The labor movement sure has changed, and not for the better. For one thing, a majority of union members now work for taxpayer-funded governments, not profit-seeking businesses.
What’s wrong with that? James Sherk writes, “if a union ends up extracting a contract from a private firm that eats up too much of the profits, then that firm will be unable to reinvest those resources and will lose out to competitors. But when a union extracts a generous contract from a government, there is no check on that spending. Instead of being forced out by more efficient competitors, the government just raises taxes.”
In other words, there’s no mechanism for correcting the excesses of labor unions.
Even in the private sector, though, unions can get too big when they are enabled by government. Consider the obvious: President Obama’s takeover of GM was in fact a bailout of the UAW. Bailouts, whether the intended beneficiary is management or labor, is an abuse of government power.
Since we’re in back-to-school week, I’ll offer a simple “mathematical” formula: Big government + big labor + big business = big trouble.
From The Detroit News: http://apps.detnews.com/apps/blogs/watercooler/index.php?blogid=633