Over the past two decades the trend of unions in our nation has been troubling. In the Fifties and Sixties, unions served as advocates for labor in securing fair wages and compensation benefits. Today the union landscape has changed.
In 2010, the public sector held 500,000 more members than the private sector. Local government workers dominate as 42.3 percent of them now hold union member cards.
Public employee compensation packages have gone askew. Wisconsin teachers receive pay and benefit packages much higher than the median of the private sector. Milwaukee teachers receive on average $100,000 in pay and benefits while residents must scrape by on $37,000 a year.
Worse, Wisconsin teachers have such scant confidence in their public schooling institutions that nearly one third send their children to private schools. In essence, these public teachers cross their own union picket line, sending their children to non-union schools, in order to deliver the best education for their children.
Over the past two decades our society has created a new class--the government class--whose pay and benefits have grown to be outliers compared to the private sector workers who pay their wages. Let's be honest here: they have become over-compensated elites at taxpayer expense.
These are hard times we have not seen since the Great Depression. Eighteen million Americans are now out of work. An Additional 17 percent of us are underemployed or simply gave up looking for work. One fourth of the American population is now out of work or under-employed. That means the tax burden to support overly-compensated government employees falls on smaller pool of workers in the private sector. The current trend is unsustainable. Even the union leadership in Wisconsin publicly conceded for a collective sacrifice.
The union's claim that Governor Walker is demanding they surrender collective bargaining rights is a false claim. Governor Walker is merely asking the unions to bargain collectively at the municipal level, rather than at the state level, to grant municipalities more control over their budgets. This will prevent catastrophic budgetary meltdowns for years to come.
Fo us to succeed as a thriving middle class nation, this trend must be reversed. Compensation for our public employees must be fair and equitable to them, as well as for those private workers who support them. A change in the way we have been doing business is in order.
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