If you haven’t heard, there is a battle being fought here in WI between the republican controlled state government and the public school teacher’s union. The republicans have a majority in the legislature and the governor’s seat. The state is facing budget deficits after years and years of democrat spending. The cadillac pension plan is underfunded. So the repubs have a bill that will fix the pension and “break” the union (have not read the bill but this is what has been reported in the local media). The state senate needs a minimum present to call quorom and the repubs are one short in the senate. For the democrats have left the state and shut down the government. The teachers have begun to “call in sick” and shut down some schools. The mob has assembled in Madison.
My dad is a public school employee and in the union but lives in MN.
We discussed this over the weekend.
His position was the teachers have the “right” to collectively bargain.
I have been thinking about this and pondering whether this ‘right’ is a negative or a positive one.
Anyone have any thoughts on this?
To say they don’t have this right, whether negative or positive, would be to say people don’t have the right to free association.
No one has the right to free association, you just have ‘free association’ period. In other words it is a liberty not a right.
Free association is an admissable act until it is made inadmissable by law or by coercion.
Nothing wrong with collective bargaining, free association is supported by most libertarians. Collective bargaining does not however mean that others should be forced to bargain with the collective either, which is exactly being done here, right of association also means that others do not have to deal with them. Forcing others to deal with others is most definetly a positive right.
On the more practical side, who exactly are they bargaining with ? The fact is that both sides of the table are on the same team, the unions vote for the same politicians that then grant them the taxpayers money.
Nothing wrong with collective bargaining
Well, there is logically - it’s useless and that’s why it’s non-existent wherever the strike-threat system is absent. The pressure on wages is identical whether or not you form some ‘union’. or not. However people can of course join any society they like, though a free market union would gain nothing from strikes or collective bargaining and would just become a trade association like the ones business men are a part of. Information and industry news, that sort of thing. Beers and maybe some mutual aid type of thing.