Public unions brought defeat upon themselves

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In the wake of the happenings this past week in Wisconsin, it’s fair to say that the labor unions’ political clout is fading. It’s clear that labor’s image is tarnished. And it’s obvious that the labor movement nationwide has taken a hit.

But it’s also reasonable to ask, how much of this did the unions – the public sector unions – bring upon themselves?

I suspect labor pioneers like Walter Reuther and Arthur Goldberg – and those on the front lines who endured harassment and beatings at the hands of company thugs while protesting for better working conditions – would not embrace the comfy contracts enjoyed by many public sector workers in recent years.

For example, in this county we have veteran police officers who are paid more than $90,000 or $100,000 a year. They can retire at age 50 and, because of the sweetheart pension deals the police have negotiated, they can easily receive retirement pay of $80,000 a year.

So, if you retire at age 50 or 55 and live another 30 or 35 years, you receive about $2.8 million in pension benefits over a lifetime.

Obviously, many cops receive less, but if a community is faced with budgeting for $2 million or $3 million per cop pension, it’s easy to see how that leads to budget deficits and cuts in services.

Decades ago, Reuther and others pushed for a minimum wage, overtime pay, workplace safety, child labor laws, health care benefits, a 40-hour work week, an 8-hour work day, and paid vacations. All the things we take for granted in the 21st Century.

These improvements, plus non-union companies trying to match union pay, created our 20th century middle class. But I think Reuther would have been shocked to see that the labor movement has led to multi-million dollar pensions for workers at non-profit government agencies.

What today’s public sector unions fail to realize is that, after the Great Recession and worker concessions and layoffs and plant closings and record foreclosures, the playing field has shifted dramatically.

The public unions’ constituency is no longer the members who ask, what have you done for me lately? It’s the entire electorate of the community or state in which they work.

Sure, a lot public support for the Wisconsin law that ends collective bargaining on fringe benefit issues boils down to resentment by non-union workers, or simply belligerent anti-union sentiment. However, a financially struggling worker/voter could hardly express sympathy because the Wisconsin state employees now must pay a 5.8 percent contribution into their pension plans and pay for 12 percent of their health care costs.

What’s more, many voters blame the unsustainable contracts with free benefits of the past on the officials who negotiated them -- politicians who are either cozy with the public unions, or afraid of them.

That’s why organized labor failed in Wisconsin, where Gov. Scott Walker easily survived a recall election and perhaps made his mark in history. Let’s remember this is Wisconsin, a Blue State, the home of the progressive movement in the early 20th century, the birthplace of public sector unions. And let’s not forget that also last week in California, a bastion of liberalism, voters in San Diego and San Jose approved ballot proposals that will eliminate the traditional pension for city workers and replace it with a 401(k) plan.

I suspect many voters in 2012 – taxpayers who fund government pay and benefits – view the public union leaders much like the guy on the bar stool who doesn’t know when to say when.

Americans have always harbored a healthy distrust of Big Labor and Big Business and Big Government. For years, the UAW stood as the symbol of cushy contracts and excessive perks. The Teamsters were viewed as an obvious example of corruption in organized labor. And the NEA teachers’ union is still routinely cited as a labor organization that demonstrates how hard it is to fire a union worker.

Yet, many voters fail to understand that most union locals have little power and little leverage. A typical union shop with 100 or 200 workers has: no strike fund, a company that drags its feet at bargaining time, and workers who are afraid of taking a stand against management. In other words, an un-level playing field.

I fear that the current disdain for public unions is tainting all unions. And the wannabe union busters will take full advantage.

All those little union locals out there representing workers at small companies or small workplaces still have a place, they still represent one of the foundations of our middle class lifestyle. It’s important to understand that, in many cases, the union represents a workplace that is part of a large, diverse, distant corporation.

Just as Reuther never intended to create massive pension systems for cities, he also could not have dreamed that one day corporations with multi-billion dollar profits, led by CEOs making $10 million a year, would pay their workers a wage that’s just two times above the poverty level.

Here in Macomb County, our voter-approved charter sets the county executive’s salary at eight times that of the compensation for the lowest-paid full-time county worker. Sounds reasonable. If a similar standard was applied to CEOs across this nation, we would immediately witness a flourishing middle class. As union membership across the country declines, that gap between CEO salaries and the pay for an average worker – not the lowest-paid employee in the company – is 325 to 1.

Nonetheless, many Americans – especially white-collar, non-union employees – acknowledge that the gains made by the labor movement in the past benefited all, but they say that unions are out of date, that they’re no longer necessary. At least these people appreciate the history of union successes.

Given the growing anti-union sentiment across the nation, it seems that those who ignore history are determined to rewrite the history books.