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Craig Crawford

Craig Crawford

Posted: February 24, 2011 03:29 PM

The few states in the black allow it, so why the fuss? Collective bargaining is hardly the problem it seems. Those that ban it are in the hole.

Check out the states that are not running deficits -- and all, in various ways, just so happen to support collective bargaining with state employees:  Arkansas, Alabama, North Dakota and Wyoming.

Further establishing the myth that banning collective bargaining curbs deficits, consider the states that ban it: Four of the five that make it explicitly illegal face budget shortfalls.

Governors in states like Wisconsin and Ohio hoping to ban collective bargaining simply cannot prove it has anything to do with reducing deficits.

Sources: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, Sunshine Review, National Council on Teacher Quality

Also:
Bargaining Bans Don't End Deficits

 

 
 
 

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07:50 AM on 02/25/2011
It's clear this is about politics and union-busting and not budgets -
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ProgressivesLoveAmerica
Former disciple of Mises, Hayek & Milton Friedman
12:09 AM on 02/25/2011
Logically speaking, when you look at the empirical facts, collective bargaining actually does not have an impact on deficits.

However, the push toward ending collective bargaining is a lot more than just about deficits. This anti-union push has more to do with trying to push and then prove that a certain theory works. You can call it free-market fundamentalism, The Chicago School of Economics, Laissez-faire, the Austrian School of Economics, or Libertarianism, the list can go on forever...But the point is that this about theory and not reality.

Part of imposing this theoretical and philosophically-motivated agenda is to destroy the unions because, according to the theory, unions are bad for productivity because businesses have to create economies of scale. In order to create economies of scale, they have to cut variable costs. One of the most obvious of these variable costs is LABOR!
THIS is the main motivation for destroying unions.

Now this article is very good at dispelling this misconception regarding collective bargaining and deficits because it uses pure facts rather than philosophically misguided theory.