The Wisconsin Story: What The State Giveth The State May Taketh Away--But Should It?

Divergent visions of work life realities are playing out in my home state of Wisconsin.  As you may know, the recently elected Republican Governor has proposed requiring public employees to pay a greater share of the costs for their pensions and fringe benefits as a partial means of resolving the State’s growing budget deficit.  More complicated is the Governor’s proposal to eviscerate the rights of public employees to collectively bargain terms and conditions of employment.  Organized labor, including the State’s powerful teachers unions, has fought these proposals with large scale sick outs closing down schools and government offices as well as protests occupying the State Capitol.  Although grudgingly willing to offer concessions on pension and fringe benefit contributions, the unions have vowed continued opposition to any diminution of their bargaining rights.

The reality is that in the current economic environment, labor costs, including both compensation and benefits, have outpaced both tax revenue generation and the public’s willingness to support such costs.  Certainly tax increases could help the problem but the electorate is disinclined to increase their taxes at a time when they are feeling economically insecure.  Notwithstanding the context of past budget and bargaining deals that brought the State to this place, however legitimate such deals may have been at the time, the status quo is simply unsustainable.  Thus the unions’ capitulation on increased pension and benefit contributions is both understandable and expedient.

More difficult to understand is the Governor’s naive and seemingly unworkable attempt to eliminate the bulk of collective bargaining.  True, what the State giveth, the State can taketh away.  Without a doubt, there is no constitutional right to collectively bargain but the Governor and Legislature has to recognize that there is clear First Amendment right to protest.  And there is no question but that weak or ineffective public employers or those that tried to buy a better relationship with their employees were responsible in part for the accelerating labor costs.  But even so, the State is going to have to accept the legitimacy of unions, or risk turning into a police state by jailing union leaders, reliving the bad-old days in the history of organized labor when union organizers fought literal urban battles with Pinkerton guards.  Brinksmanship on both sides must be unveiled as power politics of the worst sort.  There has to be a solution to the government’s budget shortfall that makes economic sense while preserving the dignity of the workers.

More modest proposals may help to reduce reoccurrences of unaffordable labor agreements while solving part of the State’s economic woes.  Instead of almost completely eliminating collective bargaining, the State should consider the following more measured responses:

1. Tighten up on the subjects of bargaining, eliminating ambiguity which creates uncertainty or insecurity;
2. Eliminate the right of government employees to strike as well as the public employer’s ability to lock out employees; preferring dialogue through mediation to power struggles;
3. Require impasses that could not be mediated to be arbitrated iin public before a judge, with the right to appeal adverse decisions;
4. Legislate uniform state-wide working conditions that would supersede collective bargaining language.

What is happening in Wisconsin, long known for being progressive, is likely to play out in several other states and local governments, including in California, as blame is cast and fingers pointed in the political budget maelstroms.  Those who were effective in accomplishing their bargaining objectives must not be maligned because the past cannot be changed.  But the new realities must direct the path out of the maze.  In the end, promises must be kept, work and workers must be respected, the public must pay for necessary governmental services, and viable economic solutions must be found, or the fabric of our society may be damaged for generations to come.