Had a debate with a friend who felt somehow I was "blaming" the private sector for not working hard enough to support the public sector's pension and benefit packages. Far from it. Aside from such an absurd perceived sense of entitlement (do you really think public employees are so callow as to "resent" their parallels in the private sector for not picking up the tab on their benes?), it's worth remembering that public employees are taxpayers, too!
No one is "blaming" the private sector. If anything, it's with great sadness I lament the stagnation of gains in the private sector labor market over the past 20 years. Middle-class wages have barely changed a blip (in time-adjusted dollars) since at least the 1980s, while workplace protections like job security, benefit packages and pensions are drying up and disappearing faster than I would at a keg party fresh out of beer. Meanwhile, thanks to outsourcing, off-shoring and Orwellian “right-to-work” laws, the labor movement in the private sector is all but dead.
No one is blaming the private sector for the public sector’s PR problem either. I blame private sector management for its incredibly arrogant and disrespectful treatment of its own workforce, and for creating a climate in which workers with some actual security and actual dignity are slagged as greedy fat cats. It feels like we are going backwards instead of forwards.
Breaking unions and tearing up collective bargaining agreements is only going to hurt the working- and middle classes, and I think the reason The ‘Sconnytown Rebellion resonates is because a lot of people are finally realizing why the need for labor to organize came about in the first place. It’s because no one, particularly management, is going to give you something (like a raise or retirement benefits or a 5-day workweek) just because it’s the magnanimous thing to do. Conveniently, Wisconsin just happens to be the site of some of the fiercest labor battles of the 20th century. People died there for some of the privileges the governor is now trying to take away. That is not an exaggeration. And it looks like people there haven’t forgotten.
Like it or not, it’s come down to this: public sector labor unions are the last line of defense for the rights of the working man.
Me? I’m pessimistic about the likely outcome, but I’m buoyed by the spirit of those protesters in Madison.
Solidarity.
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