Picking Favorites

Only two weeks after discussing the conflict of interests problems posed by the UAW and the auto bailouts, this op-ed, Obama looks for union label, details the differential treatment unions have gotten versus non-unionized workers.

Frankly, this is one of those problems that is ill-addressed by advocates of expanding government control and hyperbolized by critics. Somewhere in the middle there’s a very real concern about the effects of certain government actions that remain ill-addressed by those dismissing the concerns to advance an agenda and those hyping them to advance a different one.

Finley writes,

Perhaps the administration, in ignoring the nonunion Delphi employees, assumes they all are fat cats who can fund their own retirements.

But among those 21,000 salaried Delphi employees and retirees are clerks, secretaries and others who earn far less than the overtime-eligible blue collar workers.

It isn’t about money, it’s about membership. Obama protects union members with the fervor of a shop steward.

Obama forgot all about the GM and Chrysler salaried staffs during the automakers’ White House-directed bankruptcies. They lost more of their benefits than did union workers.

The president also signed an order requiring all contractors on federal projects to either use union labor or pay union wages and make contributions to union pension funds that their workers don’t benefit from.

The mandate could cut off 80 percent of the nation’s private construction workforce from federal contracts.

What I find troubling about the issues raised is that two prerogatives of government conflict. First, government should help the people who need it most; second, government shouldn’t pick favorites based on politics, citizens should be equal not just before the law in the judiciary but before the executive as well.

I think we need a balance, people who suggest a hands-off approach by the government ignore the ways in which that has the effect of picking favorites without explicitly doing so. Those who think the “worse off” should be given preferential treatment, I think, focus so much on discrete, needy groups they fail to see the larger effects on society at large.

I don’t think it’s particularly fair or appropriate for the government to structure bailouts and deals to privilege one group of workers over another without regard to individual circumstance. Surely, there must’ve been away to protect blue-collar workers and salaries employees who might have needed just as much assistance, if not more.

Moreover, we’ve got to get away from this presumption that traditionally beneficial organizations and foci are still beneficial. I have no problem with government jobs and contracts providing favourable working salaries and conditions for employees. What I fail to see, however, is why contractors must use union labor or pay union wages.

Why not develop a system for evaluating the quality of work between contractors, choose based on quality and then subsidize wages so that they reach union levels, if the workers aren’t unionized. Or, better yet, consider a wider array of perks than just salary, when looking at worker compensation.

I care about workers, I care about treating people well, but I also care about results. Unions are a means not an end.

(h/t Megan McArdle)

~ by Kyle on November 4, 2009.