Public-sector unions not on the side of the "little guy"

Illinois Governor Pat Quinn, Rod Blagojevich's former running mate, made his name in the 1980s by fighting for "the little guy," he battled big utilities. But Quinn is part of the system now--and part of the problem. SEIU, a union dominated by public-sector workers, is a primary contributor to his campaign to win a full-term in Springfield.

And those public sector unions, as Mort Zuckerman (no conservative, he) points out in US News & World Report, these unions aren't "the little guy."

The business community and a growing portion of the public now understand the dynamics that discriminate against the private sector. The public sector unions organize voting campaigns for politicians who, on election, repay their benefactors by approving salaries and benefits for the public sector, irrespective of whether they are sustainable. And what is happening with California is happening in slower motion in the rest of the country. It must be one of the reasons the Pew Research Center this year reported that support for labor unions generally has plummeted "amid growing public skepticism about unions' power and purpose."

There has been a transformation in the nature of our employment. Labor is no longer dominated by private sector industrial workers who were in large part culturally conservative and economically pro-growth. Over recent decades public sector employment has exploded and public workers have come to dominate the labor movement. These public sector employees have a unique and powerful advantage in contract negotiations. Quite simply it is their capacity to deliver political endorsements and votes for the very people who are theoretically on the other side of the negotiating table. Candidates who want to appear tough on crime will look to cops, sheriffs' deputies, prison guards, and highway patrol officers for their endorsement.

Zuckerman, oh by the way, it's nice to see more establishment media attacking the overreach of these public servants, has an idea to counter the inequity of and restore fairness.

We have to escape this cycle or it will crush us. One way is to take labor negotiations out of the hands of vulnerable legislators and assign them to independent commissions. They would have a better shot at achieving a fair balance between appropriate salary increases and the revenues and services of local municipalities. The electorate won't swallow any more red ink.

The Pat Quinn of the 1980s would have been on the side of taxpayers.

When is the Illinois mainstream media going to sound the alarm on this issue?

Related post:

Tough mom fights back against unions and Pat Quinn

Technorati tags: Illinois politics illinois politics Democrats SEIU labor politics illinois politics Blagojevich Patrick Quinn pat quinn gop 2010