Collective Bargaining Rights Must be Preserved
March 1, 2011
By Ed Koch
Revolution is apparently The Order of the Day, I’m back in the office after a 16-day cruise on the "Crystal Symphony." We sailed north from Buenos Ares, stopping in Rio de Janeiro, Devil’s Island, French Guiana, Bridgetown, Barbados, Grand Turk in the Turks & Caicos Islands, and departed the ship in Miami.
(We weren’t able to leave the ship at Devil’s Island due to turbulent waters.)
Preceding the trip, I wondered what I would do on such a long voyage, and assumed I would go crazy from boredom. Someone once said that being on a boat is like being in jail, with a chance of drowning. But no. The cruise was a delightful and perfect vacation, thanks in large part to the extremely solicitous personnel, gourmet meals, and nightly entertainment worthy of Broadway. While away I kept up to date with current affairs by reading The New York Times which was faxed daily to the ship During my 16 days abroad, the world went crazy. We saw revolutions, minor and major, take place in a number of Arab countries.
Some have been successful in turning out their authoritarian leaders, e.g., Egypt and Tunisia, and others are seeing the fight go on, e.g., Bahrain and Libya. More Arab countries may yet be involved. The other revolution is taking place here in the United States, started in Wisconsin by its Governor, Scott Walker. He wants to eliminate some collective bargaining rights for city and state employees in Wisconsin. Collective bargaining for employees in the private sector in the U.S. goes back to 1886. Wikipedia reports, “The industrial revolution brought a swell of labor organizing in the US.
The American Federation of Labor was formed in 1886, providing unprecedented bargaining powers for a variety of workers. The Railway Labor Act (1926) required employers to bargain collectively with unions. In 1930, the Supreme Court, in the case of Texas & N.O.R. Co. v. Brotherhood of Railway Clerks, upheld the act's prohibition of employer interference in the selection of bargaining representatives. In 1962, President Kennedy signed an executive order giving public-employee unions the right to collectively bargain with federal government agencies.
At its high point in the private sector, unions represented 35 percent of American workers. In 2010, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that union membership in the U.S. was approximately 12 percent of all workers, of which more than half are in the public sector. How the mighty have fallen. In most jurisdictions, government workers who are permitted to unionize do not have the right to strike. The Taylor Law in New York imposes severe penalties for striking. Workers are charged two days’ pay for each day on strike or on slow-down, and unions can be precluded from having the municipality deduct union membership fees from salary checks. Many workers won’t pay their dues without the benefit of this deduction.
One of the greatest blows to government workers unions was delivered by President Ronald Reagan when PATCO (Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization) illegally struck in 1981 and he fired all of the controllers. I thought he should have given them one more opportunity to return to work or be fired, but he did not. Nevertheless, on reflection, and because I served as Mayor and had to contend with illegal strikes, I agreed with the President’s action.
A city is different than a private business. It cannot close down and move elsewhere. It must continue to deliver essential services fire, police, water, education, etc. I believe that union leadership has gotten much, but not all of the message, which is that the public is fed up with unions excesses, particularly in their resistance to their members paying a reasonable part of their pension and health costs, as do most private sector workers.
In Wisconsin, Governor Walker has succeeded in getting the unions attention, and most of the people in Wisconsin are behind him. Pension and health care costs are key factors in that state’s huge budget deficits, as they are in many others, including New York City and State. Union leadership in Wisconsin has agreed to the copayments the governor has demanded. But his ongoing attempts to end their right to collectively bargain with city or state employers on pensions, benefits and working conditions permitted in the private sector goes much too far.
According to The New York Times of February 25, 2011, “A USA Today/Gallup poll found that 61 percent of the 1,000 adults they surveyed on Monday opposed laws taking away the bargaining power of public-employee unions.”
The goal for each of us should be justice. When it comes to labor unions, justice, in my view means preserving the right to collective bargaining for state and city employees, coupled with laws prohibiting and penalizing illegal strikes.
