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On today’s show, Jonah speaks to Manhattan Institute fellow and CCNY professor Daniel DiSalvo (an expert on public-sector unions and their history) to find out how the sausage really gets made in the intra-organizational politics of these public-sector unions, and how their influence is often the result of “the breakdown of machine politics – especially within the Democratic Party – in big cities.”
Show Notes:
- Dan’s page at the Manhattan Institute
- “The Trouble with Police Unions”
- Dan’s latest book, Government Against Itself
- The first work on the “New Class,” by Milovan Djilas
- Maya Wiley back by the SEIU in NYC
- DeBlasio was also endorsed by SEIU
- Terry Moe’s book on teachers unions
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“As everyone knows I have some serious problems with what Republicans are doing with voting these days.”
This is when you have jumped from caring about the scale, scope, severity, and real life outcome, and you are now just criticizing Republicans because it’s your hobby.
Jonah, I’ve been meaning to comment on this podcast for a few weeks now but I’ve been too busy with work to get a chance. One thing you guys never mentioned is how union political activity has ultimately reduced the the power or efficacy of the broader private sector union movement. By advocating for an ever higher minimum wage, restrictive use of independent contractors and generally activist groups and ongoing government intrusion into the private sector workplace through more and more statutory and regulatory enactments, unions REDUCE the need for individuals to unionize their workplace. By unilaterally imposing the terms and conditions of employment on all private workplaces, demand for unionization has plummeted. By advocating for top-down government control of the workplace, they kill the bottom-up union movement. Hence the steep decline in union membership over the last 50 years as government regulation of employment has increased. I think unions provide an important counterweight in the private labor market and I’d much rather see unionization flourish over an increased regulatory presence.