Collective Bargaining Is a Privilege, Not a Right
by Ned RyunI keep hearing the narrative that somehow, as though it were written in stone, collective bargaining is a right for public sector unions. I would disagree entirely: collective bargaining is a privilege, not a right, for public sector unions. And you know what? About 50 years ago, the A.F.L.-C.I.O. agreed with me. The union’s Executive Council in 1959 said: “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress — a right available to every citizen.”
And it is a privilege that has been badly abused for years; U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics show that public sector employees, many of them unionized, make nearly $40 an hour in combined wages and benefits versus roughly $27.50 for those in the private sector.
So I applaud what Scott Walker is doing in Wisconsin, but I actually feel he didn’t go far enough. All his Budget Repair Bill is doing is addressing the public sector unions’ right to collectively bargain over pensions and health care. I think it would have been nice to address the right to collectively bargain for wages, and here’s why: at the end of the day, the public sector unions are not collectively bargaining for a greater share of earnings, as do the private sector unions. They are bargaining to get a bigger slice of the pie of tax dollars, which the government has taken from the American taxpayer.
Now to be clear: paying a certain amount of taxes is a part of being involved in an organized civilization. If you want to make sure you have roads and national defense, you’re going to have to pay taxes. But that being said, taxes are removed through a threat of force from the taxpayers by the government (yes, I mean force. Try not paying property or income taxes and see what happens). So the government is run off of money earned in the private sector. Government does not create jobs; when there are reports of more jobs, but they’re all government jobs, the government is not creating anything: it is merely funding even more government jobs off the backs of the private sector. Which compounds the problem because by taking capital from the private sector to create government jobs, you’re not creating jobs that create more capital, as private sector jobs do.
So, public sector unions, unlike their private sector union counterparts, are not creating more capital. Do they provide services for the public good? Absolutely. Are they creating capital? Absolutely not.
So here you have public sector unions negotiating for more pay in tough times, soaking more from the already overburdened American taxpayer. I keep hearing this drivel of, “Well if Walker is expecting the unions to make sacrifices, is he going to ask others to make sacrifices by increasing taxes?” Memo to those saying that (Mika Brzezinski, I’m thinking of you): The American taxpayer has been gouged for years, and years, and years, by higher taxes, and I’m not talking just income taxes. I’m talking the hidden taxes on gas, food, etc. Yeah, add up all your taxes sometime and you’ll realize you’re probably paying well over 50%, sometimes 60% or more of your wages, in taxes. So you’ve kind of already done your part.
I’m at the point where I feel like the public sector unions, and their partners in crime, their allied elected officials, are like vampires on the American public, sucking the very blood out of them. Worse, they are dumb vampires.
Smart vampires suck just enough blood out to satiate themselves and then leave the victim alive so they can hit them again for a quick infusion down the road. The public sector unions and elected officials haven’t quite learned that lesson and keep sucking the blood out of the American people. At some point, there ain’t going to be any more blood to suck, and then everyone is dead.
And a word on the unions allied officials. These officials, standing between the taxpayer and the public sector unions, are supposed to serve the American taxpayer. It’s a little something called a government of “We the People,” with power originating from the people. But in fact the elected officials are serving the public sector unions because the unions collect millions off the forced-dues from government employees and then reward the officials, their “bosses,” by funding their reelection campaigns. This is precisely backward from how this country was meant to work. It was originally meant to work like this: power originates from the American people, is given to elected officials, who then manage the bureaucrats and federal employees, on behalf of the people, i.e. taxpayers.
Now we have this bizarre scenario where the public sector unions have the power to dictate to the elected officials, who then dictate to the American people. The only way any of that last scenario makes sense is if you detach yourself from reality and enter a land of unicorns and pixie dust.
Now I know for most, none of this is a revelation at all. But it does defy logic: ultimately what we’re doing by increasing benefits and pay for public sector unions is removing capital from the private sector (i.e. us) via taxes and crushing our economy in a time when we actually need the private sector to create more jobs.
What Scott Walker, and many others are doing is appealing to common sense, especially in tough economic times. I have no problem at all with public sector unions making the equivalent wages and benefits that their private sector counterparts do. Of course that means a shaving down by about 30% on the combined wages and benefits of the public sector unions, but it has to be done. And I applaud those officials who are willing to step up to the plate and do it. The American people are applauding and cheering you on.
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49 Comments
Privilege and a Right….. Lib's don't know the difference, so I guess we will have to keep telling them.
"Collective Bargaining Is a Privilege, Not a Right"
And the public sector unions have turned their collective bargaining PRIVILEGES into a collective bargaining ENTITLEMENT.
So let's call Wisconsin exactly what it is; the first attempt at ENTITLEMENT reform.
Collective Bargaining Is a Privilege, Not a Right — is absolutely correct. Its a statutory privilege that was granted to a chosen few that puts the rest of us at a disadvantage. The laws are not supposed to give any group of people an advantage over the rest of us. But that's about the only kind of laws Democrats advocate for.
Collective barganing is like running through tall grass on a hot summer day: you gonna be infested with blood sucking parasites by the time you're done.
Are We Broke Yet?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjw2Ls5mZXA&fe...
"We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish."
Friedrich August von Hayek
Most will argue that there is no difference, that's the level of ignorance that exist in the liberal ranks.
It's not a privilege, it's an aberration.
Union Members are Anti-American Scum.
I'd never go that far. You have to remember that in many states you are required to join a Union before you can be employed in a given trade. That needs to be fixed, country wide.
Hitler required that Germans toss Jews into Ovens….. yet those Germans were charged.
No one in the USA is forced to work in a Union Shop….. even though Union Members sometimes say they are forced against their will to work in a Union Shop. The Constitution still makes Slavery and Indentured Servitude against the Law.
I've been stating exactly this same sentiment here at home for weeks!
It is nowhere in the constitution and the assertion that "collective bargaining" is somehow a "right" is absolute poppycock!
I call BS on the CPUSA narrative of the DNC/MSM thugs!
You're over the top EOD, you can't reasonably compare what Hitler did to the Jews, to joining a Union. And joining a Union is not slavery either, its a voluntary act. But it is an assault on your right to work and that needs to be fixed all across the country.
I get into these same debates within my own community especially those bumpkins who scream about their 'rights'. My response, True …..government has given you rights which is precisely why they can take them away from you. This is the degree to which these imbeciles have forgotten our Founding. Everyone of you Patriots know that rights given from God can NEVER be taken away.
But, alas, these moochers of the taxpayers won't realize their greed untill there are no more taxpayers.
Public Sector employees won't realize that their only "rights" are those listed in the Constitution until they get a private sector job. There should never have been public sector unions.
My point is that being in a Union is a voluntary act.
You posted that Union Members are Forced (required) to be in a Union.
Perhaps I should have posted that Union Members (all) are merely Without Honor because they will not take a Job that is Non-Union….. but, being Military the state of being without Honor is worse than death….. so I merely Posted that all Union Members are Anti-American Scum instead.
Off topic: Number of healthcare reform law waivers climbs above 1,000
By Jason Millman – 03/06/11 03:38 PM ET
http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-refor...
"We shall not grow wiser before we learn that much that we have done was very foolish."
Friedrich August von Hayek
Collective bargaining as a concept is indeed a privilege. But my daddy always taught me that privileges go hand in hand with responsibilities. When there are inherent competing responsibilities – as in Democrat politicians representing both the taxpayer and the public sector unions that seek to pilfer the public coffers – then that privilege must be forfeit. Indeed, it should never have been conceived of, much less made legal in the first place.
In regards to the public sector, collective bargaining is an immoral, incestuous violation of the public trust. Insofar as it is considered by those who benefit from it (unions and Democrats) to be a right, then they must be disabused of that notion once and for all. Insofar as there is anyone remaining who believes it to be a privilege, they must be reminded that the privileges have been permanently revoked due to conflict of interest and rampant irresponsibility.
Public sector unions must be made illegal.
Join other conservatives in an open discussion forum at "It's About Liberty"
http://www.itsaboutliberty.com
Each right explained in the constitution is given to ALL people, not just a select few. If this collective bargaining was a 'right' each American Citizen would have it. I don't remember getting a 'right' to collectively bargain with any of my employers.
Make sure to remind every person that argues that point with you: There is no constitutional 'right' to collective bargaining. I did remind my fleebagger senator, 'Senator' Tim Cullen-D, Janesville, WI. All I got in response was that same tired old form letter expounding great Socialist ideas on the "right" of Collective Bargaining. All I can say is, I didn't vote for that man!
There is another example of what the Democrats do. Supporters will be rewarded and non-supporters will be punished.
Vampires? More like fleas. Fleas in a full blown panic attack now that the dog is awake.
So the fleas claim 'rights' to the dog, the taxpayers money? Bwa ha ha. Taxpayer sez, "Every wolf has fleas, 'tis easy enough to scratch."
Pathetic that our politicians aren't even half as smart as a dog.
Compulsory collective bargaining under the law is neither a right nor a privilege. It is a violation of the right of an individual to bargain with his employer on his own behalf.
When 51% of the employees choose to join a union most private companies (farms and certain others are exempted) are forced under civil penalties to deal with the union. They may make no deals with individuals unless the union allows it. they may not fire employees who join a union and may not make refusing to join a union a condition of employment. States were exempted from this federal law but many have instituted compulsory collective bargaining for public employees.
It is a distortion to say that workers are being stripped of the their "right" of collective bargaining. What is actually happening is that the right of individual bargaining is being restored. This right has been in legal limbo since the Wagner Act during the Great Depression.
“Socialism is the religion people get when they lose their religion”
—Richard John Neuhaus
Wisconsin public sector union members need the money. They are all so morbidly obese that to do without could shock their bloated systems. Think of the smell.
Give them the money.
Beneto Musolini based Fascism off of the concept of Syndicalism. While many of us may know the word from the Holy Grail it was a political ideology bandied about by leftists, especially the workers. Syndicalism basicly worked by having the worker form syndicates which would run the means of production (i.e. corporations). This led to the idea of the Fascisti or bundle of sticks. Fascism developed as corporatism, the government owning the corporations. This entire idea developed orginally from the leftist worker's philosophy of the late 1800's, early 1900's.
For these leftists @$$clowns to state that Hitler ended the Unions when the SA was in fact a worker's union is beyond spin.
What I see from the left is… if they call something a 'right' enough times (and often enough) people believe them. And by people, I mean more of the left and some of the center. The only place where collective bargaining is a right is under socialism… and even under that its just theory because in practive the workers get dumped on even worse under socialism.
They dont want a private sector job… too much work.
They like to muddy the waters of the first amendment inasmuch the idea of "free association" embodied in the first amendment.
Nowhere in the first amendment does it give the government a "right" to go on strike against itself or the people or to negotiate from both sides of the table while they all swim in the same pool of taxpayer dollars…
Bargain for wages, fine.
Bargain for perks at MY expense, absolutely not.
Rights and privileges are the same thing. To proclaim they are different is to take the position that the 13th Amendment abolished slavery of black people and the 14th Amendment enslaved us all, equally, to the master that is government. Privileges or immunities is the way the framers of the amendment described rights in both what we can do – the positive – and what government cannot do to us – the negative. They did this trying to finally remove the line of separation some were trying to create between white people and everybody else.
Does this author contend that the 14th Amendment was not focused like a laser on stopping state government from violating the rights of freed slaves? By stating that rights and privileges are two different things, he is doing exactly that. I submit that he should reconsider.
Now, there is a right to assemble and associate freely. There is also a right to seek redress of grievances. But that is where it stops. If a union wants to stand together and reject an offer made, so be it. They have every right to do that – and if those jobs are offered to, and then accepted, by others, well, choices have consequences and they must learn to stop denying that actuality.
I agree with the sentiment this author offers, but his means are off the mark and really quite dangerous. He almost gets it recognizing the right to petition. But he misses the fact that doing so is indeed a positive – a can do- privilege. A right.
In a campaign speech REAGAN gave in Liberty State Park in Liberty, New Jersey on Labor Day 1980, Reagan said about unions.
"They remind us that where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost. They remind us that freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. You and I must protect and preserve freedom here or it will not be passed on to our children and it would disappear everywhere in the world. Today the workers in Poland are showing a new generation how high is the price of freedom but also how much it is worth that price."`
Reagan also said.
Collective bargaining in the years since has played a major role in America’s economic miracle. Unions represent some of the freest institutions in this land. There are few finer examples of participatory democracy to be found anywhere. Too often, discussion about the labor movement concentrates on disputes, corruption, and strikes. But while these things are headlines, there are thousands of good agreements reached and put into practice every year without a hitch.
Was Reagan wrong?????????????????????
You need to try selling this tripe somewhere else. (BTW, I know this is the new "talking point" from your "progressive" masters)
Mr. Reagan was talking about PRIVATE SECTOR UNIONS, as evidenced by his reference to "Polish workers."
As for his position on PUBLIC SECTOR UNIONS, he FIRED the air traffic controllers.
Now, speaking of "controllers," you can go back to yours and get your next talking point.
Reagan signed a bill to grant municipal and county employees the right to collective bargaining when he was governor of California. So Reagan was clearly in favour of public unions right to collective bargaining!!!
Why are the Koch Bros so interested in public unions being disbanded?
"We are witnessing yet another attempt of transferring the costs of the economic crisis and of the failed financial policies to working people and their families," wrote Piotr Duda, president of Solidarnosc, the Polish word for Solidarity. "Your victory is our victory as well."
Indeed, both in Communist Poland and in Wisconsin today, the target was unions and their collective bargaining rights.
The governor is obviously not a Communist. His pro-business credentials are undeniable, as evidenced by his cozy relationship with the billionaire Koch brothers and his corporate tax cuts (which are arguably a cause of Wisconsin's fiscal crisis). Yet, he sure is acting like the Polish Communists in one real way: they, too, staunchly opposed free trade unions and collective bargaining.
So again I ask, was Reagan wrong???
Privileges are granted and can be taken away by the grantor. People who don't know the difference between rights and privileges should abstain from voting.
Do you people realize the history behind collective bargaining? Do you people even care that if it wasn’t for collective bargaining you would not have the rights you do now such as healthcare, sick leave or the 8 hour work day. Do you people understand the concept of the Federalist (elite democracy) and Anti-Federalist (popular democracy). Do you people understand the concept of rights versus privileges anyway? This isn’t being allowed to walk across the street by mommy and daddy, this is a form of mass manipulation to lose the popular democracy in regards to gain of control by a larger government and keep a more aggressive control over us: you, me and the rest of us that are considered worker bees or the working class. Think about it, do the research, think about history and never forget it. Thomas Jefferson would be rolling in his grave if he knew how our society was being manipulated by the same government that he was fighting to keep small. We need more people like Jefferson in office, not these self-riotous, greedy politicians we have now. Wake up America.
I think that people who start blogs and post their opinions that are negative towards the majority of the people in the United States because granted: Collect Bargaining was meant to protect us all from greedy employers. But I think people that post these posting that are negative against the unions are people working for rich republicans that are trying forced feed Americans some more bull !!!! like history has showed.
There are no rich Republicans. All the rich people are Democrats and they have their hands out for their payoffs.
This comment makes no sense: Do you realize that 2/3rd. of Americans have an obesity problem, and you think it’s from the unions or collective bargaining. Get real: the problem with this is that people don’t make enough money to buy good foods they have to rely on fake food and buying from the dollar menu at McD’s to even eat. That’s not the union’s problem or fault. That’s America’s problem. Who are you trying to fool! I work with inner city kids that do not get enough to eat and this is in our country! Why are the republicans trying to increase foreign aid when our own country is failing. This is not the unions fault, its greedy, majority white, over fed over paid republican fat cats that are doing this, trying to make government bigger to keep a stronger hold on majority of the people in the United States. Wake up America and start using your brains. For those who are big on definitions: Do you know the difference between the Republican and Democrats? Do you realize how those definitions came about: if not then before you speak on something you know very little about, look it up!
Oh get real! Do any of you people that are for this stripping of collective bargaining rights have any sense? The only one I’ve read within this post that made sense and good points was “Reason_for_Life”: Good job. Now he or she brings up a good point.
Yeah, and if government gets any bigger than those rights listed in the Constitution will be stripped as well. Actually some already are. Remember what Bush said about the Constitution: what’s the constitution other than just a piece of paper. Do you realize what that means in forms of a bigger government?
Oh yeah! Where did you get that source at Republicans R Us!
So that must mean you!
No wonder this article reads like this! The guy who wrote it (Ned) use to work for Bush!!! Thats funny and people realy believe in what this guy is saying! Just like we all believed in what Bush was saying and then got busted for lying; To bad he can’t be prosecuted (that’s a whole other story!) Ha! Boy knowing the fact that this guy worked for Bush instills a lot of confidence in this guy’s reporting and opinion! Keep up the bad reporting and ignorant blog posts.
The quote is real…take it or leave it. For me, it stands on it's own!
You evidently don't understand the difference between private, and public employee collective bargaining, or how to separate the long term consequences. e.g., Take a hard look at what's happening in Greece.
he can’t be prosecuted (that’s a whole other story!) Ha! Boy knowing the fact that this guy worked for Bush instills a lot of confidence in this guy’s reporting and opinion! Keep up the bad reporting and ignorant blog posts.
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he cant be prosecuted (thats a whole other story!) Ha! Boy knowing the fact that this guy worked for Bush instills a lot of confidence in this guys reporting and opinion! Keep up the bad reporting and ignorant blog posts. <a href="http://www.sifalibitkiler-rehberi.com” target=”_blank”>www.sifalibitkiler-rehberi.com
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"government has given you rights…"
This fundamental premise is incorrect.
My rights flow from my willingness to assert them and my ability to defend them. I assert and defend them whether government is trying to take them away or not. Therefore, in the absence of any government, I would still have them.
<P id=SkyDrivePlaceholder> HM!! i indeed mis-spoke, er…mis-typed, regarding rights given by God as opposed to them being granted by the government. i am a firm believer in the Founding and the American Experiment as clearly laid out in the American Constitution. But, an arguement can be made that since FDR government has been hell-bent on identifying rights related to education, housing, employment, health care and on and on…. The problem in our culture today is that far too many believe it is government's responsibility to provide the necessities of Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. Thanks for noticing!! From: notifications@intensedebatemail.comTo: episode.6@hotmail.comSubject: HiredMind replied to your comment on Collective Bargaining Is a Privilege, Not a Right
If you needed something from your boss and asked for it, lets say a raise he would probably look at you and laugh, Even if you and your peers think you earned it and you still dont get it. So ya the Right to colectively bargain helps the employees the right to a fair wage and benifits. Unions are the last thing between the corupt corporations and the employee. Corprate america should be allowed to do whatever whenever and however they want. Union workers hold many positions in US infastucture I.E firefighters, police officers, teachers, road workers, electricians, telephone…. Unions set all these people to a high standard to provide people with what they need and is done correctly.
Wow turn a blind eye to the ceos it is the evil unions give me a break unions are now fortune 500 companies? ok go find a union president and ask for his tax records ill will garantee u that he only make 5 figures your statement that the unions r running this country into the ground is ignorant how about we give more tax breaks to the rich that WILL FIX EVERYTHING. By the i want to meet these union thug s u speak of they sound interesting.
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