Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind

by Mallory Factor

  There are lots of other benefits of working for the government, too. According to Steven Greenhut in his book Plunder! “Drivers of one out of every 22 cars on California roads have special license plates whereby their addresses are kept secret from toll agencies and parking enforcement agencies. When an officer pulls over someone with one of these plates, the addresses are in a special database that alerts the officer that the driver is a government worker, or fellow police officer, or a family member of someone in law enforcement or government work. The result is a de facto pass on many, if not most traffic laws by the drivers.”25 If working for the government can get you out of speeding tickets, what can’t it do?

  On the downside, though, most union contracts prevent government workers from getting paid extra for good performance, although some government employees do get extra bonuses in the form of performance awards.26 So if you don’t feel like having your performance evaluated but still want to earn good pay and retire early with great benefits, the government sector is for you. But if you want to be paid based on your performance, try the private sector.

  This may explain why you have a harder and harder time getting people at the Social Security bureau or the Department of Motor Vehicles to hustle to serve you. After all, they understand what you may not—they don’t work for you; you work for them. Your job is to keep making the pie so that the government employee unions and their “net tax receiver team” can eat more of it. Now, get back to work!

  Government Unions Rising

  Unions were on the endangered species list by the 1960s and 1970s. Then, like most real-life endangered species, they found their great protector: the government. Now unions are flourishing, and they are threatening all the other species in our political ecosystem.

  Of the 125 million people working in America, only about 13 percent are represented by a union. But of the 20.5 million people working for our government, 41 percent are represented by a government employee union.

  Of the 125 million people working in America, only about 13 percent are represented by a union. But of the 20.5 million people working for our government, 41 percent are represented by a government employee union. One in three federal workers, 35 percent of state government workers, and almost 47 percent of local government workers are represented by a government employee union.27 In the more heavily unionized states, government employee unionization rates can be as high as 60 to 70 percent. More than two in three public school teachers are unionized, about two in three police officers and firefighters are unionized, and one in two corrections officers are unionized.28

  In the private sector, unions are still on the endangered list and still declining every year—less than 7 percent of all private sector workers are union members.29 Workers in America’s businesses seem to have decided that whatever benefits unions bring, they are not worth the cost. But in the government sector, unions are flourishing.

  Millions of government employees join unions. Of course, many government employees in forced-dues states join the union because they have to pay union dues anyway. But over a million federal employees are members of a government employee union, even though these workers can’t be compelled to financially support a union.30 And to a much lesser extent, some government employees in right-to-work states who also can’t be forced to pay union dues still join a union.

  All government employees rushing into the unions must be getting something important for the expensive dues that they pay their union, but what? They’re keeping their lucrative jobs even when common sense would dictate that these jobs should be cut. The unions are protecting them from being displaced by technology and greater efficiency in the workplace.

  Protecting the Dinosaurs

  Unions protect government workers against their own obsolescence. To see how, look at the U.S. Postal Service, a branch of our government that employs about 750,000 workers,31 including 574,000 heavily unionized career postal workers.32 The Postal Service has far more employees than any corporation in America except Walmart.33 A public relations pamphlet from the post office boasts, “If it were a private sector company, the U.S. Postal Service would rank 29th in the 2010 Fortune 500,” a ranking based on gross revenue.34 Of course, if the Postal Service were really a private sector company, it would have been out of business a long time ago.35

  Despite investing up to $2.7 billion annually in capital investments on new mail processing equipment and other equipment designed to increase efficiency,36 your mail service is not getting more efficient. Perhaps this is because postal managers sometimes keep “using [obsolete] mechanical equipment even when automatic equipment was available, just to keep workers from standing around idle.”37 Or it may be because postal union contracts prohibit the Postal Service from reassigning idle workers to facilities that actually need them.38 Even as the Postal Service was losing $8.5 billion in 2010 (with that much cash, you could actually buy Chrysler), the confident president of the American Postal Workers Union still said that he was fighting for “more—more control over activities at work, more money, better benefits—we want more.”39 More, more, more.

  Similarly, while many countries in the world transformed their air traffic control system using Global Positioning System (GPS) technology over a decade ago, our air traffic controllers union is still resisting this “new” technology.40 “Wait!” you protest. “Air traffic controllers union? Didn’t President Reagan hand those guys their heads in the early ’80s?” Yes. But, like a zombie buried prematurely, the union hand reached out from the grave. Just a few years later, air traffic controllers re-unionized and elected the National Air Traffic Controllers Association (NATCA) as their exclusive representative. Why? Because they needed the union to protect their jobs against improved technology making many air traffic control jobs obsolete.41

  We all rely on GPS today to find the best route, even to keep a virtual eye on where our friends are via Facebook and collect badges at our favorite coffee bar via foursquare. Why is our air traffic control system ignoring GPS and still handing off aircraft from tower to tower across the country using radar, more or less the same way we did when John F. Kennedy was president?42 It’s because a GPS-based system requires significantly fewer controllers to do the same job, and union bosses prefer to stick with the old system. So long as unions have friends in high places in our government, flying in the United States will be more expensive and less efficient than in all those other countries that use GPS.

  And how did the union handle it when national news media reported incidences of air traffic controllers falling asleep on the job, putting planes and passengers’ lives in jeopardy? The union negotiated with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for the perfect solution—for each shift, it required that another air traffic controller be placed on duty to make sure that the first air traffic controller doesn’t fall asleep, and actually allowed controllers to listen to the radio and read on the job to help keep themselves awake.43 If that doesn’t work, undoubtedly the unions can propose an air traffic controller watcher watcher. And so on.

  In government, we all know who the dinosaurs are—some postal workers, air traffic controllers, and pencil pushers. These are the people who would lose if the unions were kicked out and the government streamlined itself. And the winners would be us, the taxpayers. But we are dispersed and not fully aware of what the unions and our government are up to. Most of us still believe that we’re flying pretty safe and getting our mail more or less on time. By the same token, when we really need a package delivered quickly, we bypass the U.S. Postal Service and take a stroll down to nonunionized FedEx instead.

  Buying the Government

  Government employee unions use campaign contributions and political support to influence government decision makers at all levels of government. Using this very friendly and effective method of persuasion, the government employee unions can get Congress to give them more federal workers to unionize, persuade states to force more workers to pay dues to them, and ensure tha
t other elected officials go easy on them in contract negotiations.

  Political activity was not as important to the private sector unions because politicians couldn’t generally affect the unions’ bottom line as directly. But buying political influence—legal bribery—works perfectly for government employee unions. After all, it is the government that determines whether these unions will be able to represent new groups of government employees, so it makes sense for unions to invest their money in putting their friends in government. These unions run like smoothly oiled machines, and they argue that nobody gets hurt by their political influence. Except the American pie maker, that is.

  The Real 1%

  What do government employee unions do with all that dues money that they earn off the backs of government workers and American taxpayers? They pay the Shadowbosses first, of course. While former SEIU president Andy Stern lamented the fact that people “sometimes think being a union leader is a right or an inheritance,”44 the truth is that the Shadowbosses themselves think that being a union boss is a right. Stern himself drew $306,388 in compensation in 2009 before stepping down in 2010.45 Being a Shadowboss is like being a dictator of a third-world country—once you’ve got power, you don’t step down willingly and you take as much as you can while you are in office.

  Gerald McEntee, the president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), makes $555,367.46 AFSCME’s former international secretary-treasurer William Lucy took home $847,810 in salary alone in 2010. AFSCME had sixteen executives at the national headquarters who made in excess of $200,000 per year, and almost half its headquarters employees made over $75,000 in 2010. There are many more union officials earning high salaries at the state and local level, although this information is much harder to come by. In contrast, the average AFSCME member makes less than $45,000 per year.47

  Dennis Van Roekel, president of the National Education Association, makes almost $400,000; Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, makes over $425,000 in salary annually, almost ten times what an average teacher earns.48 And over half the union officials at the headquarters of the two teachers unions make over $75,000 a year. Even a pro-labor commentator complained about bloated union boss salaries, “With union members everywhere getting squeezed by employers, fat salaries for top officials only widen the gap between elected leaders and the rank and file.”49 The left—including the unions—proclaims that it’s unfair for Wall Street executives to make huge salaries, and that the 1 percent are living off the rest of us. But the true 1 percent includes the union bosses, who rake in the money, dine at the White House, and live it up on the backs of their members. By any measure, workers should be striking against the union bosses themselves!

  The left—including the unions—proclaims that it’s unfair for Wall Street executives to make huge salaries, and that the 1 percent are living off the rest of us. But the true 1 percent includes the union bosses, who rake in the money, dine at the White House, and live it up on the backs of their members. By any measure, workers should be striking against the union bosses themselves!

  Government’s where it’s at, and the government employee unions have one goal: grow government, unionize more government workers, and charge the bill to the taxpayers. And that’s just what’s happened. Anytime you see potential government growth, you should suspect that the government employee unions are behind it.

  UNION BOSSES’ SALARIES AT THE LARGEST GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEE UNIONS AND FEDERATIONS

  Union or Federation Top Officials and their salaries Union Officials making over $75,000 at national union headquarters out of total employees* Membership

  AFL-CIO Federation Richard Trumka (compensation $283,340); Previously John Sweeney (1995–2009) 206 of 404 Total membership of affiliated unions is 11.7 million

  National Education Association (NEA) Dennis Van Roekel (compensation $397,721) 532 of 992 Almost 3.3 million members including teachers, school support staff, school administrators, and higher education staff

  Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Mary Kay Henry (compensation $253,660); Previously Andy Stern (1996–2010) and John Sweeney (1980–1995) 340 of 892 1.9 million members including one million government employees, public school employees, bus drivers, and child care providers

  American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) Gerald McEntee, President, (compensation $555,367); Previously Jerry Wurf (1964–1981) 292 of 662 Almost 1.5 million members including law enforcement, home care providers, EMTs, sanitation workers, social workers, government office workers

  International Brotherhood of Teamsters James P. Hoffa Jr. (compensation $368,000); Previously Jimmy Hoffa (1958–1971) 190 of 630 1.3 million members including 239,000 government workers in law enforcement, prisons, public works, schools

  American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Randi Weingarten (compensation $428,284); Previously Al Shanker (1974–1997) 256 of 412 887,567 members including teachers, district employees, bus drivers, cafeteria employees

  International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Harold Schaitberger (compensation $324,903) 107 of 144 296,186 members

  American Federation of Government Employees (AFGE) John Gage (compensation $214,097) 151 of 339 280,292 members—AFGE is the largest union for civilian, non-postal federal employees

  Postal Unions Various Various Postal unions include the National Association of Letter Carriers (285,592 members), the American Postal Workers Union (248,012 members), and Postal Mail Handlers (198,042 members)

  Many other unions also represent government workers, including National Treasury Employees Union, United Steelworkers, International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, International Association of Machinists, United Auto Workers, Communications Workers of America, and others.

  * These unions have many additional employees at the state and/or local level with salaries over $75,000 but only the employees of the national union are given here.

  All union official compensation and membership numbers from union reports to Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS), Center for Union Fact, and official union websites.

  Where Do Government Employee Unions Come From?

  If you were hired today as a police officer in California, a teacher in New York, or as a government bureaucrat in Illinois, you would be told that there is a specific union that will represent you in matters with your employer. You will also be told that you will be paying dues or fees to that union for the privilege of representation.50 And if you refuse to pay these union tithes, you will be fired. Simple enough.

  But how did that union get all this power? Clearly, you have no say in the matter, but what about Old Joe, who’s been here for the last twenty years? It turns out he doesn’t know how the union got there, either. It was here when he was hired. Old Joe never voted to bring in the union or to keep it there. It just seems that the union has always been there since the dawn of time.

  Actually, most government employee unions gained control over government workers sometime in the 1960s or early 1970s, when many states passed laws allowing monopoly collective bargaining over government workers. A state might have done this because it was a trend sweeping the nation at the time—all the cool states were doing it. Or, more likely, the unions had made enough pro–labor union “friends” in the legislature and had supported the governor in his election to make it happen. Now, unions exercise collective bargaining power over at least some state and local government workers in forty-three states, plus the District of Columbia.51

  In any case, when these laws were first passed, a bunch of different labor unions made a beeline for your state, like flies to honey, and tried to unionize every group of government workers in sight. First, the unions as a group would have had to convince at least 30 percent of the workers in a bargaining group, say the police officers in San Diego County, to sign cards asking the state to hold a union election. Once the unions had collected enough cards, the state held a secret-bal
lot election. That is when it got ugly. For a few weeks or months, the various unions fought tooth and nail—and kneecap—for every last worker, spending hundreds of dollars per worker trying to get their vote. When the election was held, whichever union won the majority of votes from police officers voting in the election was certified as the representative for all police officers in the county. The other unions licked their wounds and went away to organize other workers in other jurisdictions.

  What if you voted against the union because you wanted to be able to negotiate your own pay and benefits individually with the department? Too bad. The union became your exclusive representative, too.

  Union Contracts

  The newly installed union would now negotiate detailed contracts with the county or locality. The first contract would be a “union security contract” giving the union power to represent workers and collect dues; the second contract would cover employment terms for the officers.

  The union’s highest priority in negotiating its own contract is always a “forced dues” provision that allows the union to collect dues and fees from every worker it represents, union member or not. This is the gold mine that fuels the government employee union movement. The represented workers aren’t forced to actually join the union—but even if they don’t join, they are forced to pay “agency fees” to the union, which unions more gently call “fair-share” fees. Because the nonmember fees are the same or almost the same as union dues, most workers join the union. With union membership, you get some extra insurance coverage, some other benefits—and most of all, the union thug outside your office door or hovering over your cubicle will go away. So if you can’t beat ’em, you might as well join ’em.