And yet all forms of public sector employment, regardless of union status, are treated as staffing agencies who's hiring can be manipulated by those who traditionally hold the power of political interference. The best way to step up your career as a teacher, cop or other bureaucrat is to know a guy who knows a guy who's owed a favor by a politician who can write a recommendation on your behalf to an open position that you want to step up to. This is how people move from line level positions to administrative positions. (And before anyone says "but the police", they are somewhat insulated because they have strict traditions in their industry that have sway over career advancement.)
If the purpose of unions is to insulate the labor pool from political meddling then they have done an incredibly poor job at it.
I'm much more inclined to believe that the purpose of unions is to extract maximum concessions from the employer(s) for the benefit of the people they control while ignoring any externalities. In settings where labor is interchangeable and employed privately the benefits are clear and the downsides are very limited. But when you start talking about the police and teachers unions circling the wagons to protect people who behave badly while simultaneously attempting to extract maximum money from society it becomes much less clear whether the unions in question are an overall good thing. It's one thing for the union to try and extract more concessions from a corporation that would otherwise pocket the money and supposedly has competition to keep them from just passing on the cost without pressure to reduce margins. It's a whole different ethical ballgame when society will be footing the bill and there is no competition to keep downward pressure on costs.
I agree that this is one purpose of unions. I just disagree that it's the only purpose. Unions have multiple purposes, and it's a common misconception that there's only one specific type of benefit to them. This is why I intentionally phrased my comment with "Part of the reason for public employee unions is..."
How is that a surprise, of course politicians give public sector unions what they want -- they hold the cards, a huge voting block and cause problems. Most of the tradeoffs are passed down the line so the politician doesn't care either.
That's not what I said? I said the general public (who are unorganized) have a great deal of deference for police officers, and the power of police unions is merely a consequence of the public's deference to police.
> How is that a surprise, of course politicians give public sector unions what they want -- they hold the cards, a huge voting block and cause problems.
It's not a huge voting block. Union membership is much lower now than it was, say, 50 years ago. Moreover, politicians don't give public sector unions what they want. Here in Wisconsin, the state legislature stripped public employee unions of collective bargaining rights. There were massive protests at the state capitol about this, but in the end it didn't matter. Afterward there was recall campaign and election against the Governor, but the Governor won the recall election.
It feels to me like many people still have a 1960s conception of labor unions and their power, but empirically speaking, labor unions have been on the decline for decades, perhaps starting with the Reagan years. Now is not the Jimmy Hoffa era anymore.
That’s one side of the coin. The other side is to be a large enough entity to influence elections and then “negotiate” with those you helped get elected. Is it any wonder that states with large public service unions are in debt (even with high taxes) and have unsustainable pension obligations?
I’m not blaming a party here either. Democrats and Republicans tend to align with teachers and police respectively here and it creates the same problem.
It’s why public employees should never be allowed to unionize. FDR himself expressed this of all people. It’s an inevitable path to corruption. We can’t expect a reasonable “collective bargaining” when both sides of the negotiations are in bed.
That's the nature of politics. Businesses and business leaders lobby politicians and donate to their political campaigns too. It's strange to single out unions when there are so many different kinds of political interest groups, often with much more money than unions.
Public employee unions are bad, but the Tavern League, for example (I'm from Wisconsin), is ok? The National Rifle Association is ok? The National Landlord Association? Businesses and interest groups of every kind are donating money to the politicians who will directly regulate them. Why specifically exclude public employees from that?
Private money has major issues too but it doesn’t have a direct influence on votes. A company can lobby all day and give money and that might get you more ads. But aligning with a union gets you votes and will continue to.
Police unions do this with Republicans as Teachers do with Democrats.
Public schools, police departments, etc., are usually "political" entities, run by elected officials such as school boards and city councils. I would say there's no guarantee whatsoever in these cases that the leadership of those entities are even interested in compensating/promoting the "top performers" among teachers, or police. There's no direct financial incentive. The "outcomes" of a school — student education — don't provide much of a feedback mechanism to the financial performance or governance of the school. Likewise with police departments, etc. If anything, poor performance by these public entities may lead to calls for increased funding, standing the incentives on their heads.
Part of the reason for public employee unions is to protect the members specifically from political interference. The alternative is not necessarily "merit" based compensation but rather political favoritism and retribution.