Public Employee Unions Across America - Essay Example

?Running Head: PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA Public Employees Unions Across America Face Massive Curtailment On Grounds of Averting an Impending Financial Crisis _____________________________ __________________________ PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 2 Introduction One of the most contentious issues hitting the psyche of a great and industrious people is taking to task the major players in economy, industry, politics and the justice system. On top of the list of what seems to be an imminent protracted judicial and political battle are the Democrats, the GOP, the unions, their supporters and thousands of state employees and most recently, the state justices of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. The main bone of contention is the inevitable financial deficits which is range against a budget upsetting lavish benefits of public employees. It is getting the whole nation to ask a number of important questions of their own capacity to recover and be resilient in the midst of a crisis resembling economic chaos and growing militancy in the labor front. For its part, the state of Wisconsin through their Republican Governor is turning to thousands of their Democrat leaning state employees for initial answers. Where does patriotism lie in the midst of lavish benefits and indulgence with the impending financial ruin getting to be the main backdrop of the controversy? Keywords: GOP - Grand Old Party, Republican, Democrats PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 3 Public Employees Unions Across America Face Massive Curtailment On Grounds of Averting an Impending Financial Crisis What sets off a statewide protest more conspicuously heard and felt in Wisconsin is the planned amendment to overhaul a system which initially included giving the state a new mandate of declaring bankruptcy and soften financial woes through an eventual renegotiating of wages and so-called lavish benefits of state employees. Barely three months ago from today, Levine (2010) sounded a whooping $140 billion budgetary shortfall in the offing and what seemed to be an insurmountable financial disparity of unfunded liabilities to pay retirees benefits estimated to go between $750 billion to more than $3 trillion. Redesigning the public employees’ welfare system touching on their ability to a collective bargaining in favor of a desired economic reform and fiscal sanity is the evident crux of the matter. With a historically binding political patronage that tilts heavily on the side of the Democrats since President John F. Kennedy signed the executive order granting public employees the ability to a collective bargaining in 1962, such peripheral political and industrial advantages now face its biggest threat of curtailment on grounds of regaining sound fiscal management and economic parity raised by the Republicans in Wisconsin. The GOP takes the upper hand as the dominant party in Wisconsin while the Democrats and the main protagonists, the affected public employees and the unions, brace themselves for an extended political and judicial confrontation. The showdown PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 4 begins in Wisconsin, home of the first ever unions of public employees in America. This is where collective bargaining for state workers was originally conceived with its long standing political alliance with the Democrats. But when the Republicans took control of the senate, the assembly and more significantly the office of the Governor, the result was a heightening political confrontation endemic to a two-party political system and an increasingly massive workers’ dissent that is slowly engulfing the whole of America where majority of the states have established politically active, benefits and welfare-oriented unions for public employees. Wisconsin has set the precedence, then and now. Of the total fifty two states comprising the United States, thirty of them have collective bargaining statutes covering state and local employees. Since the 1950’s, government employees’ unions have grown into a major influence-peddling organizations. It is undeniably becoming a force to reckon with in every political convention where the Democrats hold sway. As the years go by, Democrats and public employees unions have known each other very well in a scratch-my-back and I’ll-scratch-yours ideals of co-existence. The public employees and the unions have established themselves with the entitlements and patronage that is not available to lesser known factions in the political circle the private sector inclcuded. The Democrats in turn, enjoys the political backing of one major cohesive group for such a long time. But the inevitable change that may soon revolutionize the way American citizens treat their state workers is lurking ahead. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 5 Remarkably famous for his own unique feat as one of the few Republicans who had broken through a formidable sweep by the conservative governors last November, Scott Walker brings with him an instinctive Republican solution to remedy a situation targeting to slash the benefits of unionized public employees whose leanings and identities are historically Democrat. With Governor Walker at the helm, Wickert (2011) also calls it the GOP retaking of Wisconsin Senate, and an overwhelming Republican majority in the Assembly. The main concern, at least on the point of view of the GOP leaders, is to avert a looming budget deficit of nearly $3.3 billion projected to be felt over an extended period of two years. Most union leaders allied with their Democrat patrons, however, advanced their own perspectives of calling the controversy as merely another ploy tainted with political motivations mainly to castrate an established union between the conservatives and public employees numbering by the hundreds of thousands all over America. This, however, is not just a question of political power play as what many of the governor’s detractors are wont to believe considering that current licentious spending for the benefit and pension programs of state employees has practically siphoned off most of the state budget and its fiscal management now heading towards a breakdown of wide ranging implications whenever the situation is not remedied and left unchecked. Who is Democrat and who is not in this long straddle of American trade unionism? PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 6 Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the venerable 32nd President of the United States of America, is probably the most famous Republican who couldn’t miss standing in the way of the aspirations of public employees to unionize. Living as a leader committed to regaining America’s secured place in the future during the era of the Great Depression, his predispositions strongly speak of totally banning unions among state workers and local government employees. FDR’s major pronouncements involving public employees live for many years and still is one of the most widely quoted phrases up to today. The recent article, “Yes, there is a reason to rein in public employee unions” Rubin (2011) which had drawn wide ranging discourses and reactions from internet bloggers, recalls one famous line uniquely FDR in these, “A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government.” Ironically, years after Roosevelt’s adamant assertions against allowing public employees into seeking redress of their grievances through mob-like assemblies, strikes and of collective bargaining power, Wisconsin came to the picture with the uncompromising dissent and originally sounded the strongest discordant note in the 1950’s and for the first time in the history of trade unionism radical public employees unions came into being and eventually brought its mainstream industrial and political influence to the fore. Now it is also taking the first initiative to rewrite history of unionism among public employees. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 7 More than six decades have gone by, FDR had found a determined ally to gradually restore back towards the same concept that the anti-union Republican president in the pre-war era wants to institute in the public sector. The time is ripe for it to mend its ways as public coffers crash and experiencing serious budgetary constraints and in no way able to meet high standard profligacy. As Wickert (2011) strongly puts it, Wisconsin can no longer afford public employees unions having stranglehold on state and political government. On top level debates, more than three weeks ago of Thursday, March 10, 2011 in Wisconsin, the inevitable had happened. The electronic news media blurts in their breaking news of one inescapable issue that is local in concept but national in scope in the gathering clouds of adherence. A resounding Senate vote had already taken place in favor of what the public employees unions may consider to be an insidious anti-union Walker plan. Decisively Republican. As expected the result had been a Republican-dominated 18 to 1 votes at the Wisconsin Senate. CNN immediately flashed on screen the Breaking News with Lavandera (2011) reporting a headline that reads: WISCONSIN SENATE PASSES ANTI-UNION BILL! In announcing a milestone in Wisconsin’s highly charged public employees union issue, Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, the Republican majority leader, said the Senate will be passing the items in the Budget Repair Bill that we can with the 19 members who actually do show up and do their jobs. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 8 Efforts by the Democrats to derail the passing of the bill proved futile. 14 of their members have earlier fled to Illinois to prevent a quorum and stop the passing of an emasculated collective bargaining measures which they describe as an unnecessary attack on the rights of public employees. Governor Walker for his part said that the Senate Democrats had all three weeks of time and opportunities to debate on the bill. He called the Senate act as a step in the right direction to move the state forward and applauded the Legislature’s action of standing up to the status quo to balance the budget and reform government. Walker’s statement and the action of his Senate Republican allies immediately drew howls of outrage from pro-union demonstrators just outside the chamber chanting “Shame” and “You lied to Wisconsin” as the bill passed. (Lavandera, 2011). The significant features and arguments of the new measure as Lavandera (2011) reported have been: Walker and GOP lawmakers are trying to close a $137 million budget shortfall with a plan that calls for curbs on public employee union bargaining rights and requires public workers, with the exception of police and firefighters, to cover more of their retirement plans and health care premiums. Public employee unions agreed to financial concessions that they say will help meet the state's fiscal needs, but Walker has said the limits on public bargaining are a critical component of his plan. His bill, which already had passed the state Assembly, would bar public workers other than police and firefighters from bargaining for anything other than wages. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 9 Raises would be capped to the rate of inflation, unless state voters approve. The legislation also would require unions to hold a new certification vote every year, and unions would no longer be allowed to collect dues from workers' paychecks. The reaction from the Democratic Senate leader also adds to the preponderance of the issues. Sen. Mark Miller said the Republicans have conspired to take government away from the people. In thirty minutes, 18 state senators undid 50 years of civil rights in Wisconsin. Their disrespect for the people of Wisconsin and their rights is an outrage that will never be forgotten. Three weeks after the voting in the Senate of Wisconsin and Gov. Walker’s signing of the law a day after it was passed by the Senate, the fight continues at the court in Wisconsin. On Thursday, March 31, The CNN Wire Staff (2011) reports: A Wisconsin Judge has continued her temporary restraining order barring a new collective bargaining law from taking effect by signing an amended order on Thursday. The main point of the report states that Judge Maryann Sumi stopped the controversial budget repair bill from taking effect on March 18 so that she could hear a lawsuit filed by Democrats who say they were not given enough time to vote on the law, which they were fighting Now the legal tussle had already reached the Supreme Court. Only last week, Governor Scott Walker has asked to dismiss a lawsuit challenging the law that would take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, (Bauer, 2011). PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 10 On Thursday, April 7, 2011, Gov. Walker went to the Wisconsin Supreme Court asking to dismiss the lawsuit that challenges the law that would take away nearly all collective bargaining rights from public workers, according to Bauer (2011). While the cases awaits final verdict by the courts, Wisconsin which employed an instinctively more cautious initiative ahead of other states having similar predicaments of a recurring financial plunge, public opinions in some neighboring states are veering towards the same directions as their trend setting model in north central America had taken. Wisconsin remains to be in the eye of the storm as the state Governor’s determination to limit the collective bargaining power of public employees reaches fever pitch and their initiative is attracting more and more adherent states from coast to coast. As Simon (2011) observes, now that the governors of Ohio and Wisconsin have signed bills to limit public workers' collective bargaining rights, their fellow Republicans in other states are expected to gain momentum in their efforts to take on unions. The same mode of high stake unionized public employees economic stipulations has been blamed as the leading causes of the financial plunge even to such internationally known affluent states as California and Illinois. The landmark legislation in public employees and labor union in Wisconsin is the one that ignited a great following among cash-strapped states from coast to coast. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 11 On the first day of the month of April, this year, the turn of events nationwide had been tough. Simon (2011) reports of a statewide domino effect and increasing adherence to the Wisconsin bill weeks after it was passed and signed into law. The National Conference of State Legislatures is tracking an unprecedented explosion of 744 bills in virtually every state targeting public sector unions. In Tennessee, Republican lieutenant governor Ron Ramsey cited Ohio and Wisconsin in urging support for legislation that would prevent government employee unions from locking taxpayers into long-term union contracts that we cannot afford. (Ramsey, 2011). Union leaders in New Hampshire assailed a House-approved measure as Wisconsin on steroids. In Maine, the newly elected Republican governor has ordered to strip down murals that portray one-sided messages of organized labor. Also being considered to be drafted as a bill in a number of states are proposals to limit the ability of unions to collect dues from public employees. The Florida House went ahead in securing to approve a bill banning union dues deductions from government paychecks and oblige unions to obtain permission from their members before using dues for political purposes. Kansas is also considering similar legislation. In the State of Washington, the Republican-dominated House passed a bill on Friday, February 18 that would make it doubly hard for vital public utilities such as airline and railroad workers to unionize. Further east, Ohio Governor John Kasich went a day ahead of signing a legislation seen to be more exacting than the Wisconsin bill. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 12 The time to institute new measures involving state employees’ salaries and benefits loom large in the planned budgetary reforms. As Levine (2010) explains, the renegotiation would more likely take the form of slashing, as some of the lavish compensation packages are part of the reason why these states are in such a mess. Skeel (2010), of the influential The Weekly Standard, speaks of the far-reaching implications of the situation but nevertheless expectant in saying that the bankruptcy law should give debtor states even more power to rewrite union contracts, if the court approves… In the meantime, while gathering momentum on his pet energy policy and the all-encompassing Recovery Act, President Baracak Obama the most powerful Democrat himself, can only express a hands off policy of leaving state questions to the state, union problems to the unions and employers to the employers. Obama showed the same manner of inhibition in such big time labor-employee standoff as the NFL lockout. The U.S. President has been told on what to say in this posting by Brandon (2011), What President Obama Should Have Said About the NFL Lockout. Brandon’s unsolicited advice came following a press conference several weeks ago when reporters asked President Obama whether he would step in to prevent an impending NFL lockout for the 2011-2012 season. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 13 The President has been eloquent in his response with these words: “You’ve got owners, most of whom are worth close to a billion dollars. You’ve got players who are making millions of dollars. … When people are working to cut back, compromise and worry about making the mortgage and paying for their kids’ college education is that the two parties should be able to work it out without the president of the United States. … I’m a big football fan, but I also think that for an industry that’s making $9 billion a year in revenue, they can figure out how to divide it up in a sensible way. … My expectation and hope is that they will resolve it without me intervening, because it turns out I’ve got a lot of other stuff to do.” Who needs wisdom from a U.S. President when so many people are pregnant with words and ideas about the nagging issue of the public employees and their unions. Talking about a healthy space of democratic free speech, this controversy has consistently widen the discussions by a cacophony of voices in various fora, more significantly the internet blogs. In the ensuing debates and exchange of ideas, modern internet technology and reactionary forces of different persuasions have conspired to further widen the discussions and shed more light on the multiplicity of issues. This blogger for example, danw1 (2011), albeit inconspicuous, offers a clearer picture of the partisan nature of the surrounding controversy in such issue as tax emoluments and the withdrawal of revenue-consuming compensation packages salaries and benefits of state workers verbalizing what most conservatives failed to justify: First Scott Walker gives $140 million away PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 14 to corporations (because they're Republicans). Then he asks public servants to pay for that $140 million he just gave away (because they're Democrats). On the other side of the coin, the posting of TheMSMContolsUs (2011) had waxed politically hot in the form of sarcasm and touches on both public and private sector employees: I am drooling at the prospect of the Democrats running in 2012 as the champion of the government unions. Vote for us! You'll slave away until you are 67 years old so our teachers and cops and firemen can retire at 50 with gold-plated pensions and bloated benefits! This is probably the most concise but contributing another contradictory word to aspiring writers and the already perplexing milieu of life across America. Said mlbmedia (2011), Negotiating with unions is an oxymoron. And great disparity is the one that causes all of us to raise more eyebrows but descriptive as thebink (2011), Confusion reins in Wisconsin…Average Fed salary $81,258, average private sector $41,791, average Fed benefits $50,462, average private benefits $10,589, from the Bureau of Economic Analysis… Just how great polarization the issues have generated so far? The most recent survey published on Thursday, April 7 gives us a peep into the mood and opinions by majority of Americans. Muscal (2011) reports of a headline: Polls on budget talks show support for compromise but a strong partisan divide. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 15 The recent polls show most Americans want a compromise to avoid a government shutdown, but drilling down into the numbers shows that there are serious partisan divides that are fueling the tough stands being held by negotiators in their emergency meetings as the hours wind down to the deadline. In general, Republicans are more likely to want their leaders to push on with cuts while Democrats are more likely to favor some sort of compromise (Muscal, 2011). Conclusion When the call to make sacrifices had been sounded to frontally meet the great challenge of an impending financial crisis, the immediate reaction was that of instant resentment and suspicions. Considering the politically active nature of issues surrounding the call, the motives of the main proponents for a massive curtailment of the rights of public employees to a collective bargaining become suspect. It is certainly not easy to ask people to make sacrifices from out of their own pockets because it is a disturbance of the status quo right down to the very established set of living standards that has been there for quite a time. Certainly not, specially if you take back what has been regularly granted by way of renegotiating compensation packages and pension benefits even if it is anchored on grounds of a much needed financial reform. Added to the heightening financial worries is the growing private sector employees’ resentment of their taxes being rechanneled to pay lavish pensions, health plans and security of tenure which they themselves do not enjoy owing to the great disparity of their base rates and benefits as compared to that of their counterparts in government. Essentially, the aims of public PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 16 sector unions run counter with the interests of the tax paying public and private businesses. On the other hand, public employees themselves may strongly reassert their own fair share in nation building in defense of a growing public perception of profligacy. Anyone can ask the question, are we not taxpayers too? Yes, even simple consumers lining up in retail stores and hamburger stands across the nation pay their taxes indirectly. On account of their vastly dominating number, public employees numbering by the hundreds of thousands, nurture the influence as a great moving engine of growth in the overall process of nation building. They belong to government which traditionally employs the biggest number of workers. Just how much revenues are raised coming from direct taxes public employees pay? You can take into account also their huge monthly union dues and the total figure could reach a staggering hundreds of billions of dollars considering their inherently vast following nationwide. Recent figures showed that in 2009, private sector union members were surpassed for the first time by their public sector counterparts. Government wages jumped 2.4%, approximately double the increase earned by private sector employees. In fact, the average salary of a federal worker is now $71,000, about $22,000 more than the average private sector employee. However, the main contention remains to be the question of collective bargaining rights. Wisconsin had shown the way and other states having similar problems have reacted not only with approval but are taking the same paths of financial reforms some of which can even be construed to be tougher compared to what Wisconsin had already made. Its Wisconsin, the cradle of collective bargaining rights, where commences the polarization of the important states. It could also be in that same old familiar place where most of the answer and solution to the nagging problems can be found. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 17 Compromise, as most Americans would want to happen may no longer be there. Between the government and the governed, the government had its way initially. Time is of the essence. The ball now is in the hands of the Supreme Court of Wisconsin and all the states that have followed suit and created the same furor with their public employees and their representative union organizations await with great expectations and interest the outcome of the legal battle as the high court’s decision there would undoubtedly set a precedent that gives other states the leeway to get to the solution of their own predicaments fast. Must America summon its historically renowned virtues of nationalism to resolve the issues? Apparently, in an issue of internal consequence and temperament, patriotism becomes a forgotten virtue from a people whose standard of living is second to none in comfort, modernity and affluence. Ironically, in times like these, Americans must come to terms with tradition and relive the inspirations from former president John F. Kennedy, the man who in 1962 started to raise up to their consciousness the ideals of collective bargaining. Will they still remember and accept with fondness their benefactor’s famous line in his 1961 inaugural address of: Ask not what your country can do for you – ask what you can do for your country. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 18 References Levine, Art (2010). GOP Kills Bonds Program: Secret Plan to Bankrupt States, Bust Public Employee Unions? Speakeasy. Retrieved from http://blogs.alternet.org/speakeasy /2010/12/17/gop-kills-bonds-program-secret-plan-to-bankrupt-states-bust-public- Employee-unions/. Rubin, Jennifer (2011). Yes, there is a reason to rein in public employee unions. Right Turn. Retrieved from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rightturn/2011/02/ezra_klein_writes _ theres_been.html. Wickert, Gary (2011). The Facts on Wisconsin: What the Unions Want, and Why It’s Insane. PajamasMedia. Retrieved from http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/the-facts-on-wisconsin- what-the-unions-want-and-why-its-insane/?singlepage=true. Brandon (2011). What President Obama Should Have Said About the NFL Lockout. embodypolitic. Retrieved from http://embodypolitic.com/2011/03/07/what-president- obama-should-have-said-about-the-nfl-lockout/. Simon, Richard (2011). More states poised to pursue anti-union legislation. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/01/nation/la-na-nations-20110402. Ramsey, Ron (2011). More states poised to pursue anti-union legislation. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com/2011/apr/01/nation/la-na-nations-20110402. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 19 danw1 (2011). Yes, there is a reason to rein in public employee unions. Comments. Retrieved from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rightturn/2011/02/ezra_klein_writes_theres_been. html. TheMSMContolsUs (2011). Yes, there is a reason to rein in public employee unions. Comments. Retrieved from httpp://voices.washingtonpost.com/rightturn/2011/02/ezra_klein_writes_ theres_been.html. mlbmedia (2011). Yes, there is a reason to rein in public employee unions. Comments. Retrieved from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rightturn/2011/02/ezra_klein_writes_ theres_been.html. thebink (2011). Yes, there is a reason to rein in public employee unions. Comments. Retrieved from http://voices.washingtonpost.com/rightturn/2011/02/ezra_klein_writes_ theres_been.html. Lavandera, Ed (2011). WISCONSIN SENATE PASSES ANTI-UNION BILL. BREAKING NEWS. Retrieved from http://www.samachar.com/Wisconsin-public-unions-take-a- hit—ldkilRfgaie.html. CNN Wire Staff (2011). Wisconsin judge continues order stopping collective bargaining law. CNN. Retrieved from http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/03/31/wisconsin.budget. law/index.html. PUBLIC EMPLOYEES UNIONS ACROSS AMERICA 20 Skeel, David (2010). GOP Kills Bonds Program: Secret Plan to Bankrupt States, Bust Public Employee Unions? The Weekly Standard. Retrieved from http://blogs.alternet.org/ Speakeasy/2010/12/17/gop-kills-bonds-program-secret-plan-to-bankrupt-states-bust- public-Employee-unions/. Bauer, Scott (2011). Wisconsin asks state Supreme Court to take union case. Yahoo News. Retrieved from http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_wisconsin_budget_unions. Muskal, Michael (2011). Polls on budget talks show support for compromise but a strong partisan divide. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved from http://articles.latimes.com /2011/apr/07/news/la-pn-government-shutdown-polls-20110407. Read More