Only months after their wave of victories, newly elected Republican governors and legislators are becoming more aggressive against what they consider to be the biggest drain on the economy: public-worker unions. Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker put his opinions bluntly shortly after his November victory.
"You're not going to hear me degrade state and local employees in the public sector," Walker told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in December. "But we can no longer live in a society where the public employees are the haves and the taxpayers who foot the bills are the have-nots."
Walker's anti-union rhetoric likely stems from their attempts to keep him out of the governor's mansion (unions donated $395,629 to Walker's opponent, $83,570 of which came from the public-sector unions) but his assessment that public-sector workers make fortunes off at the expense of taxpayers is simply logic-free. Public-sector unions such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU), American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), American Federation of Teachers (AFT), International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF), and the Fraternal Order of Police (FOP) pay their employees considerably less than private workers doing comparable work -- 11 to 12% less according to a report by the National Institute for Retirement Security.
The idea that public unions are a drain on state budgets is not supported only by Walker, however. Republican Governor John Kasich of Ohio told the Columbus Dispatch he opposes prevailing wages (paying state-employed construction firms the same wages they would receive if they performed similar work for private employers) a year after saying he wanted to "break the back of organized labor in schools." Such sentiment is not universally Republican, either.
In the Democrat-run Illinois General Assembly, the turn of the new year meant a push for legislation known as "Performance Counts," which includes a provision which would "all but eliminate teachers right to strike" according to WBEZ Chicago Public Radio. Business interests of Illinois, such as the state's Chamber of Commerce and the Illinois Business roundtable, have lined up behind the proposal; as has a group called Stand for Children, an out-of-state group that donated $600,000 to candidates in hopes of school reforms.
Attacks on public employees are not simply restricted to state-level legislators either. Congressional candidates, especially those in the newly elected Republican majority, decried federal spending as being "bloated" and federal employment as being "on steroids."
"We need to cut federal employment back to 2008 levels," Rep. Mike Pence (R-IN 6) declared on Meet the Press in September 2010. This was shortly after the "Pledge to America" which took shape as legislation in January 2011. The legislation aims to cut $2.5 trillion from the federal budget, which includes eliminating the Corporation for Public Broadcasting, the National Endowment for the Arts, massive cuts to railroad subsidies, and of course a repeal of the Davis-Bacon Act which makes prevailing wage a requirement for federal construction projects.
It is quite easy to say public employees need to take a pay-cut in times of budget deficits and economic uncertainty. But it is much more difficult to make it work. As the Associated Press points out, these "cuts would affect millions of people."
Can anybody say with absolute sincerity that their local librarian is overpaid? Does any American actually believe that a firefighter deserves a pay cut? Does anyone truly feel their post office is adequately staffed? Is it fair to tell children that their teachers are, as Scott Walker believes, becoming wealthy at the expense of their parents? Does your village actually need less park district workers? Better yet, does it need less police officers?
Because ultimately this is what politicians are telling us when they say spending cuts need to be made. And this is why public-sector unions don't donate to candidates who say they intend to cut-cut-cut their way out of a budget shortfall. These politicians have dehumanized the public servants which they intend to fire if and when they are elected. To them, the 3% budget cut is a step in balancing the budget. But to police officers, firefighters, mail carriers, librarians, teachers, public health workers, and other public servants, that means pay freezes or pay cuts -- both of which are technically the same when inflation is plugged into wage calculation -- or worse, layoffs. And at a time when the economy is in shambles, is it really smart to cut jobs?
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