So long as freedom of assembly remains, people will be free to secure for themselves the benefits of association. The organized labor of yore fought for safety in factories and coal mines; they put a stop to abusive child labor and helped bring humanity to industry, but the same unions also brought endemic corruption and needless waste.
Private union membership peaked in the 1950s and, over time, the cultural salience and social power of labor unions faded away. In their place, however, a new animal arose; the public-sector union.
It all began in 1962 when President Kennedy issued executive order 10988, transforming the American political system profoundly. Following the abolition of the long-standing prohibition against the unionization of the federal workers, public unions burst onto the scene with complicated acronyms characteristic of government bureaucrats; the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the teachers' National Education Association.
Thus was born the incestuous relationship between civil servants and all branches and levels of the American government.
The public labor unions exercise unparalleled power within the American political system. It does not take a brilliant public servant—pardon the sarcasm—to realize which party will be friendly to their interests. Public union members are loyal partisans and active citizens and their organized might has been thrust almost exclusively behind the Democratic Party.
The SEIU, for example, has given $4.3 million to the Democrats over the last two election cycles and when you see burly democrats arriving on buses for "town halls," they are likely representatives from the public unions' public outreach program.
With more than seven million members, the public unions are a powerful voting bloc and membership dues have an even greater impact on the political system. Public unions and private unions differ in nature because of the unique relationship of the former with the United States government, a bargaining advantage not possessed by the latter.
Public unions enter negotiations not with corporate titans, but with the American tax payers by way of the U.S. Congress. Public union members, as voters and tax-payers, would seem to command both ends of their collective bargaining arrangements; a rather perverse situation which allows union leaders to leverage member votes for legal advantages.
In private union negotiations, both parties know that the survival of the corporation is most important. What good will successful negotiations do if the boss files for bankruptcy as a result?
Public unions, on the other hand, share no such sentiment with their employer and hold an entirely different, nearly unlimited, diplomatic goal. Private unions must behave with a view to the future, a constraint not shared in the public-sector.
The situation in Wisconsin reflects a scene playing out across America: long ago well-meaning legislators, to recruit quality bureaucrats to their legions of agencies, offered luxurious benefits and handsome salaries.
At the time, these union contracts may have been feasible, but now, it is simply impossible to make good on pension promises. This may be unfair to hard-working bureaucrats—pardon the sarcasm again—but the alternative is governmental crisis.
In Maine, no less than the Midwest, the situation is severe. A recent report by the Maine Heritage Policy Center highlighted the states future obligations to the public unions. The report contained the hyperbolic suggestion that some civil servants were becoming millionaires on the state's dime.
Bombastic rhetoric can hardly help to resolve the situation, but the facts are clear; Maine can no longer afford to support the life-styles of state employees.
Breaking promises to union members is by no means good, but does the will of bygone generations place an eternal and unbreakable bond on future democracies? Thomas Jefferson grappled with this problem in a 1789 letter to James Madison asking whether "the earth belongs in usufruct to the living?"
Jefferson never properly resolved this dilemma and our generation must grapple with it now. If we honor the promises of the past, we place fetters on the government of the present and constrain the opportunity of the future.
According to public union folk, Republicans are attacking their collective bargaining rights; this is a mistaken abuse of language. Rights are inalienable, thus transferring them is impossible. No man can bequeath rights onto another, regardless of his gold, soldiers or fancy hats; only property and privilege may be bequeathed.
Speaking of healthcare benefits and golden parachutes with the language of rights is corrosive to political discourse. A more apt title would be collective bargaining privileges. That these privileges issue directly from the law should cause concern.
Judging by the rhetoric emanating from public union officials, one would think state and federal coffers resembled Scrooge McDuck's vaulted swimming pool.
Union members seem woefully unaware of the current budgetary realities and believe Republicans are attempting to transform them into a pauper class. Thus far, however, the reforms which have been offered are sensible, moderate, and necessary.
Newly elected Gov. LePage has proposed a $6.1 billion budget that will increase employee pension contributions by 2 percent, raise the retirement age from 60 to 62 and freeze cost-of-living adjustments.
Despite the moderate character of these reforms, state employees have already begun to organize the resistance: "To take hundreds of millions of dollars out of [state workers'] pockets by breaking the promise that the state of Maine made to them is wrong," said Bruce Hodsdon, President of the Maine State Employees Union.
The civil servants marching in the streets, perhaps inspired by the spirit of unrest now pervading the globe, believe themselves as righteous as Libyan rebels, but they are more like rioting Greeks: spoiled rotten by an extravagant, paternalistic state and furious their comfortable lives will be a little less subsidized than before.
But who can blame the public unions for pursuing profit at the expense of their own nation, fellow citizens and innocent school children. We, like the Athenians, have a right to pursue our own self-interest by any means, no?