Collective Bargaining Rights: A Money Issue

State legislators aren’t going after collective bargaining rights because they hate working people. Why, some of their best maids are working people.

No, they want to end bargaining rights for public employees in order to save money. They want to cut state budgets and lower taxes for corporations and the rich—in other words, to take money from working people’s pockets and give it to the wealthy.

Yet Wisconsin union leaders often said bargaining rights weren’t a fiscal issue. They said members would take pay cuts to help the state out, as long as they could keep their bargaining rights, which wouldn’t cost anything.

That’s wrong. Over the years bargaining has cost the taxpayers. (But not hugely: studies consistently show that public workers make a little less than private sector counterparts with similar experience and education.)

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It costs the employer when there’s a union contract because, in normal times, the contract raises wages and benefits. Seniority costs, too. Employers have to keep on high-seniority, higher-paid workers when there’s a layoff, for example. They have to permit bumping, which entails training costs.

Scott Walker thinks union gains like ergonomic work stations and workplace temperature rules are outlandish. He can’t stomach any interference with the arbitrary, mean-spirited penny-pinching that bosses will do unless they’re boxed in by a union.

When leaders say bargaining won’t raise costs, they give credence to the idea that concessions are fine. Or that unions are impotent.