LABOR

Recent labor actions by school teachers have focused much of the public on the issues of labor and the state. Rhode Island has long had a love affair with its public labor unions. As a result, the private labor unions are given some deference but not the strong level of attention that has been lavished on the public sector.

In short, Rhode Island’s labor union control is largely concentrated in the public sector labor. In the years of labor’s decline, the general labor movement has been crippled, but the public sector has remained vibrant.

The public labor movement in Rhode Island has a long history of very good planning on the part of the unions. They worked hard to organize the public sector and then urged members to take part in governance. Once entrenched in government, the unions, mostly through lobbyists, have taken strong control of many facets of governance.

Rules and regulations that would seem inane in any private industry are allowed in the public sector. For example, a teacher living in one community and teaching in another can serve on a school board in the community in which he or she lives. Sure, it is good to bring the expertise to the board, but when they are discussing salaries of teachers, and those salaries will be used when negotiating with the community in which the teacher is employed, is there a conflict? One would think yes.

But such rules are minor. The public sector has long been seen as the place where there was less pay but security. Today, in Rhode Island, the pay is equivalent or better than pay and benefits in the private sector and there is still the security of public employment. This has created a budget crisis in Rhode Island.

This is not a diatribe against state workers. The State has determined that it has a function intruding into just about every facet of a person’s life, and, in order to do this, needs to employ thousands. A clear majority of state employees work long and hard, have a level of expertise in their fields, and try to serve the public’s interest. But a majority is not all.

Still, instead of picking on the work force, the real culprit is the created need for such employment. The passage of laws and regulation, the creation of bureaus and the make-work jobs for friends of Assembly members are the true villains. We have allowed our political system to grow obese. We have allowed our political system to waste. We have allowed our political system to be used for political rewards. This is where the real problem exists.

In order to curtail this abuse, there is a need to deregulate Rhode Island. No, not anarchy, just a clear understanding of the need for government intrusion into a person’s life. The need to reduce staff will be an inevitable consequence, but this should be a stated goal and there needs to be economic development which can be used to transition these people back into the private sector.

Surely in a state as small as Rhode Island there is an expected higher than average concentration of those in state employ, but Rhode Island is far more than the weighted average would allow. This is a symptom of bad government policy by our leaders. The fact that government sponsored employment is preferred to private sector employment speaks volumes on its face.

The pawn in this mess is the public service worker. To keep their employment they are maintained. The politicians in Rhode Island play to them and capitalize on their fears. Without amply available private employment, each job becomes precious. In turn, each attempt to create a more efficient government can be perceived as a threat to the very existence of a public employee.

Work is created to fill the job. It has been this way since someone hired another to decorate a cave. The idea is to make an adequate effort to encourage private sector employment opportunity. Without it, there is little chance of moving away from a public labor based work force.

Once private sector is allowed to efficiently enter into the Rhode Island marketplace, then, and probably only then, can we seriously look to limit our public sector employment. Deregulation again is the answer. By making it easier for private employment to exist, the competition for public labor will increase.

Of course, this is not real good news for politicians who rely on the dependency of the public workers. But, it is good for the workers and the state in the long run. The problem in Rhode Island is that the people are far too concerned with themselves and the politicians are far to concerned with themselves. No one can sacrifice for the benefit of the state as a whole. Therein lay our demise.

In future blogs I will attempt to further outline and flesh out the concept of how a deregulation and private sector employment could serve the state. I will also attempt to point the finger more directly at the Legislative and the Executive branches for their less than stellar efforts at improving this situation.