Testimony of Rep. Andrew J. Manuse, R-Derry
HB 1645, prohibiting all public employees from participating in collective bargaining
Labor, Industrial and Rehabilitative Services Committee
January 19, 2012
This bill has been called an anti-union bill. This bill has been called hateful and destructive to the public worker. But in reality, this bill has nothing to do with public sector employees, whom I respect and trust in their important public service roles. This is a bill about public sector unions.
Before I get into the depth of my testimony, let me quote quote from a person who is clearly not anti-union and who probably has the respect of many of the detractors of this bill. “All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining as usually understood cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent or bind the employer in mutual discussions with government employee organizations.”
Guess who said that? It was Franklin Delano Roosevelt in 1937 when he was president of the United States. While I don’t like much of what F.D.R. did during his presidency, I happen to agree with him about this.
Collective bargaining rights in the private sector are appropriate so long as joining any collective bargaining unit is voluntary. On the other hand, public sector unions are contrary to the public good because they give state workers an unfair seat at the table of government, leaving taxpayers out in the cold. This has led to regular salary and benefit increases in the public sector, even when the economy is tanking. This has also led to a public sector employee base that earns more than their private sector counterparts.
When I say that taxpayers don’t have a seat at the table, here’s what I mean: The negotiations between elected officials and the union representatives are imbalanced and favor the unions. The union representatives have a strong personal stake to maximize what they receive from the negotiations and minimize what they provide to the negotiations. On the other hand, the elected officials have little to no personal stake to minimize what they provide to the negotiations and maximize what they receive from the negotiations. Also, elected officials have more interactions with the union members than they do with the taxpayers, thus they are more likely to favor the unions. Although public officials who are elected are more likely to favor the taxpayer than an official who is appointed, their election is not as immediate a concern as their sit down with the union officials to negotiate a contract. This imbalance in the negotiations, over time, will lead to a feedback loop that has a far greater likelihood to benefit the unions at the expense of the taxpayer, and over time, this has become financially unsustainable.
Another issue is the current instability between the shrinkage of the tax base and the growth of the public sector. Any overall growth in the public sector increases the instability. It’s an interconnected system. If the public sector doesn’t align itself with the reality of the tax base, all will suffer.
Now, I’ve heard some public sector employees say they too are part of the tax base, that they too are taxpayers. This sentiment is not altogether true. In reality, public sector employees’ contribution is still a net loss to the people in general. For example, say they make $100 from the government (i.e., the taxpayer) and then they pay $10 in taxes. This still requires $90 out of the tax base to support these public workers’ salaries. For this reason, public sector employees cannot argue that they are truly net positive contributors to the tax base. Imagine a world in which everyone is working for the government? Who pays when everyone’s taxes are required to pay everyone else’s wages?
The public sector unions behave as a monopoly on the functional groups of public employees, both internally (the members have no choice but to belong or pay agency fees, which is belonging by force) and externally (only their people can do the jobs described in the contract). Do the U.S. Anti-Trust laws apply to them? They should. What about Part II, Article 83 of the Constitution. Our state government is supposed to break up monopolies, not create them. Given their organizational allocation of jobs, monopolized public sector unions are a model of inefficiency and waste of time and money. Isn’t this why our constitution prohibits monopolies? And after all, how many people are needed to change a light bulb? Can union employees truly justify their benefit given what they cost the taxpayer? If the choice is efficiency in government or maintaining the size of the current government workforce, a union’s first obligation is to its members and therefore is against efficiency.
As I’ve examined the county and state budgets this year, I felt paralyzed by unreasonable union contracts that don’t take into account the market conditions that taxpayers are facing. While the taxpayers (the employers of public sector union members) are getting no pay raises at all, cuts in pay, or laid off, union employees are demanding more raises and new benefits. The time for common sense has come. The taxpayers do not have any more money to give.
I agreed to co-sponsor this legislation because the public servants have become the masters. It is simply wrong that public sector union employees get everything they want while taxpayers lose their homes and everything they’ve worked for to over taxation. This must change.
If unreasonable union demands do not come to an end, there will be no more middle class, there will only be the ruling class and the rest of us who support it. I, for one, am not willing to build such an unreasonable future in New Hampshire. I will support every bill that removes the ill-gotten power of public sector unions and every single bill that gives individuals more say in whether they want to belong to a union. I work for the taxpayers, not for the unions.
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Well Stated! to the point…and truthful.