Steve Gunn: Public interest always beats out special interest

Wisconsin Recalls.JPGSupporters of a recall effort against Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker continue to sing a union solidarity song outside the State Capitol Building after polling results begin show a victory for Walker in statewide recall elections June 5, 2012.

Are Wisconsin's voters smarter than Michigan's?

I guess we'll find out within a few short months.

On Tuesday, voters in the Dairy State overwhelmingly rejected a union-led effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker, a tough Republican who angered Big Labor by passing a law restricting collective bargaining privileges for out-of control public sector unions.

The election was a huge victory for people who believe that the public interest must always take precedent over self-serving special interests.

steve-gunn80.jpgSteve Gunn

Big Labor leaders wanted voters to believe that Walker restricted collective bargaining just to "break the unions" and score a long-term political victory for his party. In fact he acted to end an ugly cycle of collective bargaining abuse that was bankrupting local governments in Wisconsin.

Municipal governments and public schools had been struggling for several years to meet their responsibilities with shrinking resources. One problem was that their employee unions kept ignoring economic conditions and demanding more and more at the bargaining table, even as the recession dawned and government revenues slowed to a trickle.

When they were asked to make concessions for the general good, the unions frequently refused.

Since local governments did not have the option of cutting labor costs, the budget ax often turned to critical programs and services. While the largely unemployed and underemployed public was suffering, the privileged few in the public sector continued to enjoy their perks.

Walker’s Act 10 changed the rules of the game. Under the new law, local governments and school districts were allowed to balance their budgets and rethink their spending priorities without union approval.

The unions were only allowed to negotiate for raises that matched increases in the cost of living index. Union members were forced to pay 5.8 percent of their salaries toward their pensions and 12 percent of their health insurance costs. Those percentages may sound tiny by private sector standards, but they produced a lot of necessary savings at the local government level.

You saw the reaction on the television news. Union members stormed the state capitol by the screaming thousands. Democratic lawmakers left the state in protest. Lawsuits were filed, and finally the recall effort against Walker was arranged, with more than 1 million signatures gathered on petitions.

Then something happened. Local governments started balancing their budgets without the need to cut services, lay off younger employees or raise taxes. The citizens of Wisconsin realized the sky wasn’t falling just because the unions no longer had the power to make or break municipal budgets.

In the end, Walker survived the recall with flying colors, winning by a larger percentage Tuesday than he did in his original election in 2010. People finally understood that genuine leaders have to make tough decisions in tough times, even if that means angering very powerful and spoiled special interests.

Forward to Michigan, where Big Labor is currently gathering signatures to put a so-called “Protect Our Jobs” proposal on the November ballot. If adopted, the proposal would enshrine union collective bargaining privileges in the state constitution, and put them out of reach of government adjustment or regulation.

That means public sector unions in Michigan would be free to continue to monopolize government budgets with aggressive ”collective bullying” strategies.

They could continue to endorse and elect union-friendly members to city councils and school boards, then dictate the terms of friendly contracts that guarantee their perks in good times and bad. If local governments faced the need to roll back labor costs, they would always need union permission to do so.

Essentially the unions would have permanent power to dominate public budgets, and our elected lawmakers would be powerless to curb them.

One sentence in the petition language sums up the danger: “No existing or future law of the state or its political subdivisions shall impair, restrict, or limit the negotiation or enforcement of any collectively bargained agreement with a public or private employer.”

Translation – we will get what we want, regardless of the cost to the taxpaying public, and there will be nothing you can do about it.

We could forget having a healthy debate about the obvious need for a right to work law. The amendment would also endanger many commonsense state laws recently enacted to curb union abuses, like the very critical emergency financial manager legislation that gives state appointees the right to void union contracts that cripple public budgets.

Unionized public sector employees only comprise a small percentage of Michigan’s population. Are we really going to allow a tiny but aggressive special interest group to hog-tie our state and local governments in such a manner?

Should the unions really be above the law and common-sense regulation? Do we really want to grant them a permanent license to drag us down during our most vulnerable economic periods?

Wisconsin is the cradle of the American labor movement, and unions are deeply respected in that state. But even Wisconsinites realized that the greed of the few should not be allowed to make life more difficult for the vast majority of citizens.

Now Michigan voters face a similar choice. They should think long and hard before signing the “Protect Our Jobs” petition, and if the proposal makes the ballot, they should ask themselves if union activity should remain out of reach of reasonable regulation.

The answer was obvious to the smart voters of Wisconsin. Are we at least as smart as they are?
