Labor unions like to remind us that they are “the folks who brought you the weekend.” These days we tend to think of them as the folks who brought us TOOT, or “time off overtime,” a scam under which Cook County highway employees were able to bill taxpayers for 20 hours of work by calling in sick and then pulling an eight-hour “overtime” shift the same day.
That warm glow of gratitude toward the Norma Raes of the world is fading, replaced by a growing sense that it’s us against them. A Gallup poll released this month found that nearly two thirds of Americans believe unions benefit their own members, while 62 percent believe they mostly hurt non-union workers. And 51 percent say labor unions mostly hurt the U.S. economy.
In other words, unions help their members — at the expense of everyone else. Case in point: the U.S. auto industry.
Fewer than half of Americans — an all-time low of 48 percent — approve of labor unions, the poll found.
After World War II, almost a third of American jobs were union; now it’s about 12 percent, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. Increasingly, union workers are government workers. Only 8 percent of private sector jobs are union, vs. 37 percent of government jobs.
In Illinois and around the country, taxpayers are saddled with unsustainable pension and health care plans. They’re stuck with incompetent teachers who can’t be fired, and they’re often obliged to pay premium wages for ordinary effort thanks to union work rules.
With government budgets bleeding red ink, union employees have been asked to take furlough days or forgo scheduled raises — the same pains being visited on non-union workers everywhere — and some have declined. Chicago Mayor Richard Daley had no choice but to lay off hundreds of city workers. Gov. Pat Quinn has no choice, either, but he still can’t seem to pull the trigger.
Last year, Daley angered the unions by spouting off about the inefficient “clock-watchers” who work for the city, though it rang pretty hollow since he’d just signed off on dozens of generous union contracts. At the time, he was defending his efforts to privatize city services to save money. He later apologized for suggesting city workers were unproductive — not because it wasn’t true, but because he needs their support at election time.
He’s back at it now, with a plan to hire private firms to help during peak snow plowing times. The city’s union truck drivers earn huge overtime checks when snows are heavy. The mayor asked them to agree to take comp time this year instead, but they said no.
Daley’s plan makes perfect sense. By contracting for extra help only when it’s needed, the city can throw more bodies at the job instead of having union workers pull round-the-clock shifts. Taxpayers would save money and the streets would get cleared faster.
Naturally, the unions are opposed. Is it any wonder their stock is falling? Labor unions may have brought you the weekend. But what have they done for you lately?
