Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind (38 page)

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Introduction

1
Briefing by White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, January 11, 2010,
http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/briefing-white-house-press-secretary-robert-gibbs-11110
, accessed April 2012; “POTUS Meeting With Labor Leaders, Monday, January 11, 2010,” internal White House document,
https://www.judicialwatch.org/files/documents/2010/HHS_combined-3.pdf
, accessed April 2012. Additional labor union bosses who attended this meeting were: Anna Burger, chair of Change to Win (now retired); Joe Hansen, president of United Food and Commercial Workers; Terry O’Sullivan, president of Laborers International Union of North America; Leo Gerard, president of United Steelworkers; Ed Hill, president of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers; and Larry Cohen, president of Communications Workers of America. Every single union at this meeting represents some government employees (most in addition to private sector workers).

2
Andrew Kreig, “AFL-CIO President Says Courage Missing in Health Care Debate,” The National Press Club, January 12, 2010,
http://press.org/news-multimedia/news/afl-cio-president-says-courage-missing-health-care-debate
, accessed January 2012.

3
Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Steven Greenhouse, “President Signals Flexibility on Health Plan Tax,”
New York Times
, January 12, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/health/policy/12health.html
, accessed February 2012.

4
Erica Werner, “Labor Leaders Fight White House, Senate Democrats on Plan to Tax Workers’ Insurance Plans,” Associated Press, January 12, 2010,
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/labor-leaders-fight-white-house-senate-democrats-plan-tax-workers-insurance-plans
, accessed February 2012.

5
As an extra bonus, the Administration would waive the burdensome new requirements of Obamacare for many unionized workers. In May 2011, it was reported that of all 3.1 million people for whom Obamacare waivers applied, over half were union members. Mark Hemingway, “Over Half of All Obamacare Waivers Given to Union Members,”
Weekly Standard
, May 16, 2011,
http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/over-half-all-obamacare-waivers-given-union-members_561115.html
, accessed November 2011.

6
“Cadillac Plans,” editorial,
New York Times
, January 15, 2010,
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/16/opinion/16sat1.html
, accessed February 2012.

7
In 2011, there were 477,000 unionized post office workers and only 219,000 unionized workers in the entire domestic auto industry, according to James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation.

8
Charles Krauthammer, “ ‘Magnificent Turmoil’ Threatens Union Privilege,” Full Comment,
National Post
, February 25, 2011,
http://fullcomment.nationalpost.com/2011/02/25/charles-krauthammer-magnificent-turmoil-threatens-union-power/
, accessed January 2012.

9
Larry Margasak, “STOCK Act: Senate Passes Insider Trading Ban Bill,”
Huffington Post
, March 21, 2012,
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/03/22/stock-act-senate-insider-trading-ban_n_1373081.html
, accessed April 2012.

10
“Where Is the Civility?” transcript,
Sean Hannity Show
, February 25, 2011,
http://www.hannity.com/article/where-is-the-civility/12769
, accessed March 2012.

11
See Steve Moore, “We’ve Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers,”
Wall Street Journal
, April 1, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html
, accessed April 2012.

12
John C. Henry, “Fat Cat Union Salaries Exposed!” Fox Nation,
Fox News
, March 3, 2011,
http://nation.foxnews.com/politics/2011/03/03/fat-cat-union-salaries-exposed
, accessed March 2012.

13
Matthew Kaminski, “ ‘The New Tammany Hall,’ ”
Wall Street Journal
, November 26, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203716204577016092542307600.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
, accessed November 2011.

14
Michael O’Brien, “DeMint: Collective Bargaining Has No Place in Government,”
The Hill
, March 2, 2011,
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/146927-demint-collective-bargaining-has-no-place-in-representative-government
, accessed January 2012.

15
Both quotes cited in James Sherk, “Majority of Union Members Now Work for the Government,” WebMemo #2773, Heritage Foundation, January 22, 2010,
http://www.heritage.org/Research/Labor/wm2773.cfm
, accessed January 2012.

16
Arthur Laffer, “The States are Leading a Pro-Growth Rebellion,”
Wall Street Journal
, February 11, 2012,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203711104577201391354733460.html
, accessed April 2012.

17
Joel Klein, “The Failure of American Schools,”
Atlantic
, May 10, 2011, available at
http://www.nationaljournal.com/the-failure-of-american-schools-20110510
, accessed April 2012.

18
“Can I Be Required to Be a Union Member or Pay Dues to a Union?” National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation,
http://www.nrtw.org/a/a_1_r.htm
, accessed March 2012.

19
Technically, workers covered by collective bargaining agreements in forced-dues states have the option of not joining the union and paying agency fees to the union (instead of joining the union and paying dues). But agency fees are generally set at the same amount as union dues (or slightly less than union dues), so there is generally not much practical difference between paying
dues
or
fees
to a union.

20
Already, unions like the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) promote “retirement unions,” which lobby the government to increase and protect retiree benefits including Social Security and Medicare. See
http://www.afscme.org/union/retirees
. People join these unions voluntarily, but future organizing efforts may force retirees and other groups into unions under a new organizing model discussed in
chapter 8
.

21
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Union Member Survey 2011, table 3,
http://www.bls.gov/news.release/union2.t03.htm
, accessed April 2012.

22
“State Debt Per Capita, Fiscal Year 2010,” Tax Foundation, February 16, 2012,
http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/show/268.html
, accessed March 2012 (latest data is from 2010). Two right-to-work states are among the top twenty states in terms of debt per capita as a percentage of GDP: #14, South Dakota; and #20, Louisiana.

23
“Testimony of Mark A. Mix, President, National Right to Work Committee,” House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, April 14, 2011, p. 3,
http://oversight.house.gov/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/4-14-11_Mix_Testimony_full_hearing.pdf
.

24
“Back to School Statistics,” U.S. Department of Education, National Center for Education Statistics,
http://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=372
.

25
Jason Riley, “Was the $5 Billion Worth It?”
Wall Street Journal
, July 23, 2011,
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424053111903554904576461571362279948.html
. “ ‘The overall impact of the intervention, particularly the measure we care most about—whether you go to college—it didn’t move the needle much,’ he says. ‘Maybe 10% more kids, but it wasn’t dramatic… We didn’t see a path to having a big impact, so we did a mea culpa on that.’ ”

26
Walter Isaacson,
Steve Jobs
(New York: Simon & Schuster, 2011).

27
Sid Johnston, “Teacher of the Year Fired in Lincoln Park Due to Budget Issues,”
Newjersey.com
, June 13, 2010; Mary Ellen Flannery, “I Thought I’d Stay Forever,”
NEA Today
, January 23, 2010. New Jersey is not the only state to fire promising young teachers ahead of all older teachers—almost all states do the same. See, e.g., Erin Richards and Amy Hetzner, “Seniority System Cuts Fresh MPS Teachers amid Budget Crunch,”
Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
, June 14, 2010,
http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/96349689.html
, accessed April 2012.

28
Bureau of Labor Statistics, Union Member Summary, January 21, 2011; Steven Greenhouse, “Union Membership in U.S. Fell to a 70-Year Low Last Year,”
New York Times
, January 21, 2011.

29
Mark Mix, “Public Unions Seek National Monopoly,”
Washington Times
, September 3, 2010.

30
Reed Larson, quoted in “Passage of Civil Service Reform Reconfirms Union Clout,”
National Right to Work Newsletter
, October 13, 1978, p. 5.

31
Quoted in Neil MacNeil and Amy Wilentz, “I Will Veto Again and Again,”
Time
, March 18, 1985.

Chapter 1. Meet the Shadowbosses

1
As we discuss elsewhere in this book, some government employee unions don’t have the power to negotiate over wages and benefits. For example, unions cannot generally bargain for increased wages for most federal employees, which are set by Congress according to government pay schedules, and the same is true in some states. These unions, however, do lobby Congress (for federal workers) or the state legislature (for state workers) to increase the compensation of their members, and the unions handle workplace evaluations and grievances and provide other worksite representation.

2
Donna Wiesner Keene, e-mail to the author, January 30, 2012.

3
Byron York, “Michelle Obama: ‘Don’t Go into Corporate America,’ ”
National Review Online
, February 29, 2008,
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/159678/michelle-obama-dont-go-corporate-america/byron-york
, accessed January 2012.

4
Chris Edwards, “Overpaid Federal Workers,” Downsizing the Federal Government website, February 2012,
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/overpaid-federal-workers
, accessed March 2012. This report states, “In 2010, federal worker compensation averaged $126,141, or double the private-sector average of $62,757.”

5
“Mitt Romney Says 500,000 Federal Workers Earn More Than $100,000 a Year,”
Tampa Bay Times
Politifact.com
, September 3, 2011,
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/sep/03/mitt-romney/mitt-romney-says-500000-federal-workers-earn-more-/
, accessed April 2012; Dennis Cauchon, “Some Federal Workers More Likely to Die Than Lose Jobs,”
USA Today
, July 19, 2011,
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2011-07-18-fderal-job-security_n.htm
, accessed January 2012.

6
James Sherk, “Inflated Federal Pay: How Americans Are Overtaxed to Overpay the Civil Service,” Center for Data Analysis Report #10-05, Heritage Foundation, July 7, 2010,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2010/07/inflated-federal-pay-how-americans-are-overtaxed-to-overpay-the-civil-service
, accessed December 2011. See also Andrew J. Biggs and Jason Richwine, “The Public Worker Gravy Train,”
Wall Street Journal
, February 24, 2011.

7
Sherk, “Inflated Federal Pay: How Americans Are Overtaxed to Overpay the Civil Service.”

8
For a thorough analysis of studies of government versus private sector compensation, see Daniel DiSalvo, “What’s the Evidence on Comparative Compensation?” Public Sector Inc., February 13, 2012,
http://www.publicsectorinc.com/forum/2012/02/whats-the-evidence-on-comparative-compensation.html
, accessed February 2012. See also Jason Richwine, James Sherk, and Andrew Biggs, “Federal Pay is Out of Line with Private Sector Pay: CBO Supports Heritage, AEI Conclusions,” Backgrounder #2653, Heritage Foundation, February 15, 2012,
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2012/02/federal-pay-is-out-of-line-with-private-sector-pay-cbo-supports-heritage-aei-conclusions
, accessed March 2012.

9
Chris Edwards, “Employee Compensation in State and Local Governments,”
Cato Institute Tax and Budget Bulletin
, January 2010,
http://www.cato.org/pubs/tbb/tbb-59.pdf
, accessed January 2012; Chris Edwards, “Public Sector Unions and the Rising Cost of Employee Compensation,”
Cato Journal,
Winter 2010, pp. 87–115,
http://www.cato.org/pubs/journal/cj30n1/cj30n1.html
, accessed February 2012.
Other reports show the state and local employees don’t necessarily make more in salary alone than private sector workers, but when both salary and benefits are considered, they can make as much as 30 percent more than private sector workers. See Biggs and Richwine, “The Public Worker Gravy Train.”