Killing unions with 'paycheck protection'

[Bgno64]

Gil Smart at Smart Remarks:

Cutler, Norquist and Gleason note, has sponsored a “paycheck protection” bill in the state House that would “prohibit government employers from deducting from a public employee’s salary ‘any funds which inure to the benefit of a private organization.’ ”

In other words: Union dues are often deducted from unionized government workers’ checks by government itself. The bill would stop that, putting the onus on the unions themselves to go collect the dues.

On the surface, it’s hardly an outrageous proposal. What’s outrageous is the rationale Norquist and Gleason use to support the idea: “This change empowers workers — making union leadership more responsive and accountable to them,” they proclaim. “... it would force union brass to prove their value to rank-and-file workers in order to convince them to part with their hard-earned income. ... workers are empowered when the decision whether to give their money to unions is voluntary.”

Yes, this is about empowering workers.

Please.

Empowering workers to what? Withhold support from the union? Slit their own throats, economically?

If that’s what the workers want to do, then sure, they should be permitted to do so. But let’s not play games. The purpose of Cutler’s bill, and a similar bill pending in the state Senate, is to wound public unions, to undermine them.

To kill them.

It’s about limiting wages, limiting benefits, maybe limiting job security. Again, there’s a legitimate argument to be had over what public employees should be paid. But if we’re going to have that argument, let’s hit it head-on. Let’s make the case explicitly that, say, teacher pay should be capped at “X,” whatever “X” is, that taxpayers are tapped out and it’s time to make hard decisions, decisions that are going to make some people deeply unhappy.

Let’s not dress it up in sanctimonious pap about how we’re really concerned about union employees. Because the bottom line is that the Grover Norquists of the world think unionized government employees are treated too well and that they need to be treated less well in the future.

Bust the unions, and you can pretty much guarantee that.

Because, say what you will about unions, and I’ve heard most of the epithets, they exist to do right by their members — or rather, to make sure the employer does right by the union members. And government unions have done that; many government jobs pay a solid middle class wage, and provide what we used to consider solid middle class benefits. It wouldn’t have happened without unions.

But that success now makes unionized public workers outliers. Not necessarily in terms of the amount they take home in a paycheck, but in guaranteed raises; in defined benefit pension plans. The public, watching its own wages stagnate and swimming with the sharks in the 401(k) pool, either can’t foot this bill any longer or doesn’t want to. Resentment runs high. And that makes it the perfect time to strike, if you’re looking to strike unions.

[yurbud]

1. which state? the problem is, Democrats are not giving the counter argument anywhere:

"Instead of tearing down government workers, shouldn't we be RAISING the standard of living and benefits of private sector workers?"