I hate politics, mainly because my political views don’t fall into a single category. I tend to side with the Democratic party as my views lean towards the liberal. In fact, many of my views are socialist. However, I also tend to have many libertarian views. This creates a bit of a political paradox, which confuses some of the people I meet. I post some things in the comments of certain local blogs (yes, I’m talking about RI Future, which I am glad is no longer in the hands of Pat Crowley as Brian Hull is a much better writer, not as biased towards unions, generally more balanced in his views, and has promised a much needed redesign for a site that has some of the poorest web design I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen bad web design). I get flamed because I’m not “progressive” enough and should “join the Republican party”. Those flames come because I tend to be anti-union. Now, this does not mean that I don’t believe in the right of workers to collectively bargain. Workers should have that right in any position. However, I don’t believe that workers should be forced to collectively bargain. After all, if the so-called progressives believe in Free Choice Act, shouldn’t that extend to giving people the choice to not join a union?
Here’s what I mean… let’s take public school teachers as an example. If you apply to become a public school teacher, union dues are automatically deducted from your paycheck and sent over to the NEA. This means that you don’t have a choice. Your salary and benefits are all pre-set based on what the NEA has bargained for you with the school district. You didn’t have to do any work to get better pay, more vacation time, etc. However, there comes a time when a school district can’t afford the NEA’s demands. The NEA gets pissed off and threatens to strike. Eventually, they’re left with no choice, the teachers go on strike. This leaves the children without school. It does nothing but harms the children. As a teacher, you now have a choice, you can either cross the picket lines and go into work while being called pretty nasty things by your co-workers, or you can join them on the picket lines. This is the only choice you have.
My issue with unions is two-fold. The first part of it is that they tend to only reward based on longevity and not based on performance (I won’t even go into how to rate performance of a teacher, that’s for the experts, and I’m not specifically talking about the teachers’ union). This means that your pay raise is based on years of experience, but not experience outside of the school district. It only rewards you based on your experienced within the school district (though I’m sure a public school teacher could switch districts in the same state and still get the same salary). If you had previously taught for 5 years in a private school, you’re not going to start in the public school district at level 5, you start at the bottom. Yup, you’re at the same level as a new teacher. Now because of the seniority-based pay increases, you’re rewarded for hanging around. And the longer you hang around, the more you’re protected. After a certain period of time, the most senior of employees can bump the junior employees, even if the junior employee is more qualified for the position. The effect of this is that it protects the lazy employee that has been there the longest, solely because union leaders believe that seniority and longevity should be rewarded over performance.
This leads into the second part of the two-fold issue I have with unions. Unions hold back strong performers while protecting the lazy. Because of the way collective bargaining works, a strong performer is not encouraged to continue to perform beyond the minimum. In fact, that’s frowned upon. Because of the union and the fact that you’re only going to get a pay increase based on the length of time you’ve been an employee, you have no reason to go above and beyond the call of duty for your position. This creates a lazy atmosphere.
So I say to all of you union-loving “progressives” out there… how is it progressive to push for free choice, when free choice only goes one way?
The best example of why unions don’t work is the state of RI. The state employees get the nice cushy job and don’t leave because they don’t have to lift a finger. After all, there’s no reason to work hard and the longer they stay, the more money they make for doing no more than the bare minimum. There are many reasons our state is in such financial troubles, but one of the causes is the waste in the state government. The governor (of whom I am not a fan) wants to get rid of some of the union employees. The “progressives” want to protect them (I don’t blame them completely, after all, layoffs suck for everyone involved). But until the waste is cleaned up in the state government, we will continue to have financial issues, even as the rest of the country pulls out of this recession.
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