pull down to refresh

Are Government Unions As Scammy As I Think They Are?
861 sats \ 14 comments \ @siggy47 15h AskSN
I was reading this post: #1089728 and started thinking about government unions. There is no question that employers can exploit workers, but it seems that unions should only be relevant when there are two sides with opposing incentives.
Government management and workers are on the same team sucking from Leviathan's tit. Management benefits when workers get more. The only victim is the taxpayer.
It seems obvious.
I have felt this way for years, but I'm not sure everyone agrees. I know my cop and teacher friends don't!
write
preview
related posts
161 sats \ 3 replies \ @SimpleStacker 14h
I actually don't think the problem with public sector unions is that staff are aligned with management. Oftentimes, they're not. (I've seen the tensions with my own eyes--and they're often fighting over a fixed budget set outside of union negotiations.)
I think the bigger problem with public sector unions are:
  • The types of people attracted to union leadership/membership tend to be comrades, so they let themselves get distracted by macro-causes that don't actually benefit their members
  • The incentive structure of government funding pushes towards unions being better at negotiating non-pecuniary benefits rather than simple salary increases.
That's why it's so hard to fire union workers, and why they get such good retirement benefits, but their wage tends to grow more slowly than in the private sector. Wages are also flattened out across the performance distribution.
I don't know how to fix it, but I've always thought we'd have much better teachers (and other public workers) if unions were allowed to negotiate baseline salaries and benefits, but not allowed to negotiate rules regarding promotion and termination.
I could be wrong though, there's all sorts of strange incentives that could arise in a public sector setting that I'm not anticipating.
reply
72 sats \ 2 replies \ @siggy47 OP 13h
My overarching sense is that every government department wants to increase its own budget year to year. There is no incentive to shrink. In a private business, money can't just be printed or stolen. I'm sure there are anecdotal examples, but I think the exceptions might prove the rule here. It is true that local and state governments might be constrained at times, but federally it's a free for all.
reply
66 sats \ 0 replies \ @Undisciplined 11h
They're aligned on wanting more funding, for sure, but there are still areas where the managers would like to be able to dictate terms that the employees don't want to abide by.
I think there's more alignment than in the private sector, because there's no profit share being divvied up between ownership and labor, but there are still points of contention.
Trump's been on a tear lately, ripping up union agreements left and right, so they may not have ever had much bite. That speaks to your point that maybe there wasn't much pressure from the management side of the table until now.
reply
72 sats \ 0 replies \ @SimpleStacker 13h
Oh for sure. But I think that's a problem for every agency, even the ones that aren't unionized.
I was more trying to think about the pathologies that are inherent to public sector unions, specifically
reply
36 sats \ 1 reply \ @4dcfa2e179 7h freebie
I think it really depends on perspective. Some people see government unions as a burden on taxpayers, while others view them as necessary protection for workers like teachers and police. Everyone has their own way of looking at it.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 6h
It also depends on where you live. Where I live teachers and police are the upper crust. They are very well paid. This is true although the crime rate is low and students are motivated.
reply
36 sats \ 0 replies \ @Ge 10h
They r trash hate the fact just cuz someone been with the union longer they got more pull even if they r lazy
reply
36 sats \ 0 replies \ @BeeRye 12h
it should be illegal for government employees to form unions due to the perverse incentive problem you accurately explain.
reply
36 sats \ 0 replies \ @Signal312 13h
It's not just regular government unions that are scammy.
The United Nations also has unions of their workers. They're just as bad. It's just about preserving their jobs and increasing their pay.
I worked for one of the UN organizations decades ago. I used to be idealistic about that kind of organization, but no more.
At the time I was there, there had been an upheaval about how inefficient the UN was, they had brought in consultants to try to consolidate. But the union was just not having it.
The union's point was that something like 90% of the costs of the UN were from employees, and if there were going to be big cutbacks, that means they were going to come from reducing the number of employees, and they just weren't going to allow that to happen.
reply
36 sats \ 0 replies \ @sox 13h
In Italy, there's no statutory minimum wage, but contracts are negotiated by government-recognized unions via collective labour agreements per each work field.
They have too much power imo, and I'm not even against them having negotiating power! The problem is that they are often governed by politicians influenced by corporations, so their practices are only harmful for small businesses.
These collective labour agreements should only create a baseline for unions made by real employees, but they will do whatever they can to suppress these unions, especially if asked by whoever bought them.
reply
36 sats \ 1 reply \ @Oxy 13h
Do you think the problem is the structure of public‑sector unions, or the way budgets are allocated? Some will argue that the collective bargaining in schools improves teacher retention and student outcomes.
reply
0 sats \ 0 replies \ @siggy47 OP 13h
Yes, local budgets get more complicated. Where I live, property taxes support schools, and homeowners have gotten flogged for so long that there's not much left to suck out of them.
reply
36 sats \ 0 replies \ @justin_shocknet 13h
It's worse than that, if unions and government were inherently aligned it'd be easier to cut the head off the snake.
Got an anecdote locally where the teachers union is running an op against the superintendent who is trying to do some reasonable things from a tax-payers perspective. Things he's doing wouldn't get tax payers a refund or anything unthinkable, but their money might actually go a little further in terms of service quality... doing so would comes at the expense of union dues.
They're like any other special interest that uses central governance as a battlefield.
reply
36 sats \ 0 replies \ @kepford 14h
I agree.
reply