How Collective Bargaining Strengthens Local Public Services
Several months ago the US Supreme Court ruled in Harris v. Quinn that eight Illinois home-care aides who provided home care to Medicare recipients “…should be classified as partial public employees and should not be treated the same way as public schoolteachers or police officers who work directly for the government.” (Read the NY Times Article.) As a consequence, the home-care aides could not be required to pay any fees to the Service Employees International Union, which represented them in bargaining and administered their contracts.
It remains to be seen what the future implications of the Harris decision will be for public employee unions, especially in light of the recent midterm elections. Will the application of Harris be limited to “partial public employees” such as the home-care aides? Or will Harris set the stage for subsequent Court decisions that overturn the 1977 Abood v. Detroit Board of Education decision that government employees could be required to pay fees to the unions representing them for ‘fair share’ collective bargaining costs?
Mulling over the implications of Harris, I thought back to the 2011 Wisconsin Act 10 legislation that ended collective bargaining for most local public employees in Wisconsin. The passage of that legislation, and the failure of the recall effort later that year to oust Governor Walker, provided a major lift to subsequent efforts across the country to limit or end public employee collective bargaining.
I was the Eau Claire City Manager, and in February of that year, the Eau Claire City Council became the first local legislative body in Wisconsin to adopt a resolution opposing Governor Walker’s proposal to dismantle public employee collective bargaining. In a 10-0 vote, the City Council affirmed its position that:
Skilled public employees and proactive employee unions are intrinsic to the Wisconsin tradition of innovative and progressive public service and have been instrumental in the provision of quality public services for residents and businesses in the Eau Claire community;
Good faith public sector collective bargaining is critical for the long-term delivery of innovative and cost-effect public services;
Eau Claire has a long history of productive relationships with our public employees and our public unions; and
Ending public employee collective bargaining would assist neither the State of Wisconsin nor the City of Eau Claire in addressing current or future budget challenges.
The resolution concluded that:
…the City of Eau Claire stands in solidarity with the hard-working men and women of the public sector and thanks them for their invaluable contribution to our community through plowing our streets, keeping our families safe, maintaining our water services, staffing the library, cleaning our parks, putting out fires, driving our buses, cleaning our schools, and teaching our children.
When asked later about the Council’s action, I cited three reasons why I as City Manager supported collective bargaining for public employees:
First, as City Manager, I need employees who will share their ideas and speak up about how to improve the services we provide to the public. I want well-trained, educated, and innovative employees who are not afraid to bring forward ideas about our work processes and who are not afraid to offer an opinion that may differ from mine. I want employees who feel they have a voice in their workplace. Eliminate collective bargaining rights and the accompanying confidence of the individual employee that they do not stand alone and I-we-will lose the insights and perspectives of the workers in the trenches about how best to improve the work they do.
Second, I believe that collective bargaining and unions, both in the public and private sector, are essential for maintaining a healthy democracy. Private sector unions were a critical part of the thirty-year growth in middle-class family income following WWII. Since the 1970s, we have seen a decline in private sector union membership from 30+% to about 6%, a growing disparity in wealth between the richest and poorest households unequaled since 1929, and an overall decline in the purchasing power of the middle class. I believe this was not a coincidence.
The political freedom essential for a functioning democracy in the US cannot be sustained without a prevailing sense of economic freedom and justice and a strong, economically stable middle class. The economic engine that drives the US economy cannot be sustained if there are too few US consumers to purchase what the US economy can produce. The political compact that binds the governed to their government cannot be sustained if the economic gains of the wealthiest 2% continue to be matched by flat or negative income growth for the poorest 70%. The underlying belief that democracy works cannot be sustained if the call for ‘shared sacrifice’ means only sacrifice by the middle and working class to increase the wealth shared by the richest 2%.
Third, local government should practice what it preaches. Local government should strive to strengthen local democracy. Local democracy is where citizens have face-to-face, daily contact with the public services and public structures that provide the underlying framework for communities to get things done and protect people and businesses. People learn how to be active and effective citizens in the public lives they live in their neighborhoods and local communities and in the connections they experience with their local government. In working to empower citizens to fashion a stronger local democracy, local government should model the same philosophy and empower public employees to be active co-creators of their public work lives.
Looking back to what I wrote three years ago, I don’t think I would change much. Good local government—effective, efficient, transparent, and responsive local government—requires well-trained, competent, responsible public employees at all levels focused on doing the right things and doing them well and empowered to speak up when something seems off-track. I believe that good faith, genuine collective bargaining is essential for that to occur.