It is fascinating to see how the Barack Obama administration mishandles the Wisconsin collective bargaining controversy in a manner that divides the country and puts rampant fear into the working middle class.
Perhaps the number one glaring omission about collective bargaining that nobody has brought up is that there is more than one collective that the state has to bargain with on an ongoing basis.
If the next time you went to the grocery for your produce, there was a cash register by every piece of fruit and vegetable, and each had to be purchased one at a time, you might not want to return to that grocery store. Collective Bargaining is the same thing.
No matter what kind of a deal the state strikes with one collective, (aka union), the next collective will use that contract to extract an even better deal for themselves, and there in lies the problem.
Imagine you live next door to a baseball field that hosts girls softball, mens baseball, and a special ed league. Over the course of time those who live next to the baseball field want certain guidelines established regarding curfew, loitering, littering, and how loud music can be played...
Now imagine that your collective of people living near the baseball diamond only had to deal with the commissioner of the baseball field, and the commissioner acted as a go between between all the different leagues.
Now, what if there was no commissioner, and instead those living by the baseball field had to negotiate terms with each and every baseball league that used that field. The moment the terms for anyone of the baeball leagues are different from one another, one or more of the leagues is going to feel like they were taken advantage of.
What if instead of each and every league negotiating with the people who live by the baseball diamond, each team was able to negotiate separate terms? It becomes evident that as more and more variations on one basic theme get introduced, the entire process will just become a huge mess with virtually nobody happy when they realize that one other group got a better deal, irrespective of who or why the other group got a better deal.
For instance, maybe the special ed league gets to play their loudspeakers louder because some players don't hear as well, or they get more parking spaces to accommodate wheel chair parking. All the other baseball leagues will see is that they have to keep their loudspeaker at a lower level, and that they get less space for parking even though they may get bigger audiences.
Just imagine for a scant moment if EACH TEAM wanted to directly negotiate with the people who live near the baseball field as to the terms for playing on the field...
Clearly, collective bargaining would work best if the various collectives first negotiated amongst themselves and then each collective's commissioners met and in turn they designated ONE commissioner to represent all the collectives in labor negotiations. The system I just described does not presently exist, and the result is a perpetual hostile battle where each collective simply looks at their own negotiating situation rather than the bigger picture.
I believe Barack Obama likes the collective bargaining process as it presently is constructed since it helps delineate a line between republicans, and liberal progressive whack a noodles who want to stir up fear and hate of all things republican.
I further believe that liberal moderates like the Clintons would probably prefer a more unified collective bargaining process where the state only has to deal with one commissioner who would represent all the different union collectives. This would mean collective bargaining would still exist, but the state would get to deal with the collectives in one fell swoop. This would ultimately be seen as a more unifying method by which republicans and democrats can learn to get along.
Just as the republicans did not stand up for the Clintons during the 2008 democratic presidential fraud race, now it will probably be the moderate democrats who sit quietly by as the ultra progressive whack a noodle liberal democrats demonize the republicans.
So to recap, the Clinton's equal moderation, negotiation and SUCCESSFUL compromise, the whack a noodle progressive liberal democrats equals fear mongering polarizing insanity.
sigh.
