachers
are substantially underpaid compared to what others earn in the private sector.
So there’s a simple way to find out how much public-sector employees are worth
individually, and that’s breaking the union’s monopoly.
If Americans want to join organizations that undercut
initiative and achievement to slide employees into safe, predetermined slots
regardless of ability or work ethic, that’s their business. If they want to
break the law and blackmail entire communities who have no choice but to walk away,
they should be fired. If they want to force co-workers to pay for their
political activities, they should be stopped. And if they claim that most
teachers want to willingly participate in union efforts, the only way to find
out is by giving those public employees a choice.
No comments:
Post a Comment