Time to end public sector collective bargaining

Without taking sides with the teachers or with the school board,   we need to think about the legal framework within which the current situation in Portland has developed.    Decades of experience suggest that public sector collective bargaining is a bad idea and that legislation authorizing it should be repealed.

The National Labor Relations Act authorized collective bargaining only with private employers.  The legislation  presumed an inequality of bargaining power between individual workers and big corporations; by joining forces behind a sole bargaining agent, workers would get better treatment.  Franklin D. Roosevelt,  the father of American labor law,  had opposed extending the NLRA to cover government employees.  He thought that a strike against a democratic government would be an abomination. 

Unlike private sector workers,  non-unionized government employees already enjoyed substantial protection against high-handed treatment thanks to civil service laws.  And, like all citizens,  they voted, making up a substantial bloc that elected official preferred not to offend.

Decades later,  though,  collective bargaining for state employees and then federal workers was authorized.   After several more decades,  situations brought about by public sector unionization do not make a pretty picture.

Unions negotiating with private employers have no interest in getting such a good deal that it bankrupts an employer or drives it to outsource production to China.  Public sector unions have had less reason to restrain their demands. 

The new laws allowed unions to pressure officials  to accept contracts government could not afford over the long run.  Rather than raising wages,  officials agreed to generous pensions for future retirees but failed to fund them.  Recent  bankruptcies of cities starting with Vallejo,  California (where I graduated from high school in 1957) and culminating with the spectacular bankruptcy of Detroit are largely due to unwise contracts with employee unions .

Strikes by government workers often have a more dramatic impact on daily life than strikes against private employers.  Strikes by subway workers or bus drivers can tie up a whole city.  Strikes by police or fire fighters can produce disasters.  As Portland residents are well-aware,  a strike by teachers can cause horrible problems for working parents.  This, of course, is why officials have so often knuckled under to union demands in the past, and will probably continue to do in the future unless we change the legal order they must work within.

Occasionally officials have dug in their heels.  When public school teachers in the Crestwood School District in Michigan struck in 1975,  the school board responded to the strike by firing all the teachers and replacing them.  This was upheld by the courts,  but caused lingering hard feelings between different segments of the community.  In the following decade President Reagan fired striking PATCO members when the air controllers declared an illegal strike.   

But we cannot count on elected officials to act more courageously than most of their predecessors.  Their basic interest inclines them to accept contracts postponing the unpleasantness so that someone else has to deal with it.

Public sector bargaining was a well-intended experiment that has produced bad results. 

Although it will be controversial,  we  should repeal all legislation allowing public employees to unionize and strike.  In the past Oregon has led the nation in progressive legislation promoting the welfare of the general public;  we now have an opportunity to continue in this grand tradition. 

Don't blame illegal immigrants for unemployment

Richard F. LaMountain’s latest diatribe against illegal immigrants employs impeccable logic---but only if you accept his premises.  He points out that many Oregonians are jobless,  that long-term unemployed have lost extended unemployment benefits,  and that people who can’t drive find it harder to get a job.;  Therefore,  he opines,  we should support the upcoming ballot measure aimed at overturning the legislature’s decision granting driver cards to undocumented residents.  The aliens losing their driver cards will, he argues, lose their jobs and be replaced by real Americans. 

LaMountain assumes that the number of people with jobs is a “zero-sum game.”  That is,  if one person gets a job it means someone else will be unemployed as a result.  This is clearly untrue,  since the total number of people with jobs is constantly changing, sometimes upwards.  

He further assumes that unemployment is inevitable, and that therefore we should strive to make sure that the “right” people—inferior specimens who have “broken into our nation”---are the ones who are jobless.  This assumption is also contradicted by facts.  During World War II,  for example,  there was no unemployment in the United States. Such was the labor shortage that people who were previously excluded from jobs---black people,  women---were eagerly recruited.    

If LaMountain is so concerned about jobless citizens,   he should support measures to eliminate unemployment rather than seeking to redistribute it.  There are various ways we could do this:  CCC-type programs,  government as employer of last resort,  repeal of minimum wage legislation that prices some people at more than they are worth to employers (perhaps coupled with increases in the Earned Income Tax Credit for low-wage workers), or some combination of these approaches.  I will be eager to see which of these reforms he will endorse, but will not hold my breath waiting.     

Clearly,  LaMountain doesn’t like illegal aliens.  I still remember his 2009 Oregonian article fulminating about how much it costs to educate alien children in our public schools and advocating throwing them out. Of course expelling these children would violate the Supreme Court decision that this would violate the Constitution.  It should be noted that even the dissenting justices, who disagreed with the majority’s interpretation of the Constitution,   said expulsion would be horrible social policy:

"Were it our business to set the nation's social policy, I would agree without hesitation that it is senseless for an enlightened society to deprive any children -- including illegal aliens -- of an elementary education," wrote the four dissenting justices in the Supreme Court decision, including Chief Justice Warren Burger. "I fully agree that it would be folly -- and wrong -- to tolerate creation of a segment of society made up of illiterate persons."

Of course if their children can’t go to school this might deter some illegal immigrants.  So would denial of driver’s licenses.  Would LaMountain go so far as to make it illegal to sell or provide such aliens with food?  Or water?  (A few years ago a fellow down in Arizona was convicted of “littering” for putting jars of water near the Mexican border so people crossing the border illegally wouldn’t die of thirst,  which many have.) 

Where does this kind of thing stop?  Is this really the kind of country we want to live in?

Oregon voters should remember that the legislature carefully weighed the conflicting considerations, the advantages and disadvantages of issuing driver cards, and concluded that on balance it would be a good idea to issue the cards.  Voters should not support efforts to overturn this decision of the legislature.

Moscow TV in Corvallis: Virtual Residency in the Internet Age

The new year invites comparisons with the past, and a major recent change has been the ease of watching foreign television.  Corvallis residents no longer have to pay a cable or satellite server for premium foreign channels, which now can be watched for free over the internet.

The website www.beelinetv.com lists 45 languages from Arabic to Vietnamese,  and for each a choice of  stations streaming over the internet.  It was through this website last May that I discovered a station in Moscow,  Moscow-24 (http://tv.m24.ru/)  with the most wonderful variety programming of any Russian channel I have visited.

Moscow-24 focuses almost entirely on Moscow life,  but with some attention to news from the rest of Russia and the world at large.  After watching it for six months I feel like a Moscow resident, though I only spent four days there 25 years ago.  Call me a virtual resident. 

All this listening has greatly improved my oral comprehension of Russian, and I have filled many notebook pages with new words.  I have also learned a great deal about life in Moscow today.

During the summer there was a campaign for mayor, and I soon recognized the establishment favorite—Sergei Sobyanin---who had been appointed acting mayor and who showed up multiple times a day while the other candidates got little attention.  There were televised debates in which the other five candidates participated but Mr. Sobyanin didn’t.  One of the other candidates had recently been in prison, likely for political reasons,  but came in second in the election---perhaps a “moral victory.”

One of my favorite programs is an interview show where an excellent interviewer talks with artists, entertainers and athletes,  and almost always has one or more cats sitting beside him or crawling over him.  If it is not his own cat,  a note on the screen advises that if you want this cat,  here is the Moscow telephone number to call.  The program,  Pravda-24,  has its own Facebook page!

The station has news every half hour, and,  floating by at the bottom of the screen, weather details, headlines,   exchange rates,  and traffic levels on local highways and freeways.  Yes, Moscow has traffic---lots of it.  The number of cars there has risen from about a million ten years ago to over four million now, and parking has become a big headache.  So have spectacular accidents, which often are televised because so many people have video cameras in their cars. 

Even the ads, for five minutes before the hour and the half hour,  are interesting.  One of my favorites was for Renault cars.  Prairie dogs are shown playing in the boondocks, when a Renault approaches on the nearby road.  The critters dive into their hole,  but come right back out dressed in tuxedos and bow ties,  line up along the road, and reverently watch the car sail by with grand opera music blaring from its loudspeakers.   Other ads are for supermarkets, entertainment, new apartments,  banks, and foods. 

Not everyone will be interested in watching Russian TV,  but a lot of people might find a station through www.beelinetv.com that could improve their facility with some other foreign language and their understanding of another culture.  One hopes that language teachers and students are taking full advantage of the opportunities now available for free over the internet. 

Watching Moscow TV has increased my interest in visiting that city again sometime.  Now if the Russian government would just simplify the current bureaucratic tangle confronting visa applicants and reduce the cost of the visa to a reasonable amount . . . .

Defending Saddam Hussein---my 2004 op-ed

 This article was published after Saddam Hussein was captured but  before he was tried and executed.  Needless to say,  he did not take my legal advice,  nor did I expect him to.  

It should be clear by now that Saddam Hussein was a terrible person, but that the average Iraqi would be better off today if we had left him alone.  And so would we!

**************************

Published on Tuesday, December 7, 2004 by CommonDreams.org
Defending Saddam Hussein
by Paul F. deLespinasse

Iraq`s interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi reported recently that he had received an appeal for mercy from a "depressed and broken" Saddam Hussein. Allawi said Hussein claimed that he had been "working for the general good and ... didn`t aim to harm."

Hussein`s claim sounds outrageous when we consider how many people he bumped off during his career. But it is not inconceivable that he was telling the truth, and if he gets a fair trial, he just might be acquitted.

American experience demonstrates that Iraq is not an easy country to govern. Given Iraq`s history and ethnic and religious divisions, any leader who is less willing than Hussein to kill large numbers of people may not be able to govern at all. The one thing worse for the average person than a government like Hussein`s is the total absence of government.

Niccolo Machiavelli, writing 500 years ago, puts it to us bluntly: A leader, he says, "should care nothing for the accusation of cruelty so long as he keeps his subjects united and loyal; by making a very few examples he can be more truly merciful than those who through too much tender-heartedness allow disorders to arise whence come killings and rapine."

There is no danger that Saddam Hussein will be convicted of tender-heartedness. But if he had not been overthrown, today`s average Iraqi would be better off financially and enjoy more personal security.

Iraqi life today is characterized by bombings, murders, rapes, assassinations, robberies, kidnappings and a total disruption of daily life. Sen. John McCain says that when looting broke out after the United States seized Baghdad, our forces should have shot looters on the spot. Our failure to do this undoubtedly reduced Iraqi support for the occupation, emboldened petty criminals and "resistance fighters," and helped to produce today`s general mess. But public opinion back home would have been horrified if we had done what McCain now recommends.

More than 300 years ago, Benedict de Spinoza noted the immense dangers in removing a tyrant: "For a people accustomed to royal rule, and kept in check by that alone, will despise and make a mockery of any lesser authority; and so, if it removes one king, it will find it necessary to place him by another, and he will be a tyrant not by choice but by necessity."

Of course, Hussein and his buddies lined their own pockets and lived very high on the hog out of the public treasury. But that is hardly a hanging offense, and there was nothing unique about their behavior. Like corporate executives who can determine their own compensation, all rulers have a high estimate of their own worth and pay themselves accordingly.

It would be a horrifying commentary on Iraqi circumstances if a government like Saddam Hussein`s is the best one possible there. But that may well be the case, and in that event it would be unjust to convict Hussein.

Of course, few tears will be shed for Saddam on the day he is executed, if it comes to that. A little injustice is inevitable once in a while.

Paul F. deLespinasse is professor emeritus of political science at Adrian College in Michigan. He can be reached at pdeles@proaxis.com.

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Unpublished 1970-1971 article: Behind Every Policeman, A Fair Witness

I have just scanned and posted on my website a 2100 word article I wrote during my 1970-1971 sabbatical at the Harvard Law School.  National Review wouldn't use it, and it was never published.  It seems to have great relevance given the mess resulting from the police shooting in Ferguson, Missouri.  The parents of the man killed today asked people to: "Join with us in our campaign to ensure that every police officer working the streets in this country wears a body camera."   If you read my article you will see why I think this is a great idea.

See the article here.  

It is also available under the Fundamental Concepts Papers link.

1984 paper "Beyond Capitalism and Communism" now available

I have now posted the paper I wrote to deliver as the keynote address to a conference in Boston sponsored by CARP,  the Collegiate Alliance For the Research of Principles in April of 1984:  Beyond Capitalism and Communism,  on my website.  It is available under Fundamental Concepts Papers. 

This paper first introduced some of the concepts which are the central focus of my  recently published Kindle book:  The Metaconstitutional Manifesto:  A Bourgeois Vision of the Classless Society.