Union bosses’ bargaining powers are undermining government’s response to the coronavirus

This Labor Day, the United States faces unique health and economic challenges posed by COVID-19. But at every level of government (federal, state, and local), Big Labor’s government-granted powers over public employees undermine efforts to mitigate the damage being wrought by the coronavirus.

Even so, some are proposing to expand rather than roll back these powers, which are particularly crippling for governments dealing with the pandemic-induced combination of economic uncertainty, widespread unemployment, below-projected tax revenues, and the need to provide government services (including policing and schooling) while still managing health risks.

Monopoly bargaining, also called “exclusive representation,” is embedded in most of the country’s labor relations statutes. This coercive power enables union operatives to act as the exclusive bargaining agents of all employees at a unionized workplace, whether workers want this representation or not, thereby depriving individual employees of the right to represent themselves.

In the public sector, instead of allowing elected officials to respond and adapt quickly to crises such as COVID-19, monopoly bargaining forces local governments to “bargain” with union officials over many changes, even those necessary to stem the virus’s spread. Not only does this block needed reforms, but it is also inherently anti-democratic, forcing those elected to set public policy instead to “negotiate” it with a special interest group whose aims often conflict with the public’s interests.

Union bosses have already sought to exploit the crisis and the need for their consent to coronavirus-related reforms. For example, the United Teachers Los Angeles union demanded implementation of a sweeping, radical political agenda as a condition of returning to school this fall, including defunding the police, tax hikes, a moratorium on charter schools, and “Medicare for All.”

Many jurisdictions have already realized that government-sector monopoly bargaining ties the hands of elected officials who are attempting to put citizens’ broad interests first. In fact, several state and local governments have suspended monopoly bargaining in their jurisdictions to stop Big Labor from slowing down their responses to COVID-19.

Democratic Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota and the Clark County Commission in Nevada both suspended existing monopoly bargaining laws to allow their jurisdictions to better respond to the outbreak.

Meanwhile, when Nevada Democrat Gov. Steve Sisolak moved to cut state spending due to plunging revenues caused by the coronavirus, union bosses from the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees sued him. They claimed that he needed to bargain with them over the budget changes due to 2019 legislation Sisolak himself had signed into law imposing monopoly bargaining on state workers.

Such monopoly bargaining powers not only violate public sector workers’ rights while limiting the flexibility needed (especially now), but they are also proven to drive up the price of services for taxpayers.

An analysis by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found the state and local tax burden in the 17 states with the most heavily unionized public sectors was 26% higher than in the 17 states where government union bosses have the least monopoly union bargaining power. With the financial burdens states and localities are already facing, which will likely grow given the economic harm the coronavirus is inflicting, the perils of monopoly bargaining in the public sector loom now more than ever.

This makes it especially outrageous that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden (in addition to the rest of his giveaways to Big Labor that include wiping out all 27 state Right to Work laws) backs two bills that would impose monopoly bargaining on government workers across the country.

One bill specifically targets police and other public safety officers for union boss monopoly bargaining, a move that would, among other things, limit the ability of state and local governments to implement police reforms. The other bill would override state and local laws to foist full union monopoly bargaining powers over every government worker, even where local elected officials have rejected such arrangements or limited bargaining to only certain topics.

Granting union bosses such extraordinary powers over state and local government is always wrong in principle. But to tie the hands of states and localities to appease a special interest right now, at a time when government officials most need to respond to the unique challenges the coronavirus has created quickly and efficiently, would be especially disastrous.

Mark Mix is the president of the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation and the National Right to Work Committee.

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