I have been carefully watching the Union issues that have unfolded in Wisconsin, and one of the things that strikes me the most is the general hostility people have toward public workers. It seems as if people will not be satisfied until public workers are making the salaries of McDonalds employees with no benefits. It comes from a greater contempt Americans have for government and anything provided to them by taxes. Since the 80's, the public has come to believe that the government serves no useful purpose except for possibly fighting wars. The private sector has been idealized as serving the interests of Americans no matter what they do. Jobs have been moved overseas, benefits and wages have been cut, and unemployment has skyrocketed, but most of the blame has been put on the government and anything public. Recently, this issue has come to the forefront amongst public workers in Wisconsin
Wisconsin public workers are unionized. They do not make particularly impressive salaries, but they get very good benefits to make up for it. Pensions and stellar health insurance are the main attraction to taking a public job, and have been fought for by state employees unions. The governor has decided that they should no longer have the right to unionization and should have their benefits cut to "make sacrifices" in a poor economy. He fails to mention that before he took office and created massive corporate tax cuts, Wisconsin was not suffering nearly as badly with budget issues.This blatant attack on public workers has led to massive protests, and Democratic state senators actually leaving so they would not be forced to participate in the bill being put through. The public has been disturbingly indifferent to the whole situation. Media coverage has not been impressive considering the large scale of these events. Hostility toward public workers and resentment that they get benefits private sector workers do not has created this. Rather than demand the same benefits for themselves, or questioning the extremely dramatic wealth disparity in America, people attack those who they see as taking a tiny bit more than they themselves get, rather than those who get dramatically more. This leads to the anti-union, anti-public sentiment seen in the Wisconsin protests. Hopefully, people start to see that these workers are not their enemies, and public pressure forces the state government to stop attempting to union-bust and destroy the livelihood of the people who allow the state to function in the first place.
4 comments:
I agree with you i believe the only way for issues like this to stop in the Unites States. Is to have the US become more open to Unions.
Generally I agree with the concept of unions. Do I think that twelve year old kids would be working 70 hours a week in American factories without them? No, but they serve their purpose. I think what the particularly aggressive Americans get all fired up about is when you see road crews working with one guy on a jackhammer while five more watch him. There is a balance of security to laziness in some cases. This is not me saying union workers are lazy, but just as with all groups, there are people who give bad reputations and make everyone else look bad. Protect salaries but don't protect slackers.
I agree that the hostility and vitriol directed at unions recently is unwarranted. This is not to say that a debate as to the legitimacy of public-workers unions to collectively bargain is altogether unwarranted. I think the debate we should be having ought to address a few important questions:
1. From where do unions derive their legitimacy? and to what activities does it extend?
2.Are there limits to how, and with what entities unions ought to be able to deal?
3. If we conclude that unions should not have the right to collectively bargain on behalf of public sector workers how should their compensation be determined? Do these employees have a right to participate in any type of salary negotiations?
I feel that the contempt held for public workers at this time is directly related to the economic downturn. Our country has a deep jealousy of others that are doing better than us. If we see someone that is better off then us we have a negative outlook towards that person. These teachers like the post says make very average salaries no different then teachers anywehere else and get benefits like other public workers to make up for less than desirable salaries. What kills me is that we attack these teachers for being lazy and having cushy jobs but we have the same situation in the private sector that no one wants to talk about. The private sector almost destroyed every financial market in the world. The private sector has destroyed more pensions and people's retirement money. People have been laid off and fired in the private sector for the sake of stock prices and corporate profit. There is no outrage over this, the public is ok with this? In fact we prop these businesses up when they fail. Its disturbing and frustrating, and somehow the anger has been directed at the stable low profile essential people who do not make millions or live the lamborghini lifestyle. People need to look at who really is causing their personal strife, public school teachers? or billionaire executives worried about stock prices?
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