Another Sign Unions Losing Influence

Publius Forum ^ | 11/29/10 | Warner Todd Huston

[Mobile Vulgus]

Unions in America really are under assault from every direction. Certainly they are still powerful and not to be under estimated, but unions really have lost much of the power they once had. At less than 20 percent of the work force these days, the unions that are left have been finding themselves being forced to make the sort of concessions that they once would never even consider.

The New York Times reports on one more bit of news showing that unions are taking deals just to stay working that once would have been flatly refused as two-tiered wage scales are becoming more common in this recessionary economic climate...

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[Mobile Vulgus]

“Every vendor, every pensioner, every citizen will go down hard to preserve public sector unions.”

And Obama will make sure the unions get preferential treatment, too. He couldn’t care less who else is hurt.

[curiosity]

The problem is that as unions become extinct in the private sector, public sector unions will fight back tooth and nail to make sure that if bankruptcy does occur, that they are privileged over all other creditors. As happened with the GM bankruptcy.

I think that's less likely to happen in a state bankruptcy. In GM'S case, the Federal government had a lot of leverage because it was providing debtor-in-possession (DIP) financing. In the case of Chrysler, most of the creditors were TARP recipients, and essentially were thus forced to go along with whatever the Feds wanted.

I don't see what would give the Feds a comparable amount of leverage in the case of a state bankruptcy. There's no need for DIP financing, and banks typically don't make up a large portion of a state's creditors. On the contrary, a state's creditors largely consist of pension funds, university endowments, and bond funds held by retirees, all of which are politically powerful constituencies.

[curiosity]

And Obama will make sure the unions get preferential treatment, too.

I think it will be harder to do in this case. See post 22.

[BenKenobi]

There’s never been a past example. What will happen is that the cuts will target every ‘non-union’ worker under contract with the state.

Then they will cut essential services, Police/Fire departments, getting rid of new cops, or ‘early retirement’ to those who already are close to topping off their pensions.

The idea is to make the austerity cuts hit the public as hard as possible so that the public SCREAMS against the cuts and then the communists push against the cuts in the next election, saying that they’ll restore it, and they will win.

It’a an age old game. I’ve ran before, on a platform of balancing the budget only to run into fire from my own party that argued such wasn’t at all possible. Libs run on my ideas, cut the deficit and in two years the budget will be balanced again.

Sooo frustrating. So much coulda woulda shoulda, but I won’t run for backstabbers again.