"He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from opposition; for if he violates this duty he establishes a precedent that will reach himself."
Thomas Paine
American physicist Gerard O'Neill cautioned in his futuristic novel 2081 that we should "be alert that dictators have always played on the natural human tendency to blame others and to oversimplify."
While I sincerely doubt that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker deserves to be labled a dictator, he, along with Indiana's Governor Mitch Daniels, seem to be walking a path similar to the one that O'Neill warned about.
There is no question that these are difficult, trying economic times. Ever since the days of $4.00 and above gasoline not so many years ago, most people that I know have been scraping to get by. Prices on goods continue to rise at the same time that wages have flatlined or, in sadder cases, disappeared altogether as jobs vanished.
Average, non-wealthy Americans have watched their government flood billions of dollars of tax payer money into a protracted war effort and corporate bailouts. We watch the news and see the illegal actions of large companies rewarded with government protection, while we try to stay a step ahead of foreclosure with little to no help from those we elected to office.
Now we see the leaders in our State and Federal governments choosing tactics that pit citizen against citizen, rather than show the intestinal fortitude necessary to make the difficult and fiscally responsible decisions that need to be made. Disappointment is not a strong enough word.
The history of collective bargaining is rich in our country. I do not come from a union family, nor was I raised with a union-type mentality. I have belonged to a teachers union, primarily for the legal protection it provided and because it only seemed fair, since the union negotiated on my behalf for wages and benefits. At the same time, I can appreciate the need for any human being to feel as though they will be treated well at the place they will spend nearly a third of the rest of their life, and where they will earn the wages that enable their family to survive.
Surely both our goverments and other governments around the world recognized the same by virtue of their historical support of a workers right to collective bargaining. The U.S. history of collective bargaining as a RIGHT exists as far back as the National Labor Relations Act from the 1930's.
In 1948, the United Nations issued the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which declared in Article 23 that all human beings have the right to work, as well as the right to form and join trade unions for the protection of their interests.
The International Labor Organization, an agency of the United Nations, in 1988 adopted the Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, which identified the freedom of association and collective bargaining as fundamental principles for member states.
Despite the historical precedent of collective bargaining as a fundamental right to all employees, both Governor's Walker and Daniels seem intent on bringing it to an end. While you can appreciate the lure of being allowed to dictate terms and conditions of your employee's wages and benefits, it is hard to understand the groundswell of support from so many "common" non-union Americans.
Perhaps it's just me, but I am inclined to think that the benefit of collective bargaining typically transcends the employees who are being represented. As work conditions improve for represented populations, does that not in some way provided an upward push for other jobs in the same area? Are wages at non-union shops not in some way established by the norms built through the efforts of collective bargaining units throughout the country? I honestly cannot see how this could help but be so.
But here is where O'Neill and Paine's quotes come into play for each of us I believe.
By turning this into a contention between public vs. private sector, by making this a battle between union vs. non-union workers, the leaders who choose this "easier" path to fiscal responsibility take the focus off of the significance of their attack. They find support during these trying times because there are lots of hurting people out there. And, as O'Neill suggests, our natural human tendency is for misery to want company.
Benjamin Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
As Paine also suggested, we cannot expect to protect liberties and benefits for ourselves, if we are not prepared to also insist upon and protect the same for our enemy.
By pitting two sides of Americans, one against the other, these two Governors hope to appeal to the base side of human nature. They expect us to choose sides rather than see the bigger issue, rather than see what exactly it is that they are asking some of us (and therefore all of us) to give away.
Shame on them.
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I am not anti-union, but I am anti-what-unions-have-become. And I am not speaking only on the education union, but also the union my wife works near. In your blog, you said you joined the union because they negotiated for your wages and benefits. The current SB 575 does not change that right. It simply wants to limit bargaining to wages and benefits, and not number of microwaves allowed, hall colors or right to decide who is on a committee to pick, and the flowers for the landscaping. That stuff detracts from the task of a public school. The thought that without negotiating work conditions, we would suddenly have black walls, cold soup for lunch, and cacti in the yard, is simply silly in my mind. Unions came to the forefront when workers were working 14 hour days, 7 days a week, in unsafe buildings. They had no health insurance. There was no OSHA or labor laws to protect workers. No FMLA. Government as a whole has taken much of the things Unions were built for, and provided those for everyone, not just union workers. And I agree, we have unions to thank for that. The divide as I see it on union versus anti-union seems to almost lie i ones own work ethic. You have always supported the union, as you say, but you were never their poster child. You do your best, no matter what a Master contract says, because that is who you are, and how you were raised. You would never think twice about saying no to a student who asked for help after hours once, because you would not be paid. I don't support union because I will do my best at my job, no matter what, and I have no problem letting my own job performance be my negotiator for me. Too many union employees ride on the coat-tails of others. They expect similar wages and benefits because they share a hire date. I think that undermines the type of worker businesses want.
ReplyDeleteI support the current changes because I know that behind all the anger, there are good teachers, simply supporting their union, many not even agreeing with it. And no matter how the dust settles, they will still be good teachers. And then maybe we will have some freedom in place to pay them based on their skills. Maybe we will have the freedom and evaluation system to ask those not suited for the field, to make room for those that are. And maybe those openings will lead to demand, and more graduates becoming teachers. You always told me of a time when teaching was an honored profession. It should be if the system is to work. The person that leads students must have high expectations of themselves and those they teach. I like this step. Let's do what we can to make the body of educators better and if we see growth, then there is a lot of political hay then to be made for changing compensation. We should be turning out better graduates, that will fill better jobs, growing the tax base, and making money available. Then the job of Unions will be to negotiate better wagers and benefits and point to data and say, WE DID THIS...PAY UP!!
Too optimistic?
p.s. Wisconsin is pure politics. I think Indiana has been a desire for reform for many years.