I believe your last line sums it up best. As I read last week, in I believe the Seattle Times: Wisconsin’s budget problem would not exist except for the manipulations of Wall Street crashing the bond market. Like most problems people face, we seem to address the symptoms rather than the root problem.

Thank you. Excellent piece providing some much-needed perspective.

There is no 'right' to public sector collective bargaining. 'CB' has been granted by the political bosses to the public sector workers in exchange for bribes, campaign contributions, campaign sweat equity, and votes. Comparisons here are apples to oranges to bananas and the real story is the taxpayers without benefits paying for the health insurance, retirement, and other perks of the corrupt public sector. The current scandal in the Seattle School District cries out for a comparable private sector ripoff of millions of dollars. Maybe a defense or highway contract.

In our state (I assume it is the same elsewhere)public unions are part of a political alliance with Democrats/tribes/and a slew of "non-profit" organizations. They all conspire to increase each other's power and profit. Union dues are given to Democratic "representatives". These "representatives" push legislation allowing their cartel greater access to the community chest (see the Seattle schools story; especially the change in state law that preceded the scandal). These groups enrich themselves as they bankrupt the country. Additionally, they ensure their survival by indoctrinating young people (via public school curricula) to believe the union/Democrat/tribe/non-profit cartel can do no wrong and that anyone in disagreement is either a racist or a corporate shill.

The problem with public employee unions is that they simply don't operate like private unions. In business, unions and management are on different sides of the table. In government, as we've seen so often in Olympia, King County and Seattle, they are on the same side of the table. The Governor/County Exec/Mayor have all been supported and endorsed by the very people whose power they are supposedly checking. As longtime New York labor leader Victor Gotbaum used to say, "We have the power to hire our own boss". And it's not just the taxpayer who gets fleeced. 17,000 working poor have been tossed off the Basic Health Plan while step raises continue for state workers. Sooner or later (probably later) liberals are going to figure out that the biggest obstacles to delivering services tot he public and help to the poor are the government unions.

Wages are less than half the story. Public sector health care plans are extravagant when compared to private sector workers who have fewer and fewer health benefits, and often, especially the self-employed, none. Pensions and vacation also need to be included in any meaningful comparison between public and private sector pay. It may well be true that the benefits of the elite bankers and fortune 500 are excessive, but look at the restaurant owners, shop-keepers, and small manufacturers and you'll see why many are outraged at government employee pay and benefits.

@Mr. Carlson -

I agree with your description of the problem, but the solution of removing collective bargaining rights as a solution is insane. The federal government has the Hatch act prohibiting Federal employee involvement in politics, and that is one approach worth further consideration.

Personally, I wouldn't mind restricting political involvement for any corporate entity getting **any** sort of public money, public or **private**.

In the meantime perhaps we should remove all rights of Mr. Walker and his contributors to 'bargain' - in the marketplace or the courts?

@Mr. Lilly -

Great piece digging deeper into the realities of economic inequality in America today - however, if I may, I'll add one more 'ingredient' to your analysis.

That missing fact is the declining **relative** productivity of the American Worker in today's increasingly global marketplace. Though American productivity is still high and still rising the rest of the world is catching up to us fast.

The result of this is that **nothing** in America is worth what we think it is, spending deficit dollars to support asset values of individuals and corporations only adds to the folly.

Unions share some blame for this, but they are very last on the list. In a functional society responsibility accrues with greater authority, we need to bankrupting the crooks in Wall Street and their regulatory enablers before taking a single house from a first time, hard working, homeowner.

America may well need to bankrupt itself. A true accountability is the only way to avoid this, something that is likely outside the range of the possible - certainly for your generation - perhaps not for mine - if we have the assistance of the best of your generation and none long standing interference from the worst.

What is really going on here? It seems to me that not long ago the USA was all about unlimited growth and possibilities. Now we are all fighting over tablescraps like dogs at an overturned garbage can!

The argument that low-skilled workers in the private sector make less than those in the public sector, therefore public sector workers should make just as little sounds like a race to the bottom. In whose interest is lower and lower wages? Any short-term gain in economic growth this produces will only make recovery much slower. This is a consumer economy. Why are conservatives determined to have less consumption?

It's not difficult for most of the over-educated Washingtonians to figure it out that this naked struggle for political power by the conservatives makes no sense for anyone but them, and does not advance the interests of the USA. If conservatives want to gut some liberal sacred cows, I would think their time would be better spent fighting for things that would expand the economy and make the USA great again.

How about dealing with energy? How about fighting for more domestic oil drilling? I hear we are about to invade Libya for oil again, repeating a stupid plan once again that has never worked out well for our country. How about taking apart our nuclear bureaucracy that prevents us from being on the forefront of evolving technology?http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704409004576146061231899264.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_MIDDLE_Video_second
If years of accident-free nuclear energy is good enough for Japan and the "evil socialists" in Europe, maybe it's good enough for our country.

We really need to get rid of these asinine power struggles and move on to something that will put our country back in the running, instead of becoming the laughing-stock of the world.

Thoughtful piece, as usual, from Dick Lilly. Unfortunately, he skips by the points made by urbancharacter, points that are vital to understanding why state and local governments are trying to negotiate higher contributions from government workers toward worker health care and pension benefits. He completely misses other two points that might land in the moral realm.

First, the labor organizations representing government workers in the collective bargaining process are amongst the biggest contributors to the campaigns of state leaders negotiating and approving salary and benefit packages for the same state workers. If that factor were happening in the private sector it would be called corrupt. In the public sector it is business as usual.

Second, he is asking state residents who make minimum or near minimum wages and have no or modest health care and pension benefits to pay for higher salaries and generous health care and retirement packages for state workers whose jobs may not add any more value to society than does his job. And to reach more deeply into his minimum wage pocket any time state workers want more money. All apparently in the name of a declining labor movement in the private sector. The sense of that notion escapes me.

The labor movement has contributed enormously to the financial health of America's middle class. It deserves to be a partner in any budget decision affecting its members - but it also needs to be a partner in reforming government programs that are financially unsustainable or corrupt. To date, it hasn't accepted the reform challenge - except to try to find ways to raise tax revenues to better support state workers and the services they provide. In today's financial climate, that kinda help is no kinda help.

Franklin D. Roosevelt once said: "All government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service…Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of government employees. Upon employees in the federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of government activities…This obligation is paramount," he continued. "Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

Fairer?? I take issue with your comment. What could be FAIRER than people getting paid what they are worth? And the market determines what people are worth. The market, by the way, is all of us.

You said" "I’d suggest that this produces a fairer, more equitable workplace with a greater sense of shared cause and community than may exist in private sector firms, where pay levels define a sharper worker-management split."

Sorry, but to me this is just a total bunch of bull feathers.

A more equitable workplace? Give me a break. If you want equity, why not go to full blown socialism with everyone getting EXACTLY the same pay! What could be fairer than that?

People are not the same. Some work harder than others, much harder. Some are better educated and worked harder in school. Some people are lazy. Some people take risks, others are afraid to take risks.

There is absolutely no logic to the statement that a workplace is fairer or more equitable if people are paid similarly.

One of the biggest strengths of our free market economy is that it rewards the efforts of the individual. Peoples' efforts are not all the same or even close, so neither should be their salaries.

College vs non-college is not a great distinction when comparing public to private sector employees. Better to look at what non-college employees do in the public sector. In the case of Washington state a very large percentage are prison guards and attendants in mental health and residential habilitation centers. Comparable jobs are hard to find in the private sector. The closest may be nurses aides in hospitals and nursing homes but they generally do not face the personal security issues of their state government counterparts.

Maybe we should all belong to unions. Then employees could all expect at least the best job conditions, health care and retirement plan that their particular industry could afford. Less profitable businesses would presumably pay less and provide fewer perks or, perhaps, go out of business. Businesses or public services that were crucial would enjoy high wages and good benefits especially where strikes would be inconvenient (police and firefighters, maybe doctors and nurses). People in journalism or homebuilding, at least in the present environment, would (relatively speaking) suffer. Anyway, a rational hierarchy of wages and benefits would develop based mainly on ability to strike and the leverage that tactic provides. The theory of markets would, in effect, be scaled up from the individual to union organizations. It sounds terrible to me but if unions are so great what is bad about it?

What I see missing from the comments and discussion is the difference in how we value financial and human capital in the United States.

We believe it is quite o.k. for owners of financial capital to swing their political muscle and wrest all kinds of concessions from government, often at the expense of other tax payers. And we believe its o.k. for them to organize into trade associations, chambers of commerce etc. to influence government.

But when it comes to the owners of human capital--that is, the skills and abilities a person brings to the job--organizing themselves to influence economic and political outcomes, we get all bent out of shape. We treat unions as if they are a malignancy, but don't complain much about all the ways businesses influence the political process.

What I detect at play is the class bias of many Americans. And I also detect the relentless propaganda of the radical right political machine.

@taupe,
The "free market economy" absolutely does not reward workers according to their merit or how hard they work. You can't tell me, for example, that W worked hard at Yale. And where's the free-market logic in the Wall Street bonuses paid to those who tanked the market?

Millions of hard-working people lose their jobs every time financial markets tank, absolutely no fault of their own, and certainly not according to how hard they work. And risk-taking does not equal worth or merit, particularly when other peoples' livelihoods are at stake.

@anotherview,
You make an important distinction between financial and human capital that I haven't heard much of in these debates - bravo! You're also right on about right-wing propaganda and and class bias. The baffling thing is that Americans have been so manipulated that they are biased not towards their own class but towards that of the oligarchs.

To argus:

You pose a number of examples. Several are not on point, but I will comment anyway. Remember that this discussion is about the variation of salaries in the workplace.

I do not know if W worked hard at Yale. Neither do you. Bush came from a wealthy family. What does this have to do with anything?

You seem to be blaming Wall Street and somehow that impacts the variation of salaries in the workplace? I do not see your logic. If you are just venting, fine. I agree that Wall Street had some big problems. However Wall Street is not a proxy for the whole economy.

Your comment about people losing their jobs in a recession is true. But what does that have to do with the variation in people's salaries?

You say that "the free market economy absolutely does not reward workers according to their merit or how are they work." This is totally wrong. Of course it does. How else are people paid? By some random method? People are paid according to their merit. They get paid for how much value they create, how much they contribute. (This is different than working hard. A guy digging a ditch certainly works hard, but this creates limited value.)

So my question to you is: if people are not paid for their merit, then how are their salaries decided?

Crankyoldlady: Are you honestly suggesting that large campaign donations made by private interests to pursue their own goals through the political process are NOT being made today? Sounds like it.

Also, it's ironic that you choose the minimum-wage earner to portray the common man's victim of the purported Big Labor/liberal political machine. You can argue the merits of this either way, but the fact is that person would be making at least a third less than he or she earns in this state today if not for the state initiative that tied minimum wage to cost of living -- an initiative brought to the ballot and successfully passed by a volunteer forced composed largely of labor union members. Maybe that will make the poor guy feel better about labor somehow constantly reaching into his pocket.

Your final point about unions needing to be partners in reform is absolutely valid. And clearly they have not done so adequately. But unions won't be partners in anything if they lose collective bargaining rights, because at that point they will cease to exist. A lot of people would celebrate that. I'd suggest they be careful what they ask for.

Taupe: If on average, men doing a particular job make at least 15% more than women doing a particular job (as numerous studies have shown is the case), do you claim that those men are doing better work than those women? You seem to indeed make that claim, since you claim that salaries are always tied to merit.

Gees, what is it with you people! The capitalist system is not perfect. However, it is the best system we have come up with yet for increasing the standard of living for all people, including the poor people.

My statement is simply that IN GENERAL salaries and wages are based on how much value a person creates, that they are based on merit. If they are not based on merit, then what are they based on? Random guesses, sex, lottery, what?

Of course women should be paid the same as men. But look at the glass being half full for a change. Look at the tremendous gains women have made over the last 50 years.

I am amazed at how many liberals think that capitalism is bad because it is not utopia. It is highly unlikely that we will achieve utopia on this earth any time soon. So, until you come up with a better system, capitalism is the best we have. Capitalism has accomplished more for mankind than any other system in history.

Tell you what. How about we all support a constitutional amendment that removers personhood from both unions AND corporations?
What could be fairer than that?

".... a constitutional amendment that removes personhood from both union and corporations.." Great comment. That would level the playing field!

Absolutely right. Corporations are not people and money is not free speech. This iniquity should have been corrected years ago.

This inquity was very recently established by the Supreme Court.

Taupe, look at your comment above about "In general..." and substitute African Americans for women, and see if you'd still say it.

Sarah90, I don't understand your point. Yes, African Americans have made very good progress over the last 50 years too. Look at our president. Am I missing something?

How is it appropriate that the US government regulators sat by, idly or stupidly (take your choice), and did nothing and said nothing during the run-up years of 2004 - 2007, but today tell us all that "real estate values will fall to their balanced levels and the hell with middle Americans"?

I cannot believe that our elected officials and our paid administrators all have turned their backs on the backbone of America: Our formerly-beloved middle class.

Today, the wealth is still at the feet of the very rich, as well as the technology gurus. Is this really the way we want it to go?