The year 2011 certainly has been the year of the protestor, from Cairo to Yemen to — Wisconsin? In the past three weeks, Madison, Wis. has been the epicenter of a larger political schism in the works since November. As newly elected governors reveal their budgets, many Wisconsin Democrats and workers feel that the governors’ budgets focus more on excising the ability of unions to collectively bargain, a right that ironically originated in their own state.
Regarding the situation in Wisconsin, I do not appreciate the manner in which the state senate Democrats have acted, fleeing the state to prevent the quorum needed for the Republicans to pass the bill. The move is less than professional, and it gives the Republicans incentive to act similarly in the future. However, it allowed the issue to take center stage. The argument here is not regarding the looming budget deficit the state of Wisconsin and many others are facing but the ability for public state employees to collectively bargain for fair wages and compensation.
The interesting point for Gov. Walker is that he exempts firefighter and police unions from the bill. The governor claims it is all a plan for fiscal sustainability, yet he and the Republicans picked which unions to remove. This plan sounds not like a sincere effort to close the state’s deficit but like a plot to create a schism between both labor factions, which have failed to materialize so far.
Conservatives often cite that public employees have better wages than those of the private sector and that they are a significant contributor to a state’s expenditures. The reality may come as a surprise to many, but a comparison of public workers to private sector workers shows that public sector workers have higher rates of educational attainment than the private sector as a whole.
Using the state of Wisconsin as an example, more than 60 percent of state workers have at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with just more than 20 percent in the private sector. However, when accounting for equal educational levels, the public sector employees are underpaid substantially.
A recent study by the nonpartisan group Economic Policy Institute concluded that public sector workers earn 14.2 percent less than comparable workers in the private sector. Even when benefits and health care plans are included in total compensation, public workers earn 8.2 percent less than those in the private sector.
Teachers, nurses and others in the public sector are underpaid but are the first to make concessions during hard times. It’s blatantly foolish and illogical to paint the public sector workers as causes of a state’s fiscal malaise.
When we compare the fiscal well-being of states that give public workers the ability to collectively bargain with those that do not, there’s no difference. States where workers do not have the ability to collectively bargain such as Arizona and South Carolina have deficits of the same magnitude when using the percentage of debt to state gross domestic product as a scale.
The end result most likely will be Gov. Walker’s demands being met, removing the ability of the state’s public workers to collectively bargain. Gov. Kasich of Ohio also will fulfull his desires of calling the unions satisfied.
Ultimately, the most important lesson learned here is that elections have consequences.
Chad Mohammed is a second-year chemical engineering student. His column appears on Thursdays.
