End Collective Bargaining

There is no reason why a public sector employee requires collective bargaining. I can understand - to an extent - that it works for public safety employees. The police is essentially a local army, and there is a valid argument for payment based on rank. But the schools are not. And there is no reason why teachers should be paid based on anything but performance, as determined by their manager.

Why should a bad teacher with 10 years of service get paid more than a great teacher with 5 years of service?
Why should someone besides the principal get decide how much her employees get paid?

The whole collective bargaining system should be dismantled.

Choosing to make life harder for young workers

Karl Smith is the Assistant Professor of Public Economics at UNC-Charlotte, and he has studied retail employment over the past 20+ years. Given that retail sales have, in real dollars, risen nearly 40% since 1990, he posits that retail employment of teenagers (age 16-19) should be higher than it is.

In his article, What the 'End of Retail' Means for Young Workers, Dr. Smith ignores the fac that the minimum wage has gone up over that same period. Young people first entering the workforce are the least productive and least valuable workers in the world. Yet, the government has made it more and more expensive to hire them. Hiring less of them is a perfectly rational and predictable response by retailers.

The fastest way to get young people int the workforce and contributing to society is to eliminate the minimum wage. But the unions won't allow that to happen.

The consequences of unions

The biggest problem with unions is that members rarely get properly rewarded for their behavior. Great teachers get paid about the same as mediocre teachers. Creating high quality parts doesn't create any more job security than creating defect-riddled parts. And conversely, it is just as hard to get rid of an inept firefighter is just as it is to get rid of a good one. 

And among the worst offenders are the police unions. They are notorious for looking the other way when one of their own breaks the law. But it goes even further. In Denver, the union is fighting to reinstate an officer who was dismissed after being convicted and sentenced for DUI and speeding. And by speeding I mean exceeding the speed limit by over 80 mph. 

This country needs to get rid of public employee unions. 

Hat tip: Instapundit 

A drop in the bucket

A few facts:

• The current Congress cannot adopt a budget that binds a future Congress.
• The targeted spending changes of the so-called "Super Committee" amounted to less than 5% of the projected spending over the planning period (10 years).
• There were no spending cuts in the charter of the "Super Committee." Government spending increases in every plan given serious consideration.
• It has now been over 940 days since the U.S. Senate has passed a budget of any kind.

My opinions:

• The President and Senate have both abdicated their authority and have shown themselves to be fiscally irresponsible.
• The Democratic party, and its primary constituents (unionized government labor), are demonstrating a blatant disregard for the fiscal health of our country, in favor of their own personal well-being.
• Unionized government labor is becoming a ruling class and is attempting to make that status permanent.

The consequence of the minimum wage

One of the most common arguments when it comes to the minimum wage is that it hasn't keep pace with inflation, and therefore should be raised. However, only one part of that argument is factual. The other is purely opinion.

In 1978, the minimum wage was $2.65 per hour, which when it is adjusted for inflation would equate to $9.18/hr in 2011. Therefore, it is true that increases in the minimum wage have lagged behind increases in the general price level.

But an increase in the minimum wage is a government action ... and all actions have consequences. Even if that action is supposedly in response to other events, the consequences are real.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only one in four teens, age 16-19, have found a job. Notice the steady downward trend since the peak in the late 70's.

Notice how teen employment dropped until the early 80's, then climbed again until 1989, when it began another steep drop.

What happened?

Year	Min. Wage
1981	$3.35
1990	$3.80
1991	$4.25

Each drop in teen employment was preceded by a federally mandated increase in the minimum wage. This is a small sample which illustrates this larger pattern. It is an entirely predictable pattern. And it should call into question the very existence of a minimum wage.

The entire history of minimum wage rates is available at the US Dept of Labor.

The right to work

I don't know the history of labor law, so I really don't understand how a person can be required to join a union in order to work at certain companies. But that is the essence of the dispute between Big Labor - and its allies in the administration - and Boeing.

We must wake up to the damage that unions are doing to our economy. They drive up costs. They make it harder for businesses to justify hiring more workers. And public unions are the most insidious of all. They spend their members dues on political activities in order to elect legislators that will divert ever more money from the private sector into the union.

New Hampshire's legislature passed a right-to-work bill, but the democratic governor vetoed the bill. Would it be a surprise to learn that unions supported Gov. Lynch in his campaign? You get what you pay for, I guess. Here's hoping the state senate can override that veto, and that right-to-work spreads across the Northeast as other states recognize their competitive disadvantage.