Public Sides with Unions over Wisconsin Governor

Public Sides with Unions over Wisconsin Governor

The new politics of fiscal probity took an ugly turn in Wisconsin last week, where newly elected Governor Scott Walker moved from driving a hard bargain to doing away with collective bargaining.

It is essential for governors to be tough negotiators, given both the “Great Recession” and the exploding, unfunded pension and medical insurance liabilities looming over states.

In turn, forward-looking state employee union leaders may be wise to get out in front of these new realities by offering serious concessions that protect their members from more draconian reductions in insurance and pension benefits.

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Unfortunately, in Wisconsin, even that didn’t help. The Governor – in a stunning move that belied his so-called fiscal agenda – slapped the union back despite the fact that the union agreed to his substantive pay demands and upped the ante by calling for an end to collective bargaining for state employee unions.

Walker’s move has received mixed reviews in Wisconsin. In fact the polling in Wisconsin is all over the map. A recent USA Today Gallup Poll, however, shows that on a national level, Americans oppose—by a two-to-one margin—efforts to abolish collective bargaining rights for public employees in their state.

Still, Tea Party activists and other conservatives are doing a good job conflating the more popular issue of spending reductions with the elimination of the fundamental right for state government workers to be represented in contract negotiations—a hard-fought right that differentiates us from other countries.

As the battle moves to other states, it will be important for organized labor to enlist the public on an issue where opinion seems to be on their side. Some may question the specifics of certain benefit plans for state employees, but on the broader issue of the right of workers to engage in collective bargaining, most Americans recognize and support the fundamental fairness and respect for human dignity inherent in that right.

While the intensity of feelings outside the labor movement may not be that strong, unions, by carefully and consistently bifurcating the specifics of a particular dispute from the broader principal of the importance of collective bargaining, can prevail in maintaining their vital role in protecting workers and enabling them to continue to be counted as full and vital members of the public and private workforce.