The Case Against Public Sector Unions
Speaking as I do here to outsiders, I am sure few readers of The American Scene would find it hard to understand that your French writer has an almost preternatural distrust of unions. There is little doubt to the objective observer that France’s public sector unions, at least compared to other large, modern economies, are among the most egregious rent seekers. I don’t think you have to be a fire-breathing right-winger to find that organizing paralyzing strikes to protect, say, the right of train drivers to retire on a full government pension at 50, is consistent with imrpoving the general welfare.
And yet, I like to think that I have a nuanced view of unions. In Germany in the wake of the financial crisis, most unions and bosses brokered deals whereby workers would get paid less for not showing up to work, instead of being laid off, an arrangement which, on top of being arguably more just, allowed these firms to rebound faster when Germany’s exports surged on the back of the global recovery and the slumping euro. In Sweden, unions are famously cooperative with bosses, and known to sometimes agitate for layoffs of union workers when they believe it is in the best interests of the firm. And in the US, organizations like the Freelancers Union, as our Ross and Reihan have shown, point the way to a possible bright future where unions are a valuable support for people, not static jobs or economic rents.
And of course, as a classical liberal, I have to recognize, with about the same pleasure as performing surgery on myself without aenesthetic (I don’t recommend it), that it would be incompatible with a free society to prevent workers from organizing. I wouldn’t like it, but seriously though, I would, Voltaire-like, die for the right of private sector workers to unionize.
That being said, I am utterly, 100%, honestly convinced that banning public sector unions is both compatible with liberal principles and highly desirable. This is a relevant subject not just for France (ha!) but also for the US, where the role of unions, and in particular public sector unions, is fast growing.
I would put forward two arguments in favor of the claim, one utilitarian and one moral.
The utilitarian argument is that unions work at their best — indeed, work at all — when they work as a check on a management which, by design, seeks efficiency at any cost, and might seek it at the cost of the legitimate rights and interests of the employees. But in the public sector, there is no such drive for efficiency to provide a check against. Corporations are an animal designed to respond to market pressures by becoming always more efficient or dying. It’s the nature of the beast. When a country’s public sector changes to become more efficient, it is by accident (by which I don’t mean “accidentally”, but as opposed to “by design”), either because the right politician was elected or because the state finds itself one day with a bottomless deficit. Given that the public sector does not have the same drive for efficiency than the private sector does, the natural incentive of public sector unions is simply to drift toward the kind of rent-seeking that has made French strikes the world’s laughing-stock. Teachers’ unions in the United States are definitely in this group (can I get a bipartisan amen?). Since in the public sector, unions are supposed to be a check to something that doesn’t exist, they should go.
The moral argument, and for me the most important one, is that working in the public sector is public service. Both of those words matter: it’s a service. Almost by definition, in any given country, the most talented public servants could get much higher salaries, and much better working conditions, in the private sector. The reason they don’t do that is because they want to serve their country and their fellow citizens. And in many cases (military, police, firefighters), they risk their lives for their fellow citizens, and wouldn’t change that for the world. Unlike many libertarians and some conservatives, I have no animosity toward government as an idea. I don’t view it as a necessary evil. I view public service the same way I view all endeavors in service of others: as very good and noble. But, by definition, being a public servant requires humility; it requires a healthy disregard for one’s own interests. Not just as a practical matter but also as a moral judgement, we should not want our public servants to be people who picked those jobs because they come with lifetime employment, early retirement and pensions backed by the full faith and credit of the United States. Public sector unions are by definition antithetic to the nature of what public service should be. Unions exist to defend the interests of their members. Such organizations are certainly consistent with legal principles and potentially even useful in the private sector, but not in the public sector. The idea of public service is incompatible with organizations designed to defend the interests of public servants at the expense of the general welfare.
Oh and by the way: here’s my new hero.
Making a cases against public sector unions is like making a case against the MPAA ratings board.
If the MPAA vanished today, something that performed the exact same function would spring to life in a fortnight.
Similarly, if the union representing New York City police officers were abolished today, something performing much the same function would spring to life in double quick time.
— Tony Comstock · Aug 4, 02:03 PM · #
Something like what?
(This is a genuine question.)
— PEG · Aug 4, 03:00 PM · #
An organization — formal or informal, above board or underground — devoted to advocating for the interest of the group. See also: Blue Flu
Read the history of unionization in the US. Unions coalesce under conditions infinity more hostile than any regime you’d dare dream (the soundtrack to “the molly maguires” is awesome.)
I think the problem is that you misunderstand why unions exist, and are working the question in the wrong direction. (Here’s a hint: get out of the habit of using the phrase “rent-seeking” as an attack. I’m especially surprised to hear you expressing antipathy for landlords.)
— Tony Comstock · Aug 4, 03:19 PM · #
“Teachers’ unions in the United States are definitely in this group [i.e., pure rent-seekers] (can I get a bipartisan amen?).”
You can get a cheer and a half from this pinko. There is a lot of rent-seeking among teachers’ unions: it’s their #1 job. But they do have a #2 job: advocating for kids. It’s subordinate to #1, but still exists as an independent function. Given the insane politics of US education, teachers’ unions are sometimes the most effective advocate out there. You can also find this phenomenon in nurses’ unions. Much less so in the traditionally male-gendered public-sector unions, which are pretty pure rent-seekers and accountability-avoiders. (Police unions might be the worst.)
— Joe S. · Aug 4, 04:24 PM · #
Related to the first argument: Private sector unions are intended (in theory) to rectify an imbalance of power between the lonely individual worker and the big corporation that sets the terms and conditions of employment. But in the public sector, the workers already have considerable power over the employer: by being not just voters, but voters with a higher level of participation and activism than anyone else (there are empirical papers showing that teachers vote in school board elections way more often than anyone else). When workers elect the very management with whom they’re dealing, they already have enough power.
— Stuart Buck · Aug 4, 04:46 PM · #
The utilitarian argument is interesting and one I’ve contemplated before but there are many public sector employees, say garbage collectors, janitors, nurse’s aids, etc that are and will be used to increase efficiency to save the manager’s job, budget, or salary increase. The public sector has efficiency pressures as well. I was at UC Berkeley for a while and that public institution remained competitive partly by paying their janitorial staff next to nothing in a very high cost of living area. I’m sure it saved them money. Their union was their only hope. At the same time, the professional class, of which I was a member, tried to organize a union. Our heart wasn’t in it, because it made little sense. We had plenty of power and good wages. We didn’t need the union and voted it down. But some public employees certainly do.
As for the moral argument, I find it ridiculous. This isn’t a convent you are joining when you work for the public sector. It’s a job. The vast majority of people in the public sector take the job because it’s available or because it’s of interest, not because they want to serve their fellow countrymen (Because when I think of a Patriot, I think of the guy behind the counter at the DMV). People don’t even join the military for that reason. This is just a silly fantasy by non-public sector employees. I had a relative who made this argument to me about school teachers, saying they should accept lower salaries because you don’t want the kind of person going into teaching who wants a higher salary. Brilliant! Please jettison and work more on refining the utilitarian argument which definitely has some merit.
— KJ · Aug 4, 07:03 PM · #
Public servants are generally career people doing a job, one that is necessary and antithetical to business; they aren’t intended to turn profits. We do not “elect” our bosses — they are also career people, but they are then subject to pressure from elected officials. Unionization serves to protect us career public servants from the whims of powerful interests in politics.
For example: Part of my job is to oversee and regulate the services provided by contracting businesses — both private and non-profit — to our service population. I do this through combing through reports, surprise inspections, and quarterly or annual re-assessments of needs. I found a very large, very powerful contractor to be in violation of the law and his contract with us and put a stop to something he very much wanted to do. He was enraged that I, a mere public servant, could do so. So much so that he created false allegations and leveraged his not-inconsiderable influence with the politicians interested in our service sector in an attempt to have me fired.
There was no basis to his accusations against me. But he created such a headache, and his business with our agency amounts to several million dollars a year giving him a fair amount of prominence, that my executive director and his immediate subordinates would have made a lot less trouble for themselves if they’d just caved in and fired me, just to placate him. But, since we are unionized, they had to demonstrate cause, and the investigation required by our contract cleared me of any wrongdoing.
Public servants operate at the crossroads of many competing interests. Unionization allows us to perform our jobs in the public interest without fearing to set foot where the politically influential stand. Without it, good stewardship of the public’s money is impossible and corruption would be endemic.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 4, 07:21 PM · #
Public unions, like private unions, can protect their members from abuses that aren’t motivated by efficiency—see Erik’s comment above. I think they differ from private unions in their role in setting wages: If a private union wins a pay increase, it comes at the expense of the owners who are a small, well-organized group. Now if a public union wins a pay increase, it comes at the expense of the diffuse, disorganized taxpayers. I think it’s better for public sector pay to be set by elected officials during the budget process than through bargaining. Otherwise, I think public and private unions should be treated the same.
— sacman701 · Aug 4, 09:03 PM · #
In many public jobs, the government has a virtual monopoly on that career. You can only counteract that balance by having a union. I’m an air traffic controller. There are no private equivalents to working in a place like JFK or ATL. Therefore the only way to extract fair benefits and salary for working in such a place is collective bargaining. Rent seeking or not, there is no market mechanism that’s magically going to give me the salary I’m supposed to get. I mean damn, you point how ridiculously inefficient government is but you don’t seem to apply that to the way government deals with the labor it employs.
— Console · Aug 5, 09:50 AM · #
Sacman,
Pay scales are part of negotiated agreements. It’s really quite simple for a private business, or a public agency, to avoid paying those salaries: Don’t agree to them. In fact, government executives and legislators have fabulous ability to do so pretty much at will: dissolve the agency in question and re-constitute it. With dissolution comes a negation of the contract.
— Erik Vanderhoff · Aug 5, 04:54 PM · #