Brian Fraley lays out why the decoupling of state workers and labor unions, and the decoupling of unions and employment, is vital for Wisconsin’s future:
Herein lies the problem with public employee unions: They determine the fate of their own bosses who in turn have dominion over their compensation. Public employee unions skew the labor-management equation through their political muscle and the fact that their contracts are approved by the very same politicians for whom they vote. Therefore, they have the power to perpetuate and accentuate their own wage and benefit structures at the expense of the taxpaying public.
Building painters in school districts with annual compensation packages of more than $98,000 and bus drivers making six figure salaries that translate into benefit-rich pensions are part of the driving force in the budget problems facing Wisconsin….
States without right-to-work laws permit the coerced payment of union dues. Whether you want a union or not, you are going to pay union dues, and even have those dues go to the support of candidates that you oppose, in non right-to-work states. More and more, younger workers want choice in their work environment, and they want the merit of their work to matter. By rewarding time in service over competency, unions take advantage of those just entering the workforce, they stifle employee choice, and they ignore merit for all workers through convoluted work rules and seniority systems in the workplace.
Private sector labor unions occupy a unique place in American law and society. They are the only entities, by law, that are exempted from anti-monopoly laws, that are given the power of coerced representation, and that receive millions of dollars from the Federal government in direct grants, and billions to state entities with heavy union representation that provide worker training.
The only counter balance to all of this is in those states that at least give workers a choice whether or not to support the union in their workplace with union dues from their hard earned wages. Again, this isn’t some crazy, untried concept. Nearly half of the states recognize this form of workers’ rights–and they continue to grow their economies and outperform those states that have not adopted right-to-work laws.
