In Wisconsin, public sector unions are practically in open revolt over Governor Scott Walker‘s proposal to eliminate collective bargaining for public workers. Public workers have long been a target of conservatives, and tight state budgets as a result of the recession have provided them with an opportunity to go after them as never before.
What I find strange is that conservatives are so focused on destroying public sector unions than making public workers more accountable. The example I usually go back to is Michelle Rhee‘s success in getting the teacher’s union in Washington DC to sign on to a more merit based system.
I suppose that’s easily explained by the fact that unions are a strong Democratic constituency, but the fact is I think even most liberals would sign on to proposals to make public sector unions more accountable rather than simply destroying them outright. It’s one thing to say that union rules make it hard to fire an incompetent employee–politically that’s impossible to defend. It’s much easier to defend the idea that a group of people who work the same job should, in principle, be allowed to get together and talk about their collective interests, particularly in a country where corporations get to anonymously funnel billions into political campaigns in order to pursue their own. But since conservatives are so focused on eliminating the right to bargain collectively rather than just making sure lazy or incompetent workers can be fired, they end up with more opposition than they might otherwise have.
