There Are Two Kinds of Unions

TWO KINDS OF UNIONS

There are two kinds of unions. A union works for a private company that is
owned by a private person. The owner and the union representative proceed to
negotiate. The union and the owner agree on the employee’s salaries and
other compensation, and a contract is signed. The owner is able
(because he is at the bargaining table) to control how much of the companies’
profit he is able to share with the employees and still have enough left to maintain
his business. If the owner continues to give so much of the company’s revenue that
his business cannot pay its bills, the company fails and there is no company, no profit and
no jobs for the employees. The owner may decide to move the business to a place where his decisions and agreements with the employees’ union do not endanger the company, the employee’s jobs or the
ability to make a profit and stay in business. The owner has the right and the power to make these decisions
because he owns the business.
The second type of union is where both sides do not have any need to worry about
profits or the future health of the company. An example of the second type of union is
the SCME (State,County,Municipal Employee) union. Both parties, the union and state
representative decide how much the tax payers are going to have to pay to keep
government functioning and also how much the government employees are going
to be paid. However, there is no one at the negotiation table that represents the tax payers.
The first statement from many readers, union members and politicians is going to be
that the politician is the tax payers’ representative. There is no consequence
for the politician or the union if the employee’s salaries and benefits are much
more than the taxpayer is willing or can afford to pay for the jobs in question.
The result is that the cost of government at all levels (including the Federal) keeps
going up and we wonder why we, the tax payers, are struggling to pay our bills
and are paid so much less than the bureaucracy.
There is a video clip on the internet showing the head of the National Education
Association union saying to the union members that the purpose of the union is
not education, it is the power to elect politicians who will take the union’s dues
money and vote in Congress the way the union wants him to. The power of the
union is based on the union member’s dues money that is kicked back from
the union to the politician in return for the special interest legislation that the
union wants. The tax payer has no seat at the table and no chance to say how
much or where his taxes are spent in support of unions and union leaders.
The fight in Wisconsin over the size and cost of government employees is exactly
the result of the taxpayer not having a seat at the negotiation table and the greed
of both the politician and the union. The tax payer is at the mercy of the politician
who believes his job is more important than good government. The government
employees know that their bloated salaries are the direct result of using tax money
to pay politicians to pass legislation to keep the power of the union intact.
Some one who has access to the Excel spread sheet that is used by the Wisconsin
school teacher’s union (National Education Association union) has posted the
salaries of teachers, staff, bus drivers and garbage municipal garbage haulers for all to
see. The garbage men make between $70,000 and $159,000 per year plus benefits!
There will be some who question the accuracy of the Wisconsin data, but the fact
remains that the cost of state government in Wisconsin (and Michigan) is set by
politicians and unions, without the presence of the tax paying public at the
negotiating table.
Wisconsin’s governor is trying to do something about the greed and power of
unions and politicians. It is clear who in government is pleasing the
special interests when the all the Wisconsin democrats left the state and refuse to
do the job they were elected to do. We need to get the Michigan data that tells
us the government employee’s wages. How much of the wages and union dues
end up in the election campaigns of politicians?
The taxpayers need to have at least one representative at the bargaining table to
be sure that the contract does not have salaries and benefits that are too high for
the job in question and that the employee’s compensation is adequate but is
not so high that the union is able to kick back union dues to the politician’s election
campaign. A union is for the benefit of the employee’s salary and benefits,
not for the union to influence who gets elected. Any politician who takes union
money should not be elected.