When read that Andy Stern head of the SEIU one of the largest public employee unions is retiring from his $306,388 -a-year job and is likely to be replaced by one of many high paid union bosses, I question the need for unions, particularly the public employee variety.

The days of sweat shops, 12-hour days and child labor have long since passed. Admittedly, industrial unions served an important social purpose. Working conditions and job safety have dramatically improved as a result of their efforts. Those improvements have beed legally codified long ago.

On the public employee side of the workforce no such social ills or physical dangers prevailed. The supposed “evil” for public employment was the “spoils” system: to the victor goes the spoils. When the city hall changed hands politically, so did its workforce. This enabled machine politics to prevail with ward bosses calling the shots from New York to Kansas City. The “reform” here was the civil service system in which competence and merit assured job security.

So what do unions do today? In my opinion, they promote mediocrity. They create work to create new members. They create fat cat union bosses. And, they foster “rent-seeking” behavior by attaching themselves to politicians who are more than willing to trade laws and regulations favorable to unions for membership money and membership votes.

• Mediocrity: All of us are equal thus it would be wrong for some of us to try to excel, do a better job, be more efficient, work smarter and faster. Lets all be the same because in numbers there is strength. So let’s not resent the slackers, let’s keep our mouth shut about our fellow worker who knows how to “work the system.”
• Make work: The more work there is the more workers that are needed. That means more potential union members, more dues and more pay for the bosses and more money for compliant politicians.
• Union Bosses: Guys like Andy Stern are the ultimate salesmen. They separate union members from their money and big money it can be. What benefit do the union members get for those dues? Not much.
• Political Symbiosis: The unholy alliance between fat cat union bosses and fat cat politicians is well chronicled. It’s self perpetuating. Who pays the price? The union members and the public.

My take, unions harm their members and society in general. Mediocrity is not in the fiber of human nature. In fact it is opposite the natural human spirit to compete and excel. We strive to better ourselves. Nor is the unfairness implicit in mediocrity part of human nature. We strive to be just. We resent slackers we resent the inability to demonstrate our excellence. Likewise we tend to resent the waste implicit in union make work programs and featherbedding; in a general sense human nature is economic. Human nature is indeed social but it is also naturally competitive and just.

Would excellent teachers favor merit pay? Do they favor keeping notorious deadwood on the job simply because the deadwood belongs to the union. Would union members prefer to make or not make political contributions on their own rather than have the union bosses decide where the money goes? Do union members like being told how to vote?

As a young man working my way through school I was a card carrying member at different times of three building trade unions. The work was good as was the pay, but the pace was regulated be other members. I can remember being told to slow down! Older now, I have a broader perspective about unions effect on our society, our government and our economy. To see fat cat Andy Stern plunk down $60 million to put Barack Hussein Obama into the White House really turns my stomach.

Reform is needed particularly in the public employee sector and part of that reform is to expose the fat cat union bosses and how their interest differ for the interests of the membership.