Participants: Lincoln Steed (Host), Bruce N. Cameron
Series Code: LI
Program Code: LI000168A
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00:22 Welcome to the Liberty Insider.
00:24 This is the program that brings you up to date 00:26 news, views and discussion on religious liberty events 00:30 in the United States and around the world. 00:32 My name is Lincoln Steed, editor of Liberty Magazine 00:36 and my guest on the program is Professor Bruce Cameron, 00:39 who is the Reed Larson Professor 00:41 at Regent University. 00:43 Welcome to the program. 00:44 Bruce and--I know from other discussions with you that, 00:49 that you've got a lot of interesting insights. 00:52 It's great to be here. 00:53 Yeah, in particularly, your specialty 00:55 on religious accommodation on labor unions. 01:00 There're so many directions that I can take this, 01:02 but let me take it in the direction of criticism of me. 01:08 Editing Liberty Magazine, you know, 01:09 I try to choose appropriate articles 01:12 and a while back I contacted you. 01:14 I think I've made the contact to you, but -- 01:16 You wrote an article for Liberty on the shemozzle, 01:21 for one of the better word, not too long ago in Wisconsin, 01:23 where the governor was tackling 01:26 the government employee labor unions 01:31 and there was the strange case of the legislators 01:34 who have gone across the state line to escape 01:37 being first vote on the issue. 01:39 Yes. You called me up and the amazing thing 01:41 is the weekend before I have been thinking, 01:45 laying in bed, thinking I need to write article 01:47 about this and then you called me. 01:49 Oh, so, reading of minds. 01:50 And now I get a lot of it, letters to the editor, 01:53 not massive amounts on any given day, 01:56 but I get them consistently. 01:58 But on that article I am still getting letters. 02:01 And many, many letters and they've taken to be 02:04 the greatly the task and incredible reaction. 02:08 Some of being positive, but people that are 02:11 pro-union, of course, hate the article. 02:13 Yes. So I, you know, it was a wake up call 02:16 to me that this is a hot issue. 02:18 They didn't like what I wrote. It was just too logical. 02:21 Well, it was a very well written article and of course 02:23 it's consistent with the cautions that we've always 02:26 held out through Liberty Magazine 02:28 about people of faith, Seventh-day Adventists 02:30 particularly joining trade unions 02:32 that there is a problem. 02:33 But there was something different or extra going on 02:36 with that case in Wisconsin because these were 02:38 government employees who were unionized. 02:41 What do you think of that dynamic? 02:43 Well, what's going on and the reason why you have 02:46 such intense dislike for what's going on is because 02:50 they are pulling the special privileges 02:54 that public employee unions have. 02:56 They are taking away political power that I don't think 02:59 they are entitled to and the dragon is fighting back 03:03 and when you see what's going on in Wisconsin, 03:06 when is the last time that you had people mobbing 03:09 the capital for days and months and weeks, 03:14 tearing stuff apart, creating just 03:17 a tremendous amount of animosity. 03:20 You know, it's not good to walk down the streets 03:22 of Madison and say, hey, I'm in favor of governor-- 03:27 The Madison is a pretty quite place, I've been there before. 03:28 I had-- Not now. 03:30 No, I had trouble of imagining, you know, 03:32 these new riots that were taking place. 03:35 And so what is the complaint in Wisconsin 03:40 for public employees? 03:41 Governor Walker signed a bill called Act 10. 03:45 And Act 10 limits the right of collective bargaining 03:48 for public employees, it limits it in this way. 03:51 It says that public employees 03:52 can only bargain with regard to wages. 03:55 They can't negotiate wages over the cost of living. 03:58 They cannot require people who don't want 04:00 to support the union to support. 04:03 And government will no longer collect their dues. 04:06 They'll be just like every other private organization. 04:09 They have to collect their own dues. 04:11 Unions in fact, I'm one of the council of record 04:14 in one of these cases in federal court, 04:16 unions are crying foul. 04:18 They are saying, the government 04:19 is no longer collecting our dues. 04:21 Are-we're going to lay out people? 04:24 Our dues are gonna drop by 50% or greater. 04:27 Now what is that say to you? 04:29 If you are a private organization and your members 04:33 love you so much that unless the government 04:36 takes their money out of their paycheck, 04:37 they're not gonna support you 04:39 that gives you an idea of what's going on. 04:42 They are feeling vulnerable. 04:43 Another thing they don't like is they have to stand 04:45 for election every year and the majority of those 04:48 who could vote have to vote in their favor. 04:51 So that means 50% of the people who are represent 04:54 by the union have to say, you know, 04:56 I'd really like to be again represented by the union. 04:59 What is so unusual about this? 05:02 What's happened historically is this. 05:04 Wisconsin was one of the first states to have 05:07 public employ collective bargaining 05:09 and the meter in Wisconsin over the years has been 05:15 pointed toward collective bargaining. 05:17 What does collective bargaining do? 05:18 It means that the state talks to the union 05:22 and not to individual employees. 05:24 And so now the state of Wisconsin is moving 05:27 the needle back to talking to individual employees 05:31 as opposed to the union. 05:32 Well, as a defender of individual employee rights, 05:36 as an individual employee myself, 05:38 I like being able to talk with my employer. 05:41 I don't like a union blocking me from that. 05:44 Yeah, that's true. 05:45 Well, my real objection, the more I think about it, 05:48 is not just the union dynamic which we've discussed 05:53 and we will continue to talk about. 05:55 But when you're talking about a union 05:56 within the government, as a citizen, 05:59 you vote people in or out by some what they do 06:02 or don't do and the government should be responsive. 06:03 But to have like a set aside where they are 06:06 negotiated agreements and policies that through 06:09 the normal voting you can't change anymore, 06:11 that seems to be almost subverting within 06:14 the whole process and dynamic of government. 06:17 See, this is one of the reasons why the dragon, 06:19 the dinosaur is thrashing its tale 06:23 so widely and so viciously. 06:25 It's because public employee labor unions 06:28 are really a subversion of the democratic process. 06:32 Yes, I can see that in governments, absolutely. 06:34 Well, here's--consider this. 06:36 If you had to look at the local budget of a government 06:40 and I say, you know, a school board, city, whatever it is, 06:44 about 60% to 70% of that budget 06:47 is related to employee expenses. 06:50 Now normally tax payers would be determined 06:53 how the employees are paid. 06:55 But once you have a public employee union in, 06:58 who is the exclusive bargaining representative, 07:00 that discussion that decision is taken out of the sunlight 07:05 of the public and behind closed doors 07:08 where the government has to negotiate 07:10 in good faith with the union. 07:12 So now instead of this decision being made 07:15 by the taxpayers, it is made by the public employee unions 07:20 and they are now making the final decision. 07:23 That is they are making the decision on how 07:26 60% to 70% of the local taxes are spent. 07:30 And that it seems to me is a subversion of them. 07:33 It locks things in too, not part of the dynamic 07:35 of governance anymore. 07:36 Well see, well that's it, because someone can say, 07:39 well look, you can vote out the politicians 07:41 and change their contract. 07:42 And they may still bound by this agreement. 07:44 That's right, they are bound by the agreement 07:46 for three years generally, and so you can't just 07:50 toss out those politicians, but even a worse than that. 07:53 What is the agreement often say? 07:55 The agreement says that every employee 07:57 in the bargaining unit has to join the union or pay fees. 08:00 Those fees are then used in part to help re-elect 08:04 their friendly politician who supports the union 08:07 and you start this cycle where the taxpayer 08:10 is truly pushed to the outside. 08:13 I mean there's too much of that going on 08:15 I think in-- in United States. 08:18 We've talked about United States, 08:20 particularly with lobbyists and special interests, 08:22 and the super pacts and all the rest. 08:25 But this union dynamic is worse. 08:28 It's somewhere as more of the same, 08:30 but it's even more outrageous because 08:32 it can lock things in within the system. 08:34 The conflict of interest, a subversion of the will 08:38 of the people, I think almost automatically. 08:41 And another eye opener is what percentage 08:45 of the union's dues are used for politics. 08:48 We've talked before about the, 08:50 the National Education Association. 08:51 It's the largest labor union in the United States. 08:54 Their own voluntary statement is that less than 50% 09:00 of their dues are used for collective bargaining cause. 09:03 The over 50% are used for political 09:06 and ideological activities. 09:07 And so if you are an employee and you're told 09:10 you have to either join the union or pay the fees, 09:13 you are now required to pay a substantial amount of money 09:17 to a union that likely has a different 09:20 political agenda than you have. 09:22 So if you were the recipient of such government largess, 09:26 largess that is, that employees who disagree 09:28 with you have to support your politics. 09:31 That you have this inside track in determining 09:33 public policy that, that you have the government 09:36 collecting your dues, you wouldn't want 09:37 to give up those rights either. 09:39 You might be out in the street. 09:41 You might be tearing something up. 09:42 Now--I know nothing on this. 09:45 I read a lot, but I don't ever remember reading, 09:47 what is the proportion of government employees 09:51 that's unionized government employees? 09:54 Over all about 44%. 09:55 So it's much higher, 09:56 much higher than general work force. 09:59 Oh, see this is the, this is the outrage about this. 10:01 And this is something very significant 10:03 about organized labor. 10:04 In the private sector, they represent less than 7% of-- 10:09 That's what the figure I remember. Seven percent. 10:10 Right, right, right. Well, it's below seven now. 10:13 The latest DOL figures and I just looked at these 10:17 as less than 7%, in the public sector 10:19 it depends on the sector, but overall it's about 10:23 40% to 44 % in the teaching profession. 10:27 I believe it's-DOL does not release figures on this, 10:31 but my belief is it's 75% or more. 10:35 So where do we have organized labor fighting? 10:38 It's not against the bad old employer. 10:41 Most employees have rejected the labor union 10:44 with regard to their private sector profit making employer, 10:47 instead they want a labor union to fight 10:49 against you and me, the tax payers. 10:52 Yeah. No, just this dynamic of discussing with you 10:55 has changed my view of it because I've always seen 10:59 in the overall there is no question that unions 11:02 here are very weak compared to say England or Australia. 11:05 In Australia, practically everybody 11:07 over those, are unionized. 11:08 But the current battle may reflect that same dynamic 11:13 when its government because if they've got a lock hold 11:15 on the government employees and for better or worse 11:19 government is the largest growing sector 11:21 of the United States. 11:22 Well, that's right and-- 11:24 So, so for them to have such a control on it, 11:26 it is a battle royal for control even though 11:30 overall 7% may not signal that. 11:33 And when you say weak, you're right weak 11:36 in terms of the number of employees that they represent. 11:40 But with regard to political influence, 11:43 I don't think that they are any weaker. 11:45 I think they have tilted their expenditures toward politics 11:49 and certainly with a great increase 11:51 in public employee unions. 11:53 There's a huge focus on political control. 11:56 Well, they haven't yet done what was done in Australia. 11:59 You probably know, our viewers might not. 12:01 In Australia, the head of the labor unions, 12:05 Bob Hawke, eventually became prime minister. 12:08 So does it come more direct on that. 12:11 Because their man running the country for a while. 12:14 To my knowledge we don't have any AFL-CIO presidents, 12:18 who are president of the United States. 12:20 But they do influence, assert the influence. 12:23 For example, I believe that in the next day or so Indiana 12:27 will become the 23rd right-to-work state. 12:30 It's passed the senate in Indiana, 12:32 it's passed the house in Indiana. 12:34 What are they threatening? 12:35 They are threatening to interfere with the SuperBowl. 12:38 Incredible, incredible. 12:39 That's really touching America-- That's right. 12:42 We'll be back after the break to further discuss 12:44 union's conscience and the government, 12:48 which is at the middle of the pie at the moment. 12:50 Middle of the sandwich. |
Revised 2014-12-17