The Kevin Drum column about
Union-Busting was written in response to an initiative in
California, but what I found most useful was just a piece of
that column, in which he said:
The right wing never rests, and
for any of my liberal readers who harbor suspicion of labor
unions as an "old" liberal cause — just another one of
those special interest groups that Democrats are
always pandering to — ask yourself this:
why are
conservatives so hellbent on breaking them? Why did
Ronald Reagan fire those air traffic controllers in
1981? Why did George Bush make union busting a key
issue in the 2002 midterm election? Why the
relentless opposition to using card checks to
organize workers in new industries? Why the
continuing demonization of unions from a party
that's otherwise so conscientious about building its
appeal to the working and middle classes?
It's because unions are the only truly effective
check on the sine qua non of modern
conservatism: corporate power. For all their faults
— and they have plenty, just as corporations do —
unions are the only organizations that have the
power to bargain effectively for the interests of
the middle class. Union power in the private sector
began to wane in the 1970s, and it's not a
coincidence that this was exactly the same time that
middle class wages began to stagnate, CEO pay began
to skyrocket, and income inequality began increasing
inexorably.
Many liberals seem to believe that these grim
trends can be fought with tax and regulatory policy,
but those are blunt instruments with plenty of
drawbacks and unforeseen consequences. Collective
bargaining, which is essentially a market based
approach in which the government's job is simply to
make sure that unions have enough authority to
ensure serious bargaining and then get out of the
way, is far more reliable, effective, and flexible.
It actually works, which is why conservatives have
always hated unions so bitterly.
Despite this, there are plenty of cocktail party
"new" Democrats who blithely think of unions as just
another dinosaur special interest unsuited to
politics in the 21st century. They should think
again. Republicans understand the stakes a lot
better — and so should we.
The rest of the column can be found in the
Washington Monthly..
May 5, 2005
UNION BUSTING....LA Times business
columnist Michael Hiltzik writes today about
the latest in citizen governance here in the Golden
State: an initiative that would require all
public employee unions to obtain annual written
permission from their members before contributing
money to political candidates or groups.... —Kevin
Drum
2:15 PM
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