Another Step Toward Freeing Washington From The Union Grip
We’ve been told for decades that working for the government is a calling, a service to society not unlike being called into the ministry or feeling an obligation to teach the next generation of Americans. If so, why do public employees need unions? Maybe in our lifetimes we’ll see public-sector unions reduced to the rubble they should have been crushed into decades ago.
Government workers aren’t angels and their union affiliations aren’t sacred. The country would be better off with far fewer of the former and none of the latter. To this end, President Donald Trump issued an executive order in March that barred agencies that have national security missions from conducting collective bargaining with unionized workers. Naturally, the unions, fearing that their easy money was in jeopardy, took the administration to court.
The order was blocked by a federal district court, but last week the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals granted the administration a stay of the lower court’s injunction. The unions of course yawped as if they had been ordered to the slaughterhouse.
At one time, rational thinking in Washington said no to federal employee unions. But President John Kennedy signed an executive order that allowed federal workers to organize. Since, public-sector unions have benefited those who’ve been able to procure government jobs, as well as the union bosses whose greed for members’ dues is well documented.
But just as consumers lose when they buy goods and services that have been stamped with the union label somewhere along the way, taxpayers are fleeced by public-sector unions. Federal employee salaries and benefits are about 30% higher than comparably skilled private-sector workers. Compared to all workers in the private sector, federal workers earn 80% percent more, on average. Powerful unions, says the Committee to Unleash Prosperity are also “why it’s been near-impossible to fire even the most incompetent federal bureaucrats.”
The average compensation gap for federal employees has existed for decades, but it widened significantly from 2000, when it was less than $14,000, to 2018, when it reached more than $30,000. It had closed a bit by 2021 to about $25,000, but that’s hardly progress.
With their extra dollars, organized federal workers also make generous contributions to Democrats, who, when elected or reelected, work as hard as they possibly are able to further entrench the federal work force, boost pay and hire new workers to expand the unaccountable administrative state. As we’ve seen in recent months, the bureaucracy is a barrier to reform. It has no interest in taxpayer relief, or even in performing productively for its “customers.” It’s a slopping blob focused only on expanding its power and reach.
Trump, a businessman who knows the harms caused by unionization, has had organized federal employees on his removal list since his first term. As a representative of the taxpayers, he boldly picked the fight that presidents before him should have. If he wins, it will be more than a political victory. It will be triumph of progress.
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