Monday, January 19, 2004

Look for the union label ... on government employees

John Fund has an interesting piece at the WSJ on the changing nature of the labor movement and the Donk candidates they support - Meany vs. Deanie. Here's the big picture:
The industrial unions may be declining in membership, but they have redoubled their investment in politics to the point that some unions now routinely deplete their entire treasury in election years. The industrial unions are also now completely unforgiving of any deviation from protectionism.
I'm sure the union members had nothing better to do with the cash, but this isn't all that new. What's new is:
On the other side of the labor divide, government and white-collar union members are more secure but growing ever more powerful within the Democratic Party. "The big story in labor in the last 15 years is that the hard left has taken over the public-sector unions, and no major Democrat will stand up to them," says Steve Silberger, who was chief Washington lobbyist for AFSCME from 1980 until 1988 and now mourns the leftward shift of the union movement. "The Democratic Party is becoming a pure party of government--the public interest is being subordinated to a special interest that prospers when government grows."

Should Howard Dean win Iowa and go on to become the Democratic nominee, it will mark a major shift in the power structure of the union movement. Back in the 1950s, only 5% of union members worked for the government. In 1983 that figure had reached 32%. Today, a full 46% of all union members are in the public sector. David Denholm of the Public Service Research Foundation notes that in 2002 private-sector unions lost 445,000 members while their public-sector counterparts gained 165,000 members. "Within a few years, a majority of union members will work for the government," he says. That could have a profound impact on the Democratic Party. "Private-sector workers tend to want companies to grow and prosper even if they want more pay and benefits," says pollster Scott Rasmussen. "That was the philosophy of the late George Meany and the AFL-CIO in the 1970s. But public-sector workers want government to grow first, and the overall health of the economy isn't as relevant to them."
Since they zone out when the source of taxes is discussed, we're in for a rough ride.