Demonstrators at the Wisconsin capitol, union representatives
and absent Democratic state senators concede in interviews that
they don’t object to a bill requiring teachers and other public
employees to pay 12.5 percent of their health insurance (up from
five percent), or up to half of their pension deposits. It is the
curbing of collective bargaining that has brought on near hysteria
and a fierce campaign to discredit Governor Scott Walker’s
legislation.
For the union leaders the consequences of passage of the
legislation could be devastating to their sinecures. Amid all the
shouting, placards and banging on pots and pans in the capitol, two
elements of the bill have received only passing attention. One
would stop state collection of union dues. The other would require
the unions to be recertified, by vote of all members, every
year.
Currently, the State of Wisconsin automatically deducts
union dues from public employee paychecks and it goes to the
unions. The unions then use as much of the money as the leaders
wish to give to candidates who will look favorably on their demands
(almost always Democrats). Thus, the taxpayers are subsidizing
partisan election donations.
This “closed shop” arrangement would change under the new
law. Once it passed the state would no longer deduct union dues
from paychecks. Employees would only pay dues voluntarily by
signing a union card. The unions would have to go through the
process of collecting the dues. This would increase their
administrative costs and thus reduce the amount of money available
for campaign donations. And, the union leaders would have to
persuade employees of the value of joining. That’s a lot more work
than sitting back and staring at the ceiling while a trove of dues
comes pouring in from the state.
The legislation would require each public employee union
to hold an annual election to see if a majority of the members want
to continue to be represented by it. If they do, it continues; if
not, it’s pffft to the union leaders and their comfy
incomes.
Some of the demonstrators at the capitol in Madison have
hollered about collective bargaining as a “basic right.” Not
really. Not only is it not mentioned in the U.S. Constitution, but
also nearly half the states have “open shops” with no collective
bargaining (or permit it only for first responders).
The governor’s reasoning for restricting collective
bargain for public employee unions only to wages rests on two
elements: (1) to balance its budget, the state must reduce funds
sent to counties and cities; and (2) restricted collective
bargaining means that these local governments can adjust their own
pension and health care contracts and thus help close their own
budget gaps.
Those AWOL Democratic state senators say they will return
soon. This means the bill will pass.
They have been reading polls (led by the New York
Times, with its skewed sampling) and think the Democrats’
campaign has made the governor and the Republican legislative
majorities sufficiently unpopular that recall and referendum
petitions will succeed and they can overturn the legislation in
November.
Anyone who reads a poll in the heat of battle in March and
thinks the results will be unchanged eight months later, needs a
course in Politics 1A.
