Labor & Employment Law

Assault in Wisconsin Isn?t About the Deficit, It?s About Politics

By Tula Connell

It’s no coincidence that public-sector collective bargaining arose in tandem with the civil rights movement between 1955 and 1965, writes Joseph McCartin, associate professor of history and director of the Kalmanovitz Initiative for Labor and the Working Poor at Georgetown University.

…both movements were making the same point: How could the nation justify denying some citizens the rights and freedoms that it granted to others?

Yet as McCartin points out,

in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the Great Depression, conservative, anti-labor politicians like Governor Walker are trying out a new and potentially more potent anti-union argument: We can no longer afford collective bargaining. The wages, health benefits, and pensions of government workers, these opponents say, are driving states into deep and dangerous deficits.

This contention is bogus. Here’s why.

Contrary to Walker?s assertion, there is no direct correlation between public-sector collective bargaining and yawning state budget deficits. According to data gathered by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, while Wisconsin projects a state budget deficit of 12.8 percent for FY 2012, North Carolina, which does not allow government workers to bargain, faces a significantly higher deficit: 20 percent. Ohio, whose Republican governor John Kasich has also made clear his desire to roll back collective bargaining, has a deficit that is only about half the size of non-union North Carolina?s. Clearly, then, state budget deficits we are now witnessing are not the product of collective bargaining, but rather reflect the differential impact of the current recession on individual states, as well as the integrity of state fiscal practices (such as whether they raise enough in taxes to pay for the essential services they provide).

Rather, no matter what conservative governors say, the extension of bargaining to public-sector workers is not what entangled us in the current economic crisis.

Indeed, what is going on in Wisconsin and other states ought to be seen for what it is: a bald attempt to exploit the bad economy, undo 50 years of legal precedent on labor issues, and win a political victory, no matter the cost.

Read McCartin’s full article here.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on February 21, 2011 (boomark / email).