February 9, 1977

Public Employee Strikes Potentially Dangerous

Now that the Ohio state legislature is veto-proof, Democratic and bound to give public employees the right to strike, we must seriously consider the latest labor-socialist proposal of "co-determination."

This is another self-serving invention of the British labor unions from which we have imported most of our collective bargaining ideas for more than a century.

Behind its semantical illusion of democracy is the ultimate political power -placing union leaders on city councils and school boards as a matter of contract.

It is a slick gambit that avoids the inconvenience of manipulating public opinion' and the election process.

The idea has already taken root in the United States with union representatives sitting and voting on several industrial corporations.

Great Britain, Germany, Sweden and France already have firmly established "industrial democracy" - through government confiscation of the principal industries and co-determination rights with many of the other companies remaining in the private sector temporarily.

For example, Heinz Vetter, leader of Germany's National labor federation (DGB), is head of an $8 billion bank in Frankfort with a branch in New York City.

Having established the validity of the principle, British labor unions are pushing for its extension into the public sector.  Public employees have the same rights as private employees, according to the British labor argument.

Inasmuch as the Labor Party - political arm of the national Trades Union Congress - already holds about 40 percent of the municipal council seats by virtue of election, additional votes by contract right will' give unions communist-style control of the government machinery.

The additional seats would be awarded to the city employees whose leaders would hold the balance of voting power.  The tax payers would be helpless to influence policy or the rate of taxes to pay for unlimited salaries.

Victor Riesel, the noted American labor writer, reports that British and German labor leaders met with government officials in Chancellor Helmut Schmidt's office recently to begin negotiations for co-determination.

German labor leaders demand the creation of "economic and social councils with equal representation of labor (with management) on the level of regional state and federal government.  They are to advise and support parliaments, administrations and governmental authorities in all questions related to the interests of the wage earner."

The similarity of all this double-talk to Lenin rhetoric is not coincidental.  The Russians bought this clap-trap 60 years ago and they live today under the predicted outcome of a so-called worker-managed society.

The Ohio Assembly is playing with the same kind of fire as it prepares to enact a new labor law for this state.

The existing Ferguson Act which prohibits strikes by public employees is a farce.  Police, firemen, teachers and other tax-supported workers strike just as often as private sector union members.  Few city councils or school boards have had the nerve to uphold the law against such illegal actions.

We might as well be realistic, therefore, and acknowledge that government wage earners have carved out an unassailable position for themselves - all the bargaining power of private business unions; plus guaranteed, life-time employment.

The Ohio Assembly passed a right-to-strike bill (S.B. 70) about 18 months ago, but Governor James Rhodes vetoed it.  Today the legislature has the Democratic votes to over ride, and it is only a matter of timing that will bring out a new repeal of the Ferguson Act.

The legislators hope to build in a small restraint to unbridled public employee greed by requiring "compulsory binding arbitration" to settle prolonged strikes by public employees.

Here, again, the proposal has the aura of sweet reason.  Strikes that go on for, say, a month would be settled by a disinterested outsider coming in and making a decision.

Seventeen states already have adopted public sector, collective bargaining laws containing compulsory arbitration provisions.  In most instances these apply to the police and fire departments.

At least two states, Michigan and Washington, now are attempting to repeal compulsory arbitration.  Two others, Pennsylvania and California, are seeking to modify their arbitration clauses.

Their experience demonstrates that with arbitration in the offing, public employee unions never negotiate.  They just hold out until the end of formal bargaining so that the gap between their demands and the management offer will be as wide as possible.  Arbitrators customarily "split the difference" to settle the strike, not determine the fairness of either side.

If we are going to give policemen and teachers the right to strike, let's do that, and that alone.  Free collective bargaining is the other side of the free enterprise system.  Now that public employees are entering that arena they should be prepared to play by those rules.

Author: Lindsey Williams