The usual suspects are caterwauling that a slew of bills by conservative Louisiana legislators supposedly amount to an assault on workers’ benefits and “rights.” On some of the bills, such as one that could reduce compensation for injured workers, perhaps the caterwaulers are right. On public-sector unions, though, the legislators are on the side of reason and of democratic accountability.
As I noted here last year when the subject was public-sector unions in New Orleans rather than statewide, two 20th century liberal icons, President Franklin Roosevelt and AFL-CIO leader George Meany, both argued that public-sector unions are anathema to small-‘r’ republican government.
Roosevelt said that “the process of collective bargaining … cannot be transplanted into public service,” and Meany pronounced it “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.” Longtime centrist reform advocate Philip K. Howard, in his 2023 book “Not Accountable: Rethinking the Constitutionality of Public Employee Unions,” wrote that such unions, unlike private-sector ones, possess “extortive power.” While they do not face “any other organized opposing force” such as business executives worried about profits, they actually hold power over the people supposed to be their bosses, namely the officials elected to represent the public, because they provide a political bloc to whom the officials cater.
Public sector unions, he said, essentially can “do what is impossible in the private sector — to ‘capture’ the officials on the other side of the table.” That’s why reformist mayors and governors of both parties, Howard wrote, providing copious examples, “all crashed into the union wall.”
In “Not Accountable” and other books, Howard has collected a cornucopia of horror stories about the near-impossibility of firing even the worst public-sector employees, even lawbreakers, because of overweening public-sector union power. He also cataloged copious instances of “spiking pensions with extra overtime and disability claims,” such as the fire chief in California who gamed the system to boost his post-retirement pension from about $140,000 per year up to well over $200,000. This all comes, of course, at the taxpayers’ expense.
With those realities in mind, what exactly would some of the proposed bills do?
House bill 572 by state Rep. Raymond Crews, R-Bossier City, would (with a few exceptions) “prohibit collective bargaining agreements for public officers and employees.” No governmental body under the state’s jurisdiction would even be allowed “to recognize any labor or other employee association… with respect to any matter relating to the public officer’s or employee’s employment or service.”
Well, that’s rather definitive. Note, though, that this would not obviate civil service protections. It would not remove the workers’ rights to speak up or to organize politically. It would just remove collective, direct, employment-bargaining power.
Relatedly, Crews’ proposed House Bill 571 prohibits any division of state or local government from using public funds or providing paid leave for union activities. While it would not nullify existing public-employee contracts, it would forbid the renewal or extension of existing public-employee contracts that do provide such compensation or paid leave. And it would create a right of legal action for any taxpayer to challenge any public employee for violating the prohibition.
Again, as Roosevelt and Meany explained, these are essential safeguards against bargaining “captures” that destroy democratic accountability.
Finally, Senate Bill 264 by Republican Alan Seabaugh of Shreveport would ensure that government workers know they have a right to join or not join a union, and would prohibit automatic payroll deductions from being used for unions’ political efforts. This is eminently reasonable, and is entirely in line with two key U.S. Supreme Court decisions, the 2018 Janus v. American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) and the 1988 Communication Workers of America vs. Beck.
None of which, by the way, is meant to dishonor civil servants, who will retain plenty of job protections, which they well deserve.
Instead, these bills merely recognize that employment on the public fisc is a different animal than private-sector employment, and that the tax-paying, voting public’s interests are supposed to be paramount.
Whatever complaints there may be about some of the other labor-related bills filed in the Legislature, these three proposals should not be lumped in with those others as if they represent some sort of return to poorly paid sweatshops. These three bills merely restore common sense principles to the realm of public employment.
New Orleans native Quin Hillyer is deputy commentary editor for the Washington Examiner. He can be reached at Qhillyer@WashingtonExaminer.com. His other columns appear at www.washingtonexaminer.com/author/quin-hillyer.