Public Sector Unions

  • Public Apples, Private Oranges: A More Ripened Look

    In a previous post, I criticized articles in the USA Today and elsewhere (all citing data from the conservative Cato Institute), which claimed that federal government workers earn almost twice as much as private sector employees (including salary and benefits). I argued that en masse comparisons of public and private sector workers don’t tell us much, since the jobs that comprise the two sectors are very different.

    For a more useful comparison, we need to understand not only that most public sector workers are professionals, but also that they tend to be more experienced, and more quickly promoted, than the typical private sector employee. For example, a lead research scientist will earn more than his or her staff scientists, whether they are working in the public or the private sector. So, if public sector employees in a given occupation tend to be more experienced or have more authority or responsibilities, they will appear “overpaid” even though they are not.

    So, how does the public/private wage gap look when we compare professionals in the two sectors by both occupation and experience/responsibilities?

  • Selling The State

    In a recent post, we discussed the explosive growth in privatization of public services, including one town that recently privatized everything and everybody. Along similar lines, this week, the Wall Street Journal published a story about desperate state and local governments, squeezed by declining revenues, selling or leasing public property to private interests. The reporter notes:

    Cities and states across the nation are selling and leasing everything from airports to zoos—a fire sale that could help plug budget holes now but worsen their financial woes over the long run.

    The notion that we should cede public services to the private sector has assumed the status of quasi-religious dogma in recent years. There was a brief time during the earlier, more dire days of the current recession during which many began to question this market fundamentalism. Such dissent continues in some circles today. But you wouldn’t know it looking at actual policy.

    Things may even be getting worse. Cash-strapped governments have stepped up efforts in a new area: privatization of public assets.

  • The Jobs Imperative

    With today’s Senate passage of the new public sector jobs bill, the federal government’s role in stimulating the economy is once again in the limelight. The use of public dollars to leverage jobs in the private sector is even more controversial. Historically (and today) U.S. business wants government to "get out of the way," and let market forces determine outcomes (at least until they themselves need to be bailed out). The priority is "maximizing shareholder value." The fewer workers you need to do that, or the lower their cost, the better.

    Still, some worry that the axiom of maximizing shareholder value lately has been taken to a destructive extreme. One of those is Andy Grove, former CEO of Intel and still a consultant to the U.S. chip-making giant. In a recent interview in Business Week, Grove noted that U.S. business is "...largely oblivious to emerging evidence that while free markets beat planned economies, there may be room for a modification that is even better."

  • Do Americans Think Unions Help Everyone?

    The question in the headline is fundamental when trying to understand attitudes towards organized labor, as well as the relatively low union presence in the U.S. The "if I can't have it, nobody can" attitude that anti-labor advocates try to promote among non-members packs far less punch if people understand that many of the conditions they take for granted - trivial things like sick days, minimum wages, and yes, weekends - are in no small part thanks to past and current efforts of the U.S. labor movement. Awareness of these efforts, and of the positive union effect on everyone's wages and benefits, is also, no doubt, partially dependent on one's experience with unions (e.g., coming from a "union family").

    So, it might be instructive to take a quick look at attitudes towards labor's effects in the U.S. compared with those in other nations, and whether this appears to be related to the degree of unionization. Basically - do Americans think unions help all workers, and how do our attitudes stack up against other nations?