Public employee unions have been much in the news lately, but regardless of where one’s sympathy lies, the fault is not all on one side. There is plenty of blame for everyone. Unions have at times been grasping; legislators have at times whored for votes. The election cycle encourages irresponsibility. Unlike a factory strike, neither side is concerned with the firm’s profit. There is no market-forced competition/discipline – government cannot go out of business.
However, the current attack on collective bargaining goes well beyond the consideration of union pensions or balanced budgets. The Wisconsin blood bath is not only about unfunded pensions. If a balanced budget were the problem, the struggle would have been settled in the first week when the unions agreed to every requested cut. It was further proven when the Republicans, in order to proceed without a quorum, removed any budget questions and passed a bill that did nothing but sharply restrict the union. In the corporate world, “union busting” has been a growth industry for several decades, with expert legal and PR guns for hire by management. Now, Wisconsin’s attack on public employee unions is the canary in the coal mine of a war on all unions.
Down deep, this affair is a symptom of the class struggle in America.
“Unfunded pensions” – the warning cluck of every Chicken-Little politician – is only a stalking horse. Budget deficits are not the fault of overly generous pensions. During the 1990s, 60 percent of public pension funds were invested in U.S. stocks and bonds and were satisfactorily funded. Even after the slight recession of 200l, unfunded liabilities never exceeded 10 percent – half the 20 percent figure that investment standards consider healthy. But, with the national financial collapse between 2007 and 2009, union investments declined by $900 billion (which may call to mind the wisdom of Mr. Bush’s proposals to invest Social Security monies in the stock market).
In most situations, there is a human desire to “get their share” – to secure a piece of the pie – and government workers are often seen, unfairly, as grasping. Everyone can understand a Massachusetts state patrolman who takes home $175K a year moonlighting on highway construction, or a school principal who draws retirement from one school district while working full time at another. They see these folks in the grocery store. But the powerful people who want unions dead are rarely encountered while shopping for their own food.
Most voters (and many legislators) are misinformed. Despite the claims of Republicans (e.g., Mr. Gingrich), who are recommending state bankruptcies, unfunded costs are, in fact, manageable. In New Jersey, the poster child of unfunded pensions, only 4 percent of the state budget would balance long-term obligations This would be painful, but doable. The truth is, recommendations for bankruptcy are thinly disguised strategies to destroy the political power that unions represent. Machiavelli could not have thrown up a better smokescreen.
One percent of Americans are now getting one-fifth of the national income. One-tenth of 1 percent (the top 1,000th) of Americans has seen their income quadruple since l980. Like the great unseen Gulf ocean current that carries the warmth of Mexico to the shores of England, there are deep currents in national politics that take riches from the many for use by the few. This war on unions is one of those currents. And, in the same way that the frog in the kettle was not aware of a gradual increase in water temperature, some workers themselves do not sense the progress being made by corporate money. Not only is the general public hoodwinked, but also workers themselves can be unwilling or unwise enough to see their own future.
In Wisconsin, the Republican move against public sector unions excludes police and firefighter unions. These patsies not only don’t feel they are their brother’s keepers, they also endorse their Republican governor – the enemy field marshal. Even as they add fuel to their own death pyre, once their brother frogs are boiled, they will be next.
Both public employees and elected officials should recognize their obligations as partners in the great effort of democratic governing. At the same time, everyone should recognize the attempt on the part of the wealthy to take more than their fair share of the American pie. The top four contributors to 2010 Republican campaigns were business groups or pro business PACS. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce alone vomited up nearly $200 million for congressional candidates.
This quarrel is another campaign in the timeless war of who gets what.
Devil’s dictionary quote
Pension: A carrot as reward for a life of wasted effort – currently fashionably attacked in the name of “downsizing,” “outsourcing” or “bankruptcy.”
Rodney Quinn, a former Maine secretary of state, lives in Gorham. He can be reached at rquinn@maine.rr.com.
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