The recent actions being taken across the country to reduce public union bargaining abilities and restructure benefit plans is as inflammatory as it is intriguing.
Since the Wisconsin Democrats fled three weeks ago, the state of affairs has been inarguably terse; having tens of thousands of protestors flown in from around the country is a difficult enough situation when you consider that these people have to eat and sleep somewhere. The logistics alone are stressful, before adding in the anger that has been at elevated levels since this freeze began.
However, now that a resolution appears to be in sight, it seems like this highly infuriating subject is a good point on which to focus my efforts, to address a generally absurd claim I’ve been hearing.
The argument goes something like this:
This is the first step to returning to 1920 labor conditions. Without the unions and their ability to collectively bargain, there is no one protecting the working class.
Ignoring the fact that collective bargaining for pay raises has little to nothing to do with working conditions (and public unions haven’t completely lost the right to strike without consequence), here’s an incomplete list of United States Labor Laws in no particular order:
1. Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938 (amended to cover government employees in 1974)
2. Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974
3. Family and Medical Leave Act of 1993
4. Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970
5. Civil Rights Act of 1964
6. Civil Rights Act of 1991
7. Age Discrimination in Employment Act of 1967
8. Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990
9. Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986
If you’d like to see the behemoth that is US Labor Law, an open indication that this is not the 1920’s, then by all means, check out the entire list of them here.
What is generally apparent is that the rights of U.S. workers are guaranteed considerably beyond the overly simplified illustration of organized labor constantly fighting off the attempts of some blurry menace, Big Business, to destroy them.
Unfortunately, while the entirety of this issue was entertaining to watch, it brought only instability and, even after this outcome, no relief to the three groups that need it the most; government entities, business organizations, and taxpayers.
Wisconsin is still broke, desperately hoping to hold even. And for the moment taxpayers and their businesses are still paying exactly what they were before now.
But, perhaps the debt of public entities will now improve going forward.
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Great Post way to set the record striaght!
Indeud.
good one, man. unions are the most destructive entities ever created. they destroy the businesses they purport to serve, they destroy morale among their workers (sit down for a brewskie with some union people sometime and tell me you have ever met more miserable people with more complaints (with respect to their jobs, I don’t mean in general)), and then…
…eventually, they destroy themselves and their members when there is nothing left to feed on.
They are working on destroying an entire state, even, MI.
eventually, the end game for unions and the environments in which they operate, is everybody loses, everything fails.