February 28, 2011 /

Michael Bloomberg On Unions

The mayor of New York hits the nail on the head: Correcting this imbalance is not easy, but in a growing number of states, budget deficits are being used to justify efforts to scale back not only labor costs, but labor rights. The impulse is understandable; public sector unions all too often stand in the […]

The mayor of New York hits the nail on the head:

Correcting this imbalance is not easy, but in a growing number of states, budget deficits are being used to justify efforts to scale back not only labor costs, but labor rights. The impulse is understandable; public sector unions all too often stand in the way of reform. But unions also play a vital role in protecting against abuses in the workplace, and in my experience they are integral to training, deploying and managing a professional work force.

And that’s something missing in the current debate. All the focus is on salaries and benefits, yet safety and training are a big issue the unions play a big part in. How about we take a really deadly statistic to prove this?

But an examination of the incidence of coal mine fatalities since 1995 shows that in every year but one fatal accidents occurred in non-union mines at a rate disproportionate–usually much more disproportionate–to the non-union share of the workforce. In other words, unionized mines were much safer.

Safety and training go hand in hand. When unions negotiate, one of the things they push for is better education, especially when it comes to worker safety, but also they push for better safety equipment. A lot of times other concessions are made to achieve this, including salaries and benefits. But that’s something the Walker crowd doesn’t want you to know about. Let’s just go ahead and have more Upper Big Branch mine accidents and fatalities.

And then Bloomberg gets to the heart of the matter:

Organizing around a common interest is a fundamental part of democracy. We should no more try to take away the right of individuals to collectively bargain than we should try to take away the right to a secret ballot.

That’s it right there. The right hates the facts that a lot of unions tend to support the left more than the right, so let’s take away their basic right to organize. This coming from the party that claims to stand for the Constitution.

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