A brief reality check: Peope have an inalienable right to associate freely. In the United States we also have the legal right to associate freely. Collective bargaining is a natural outgrowth of this right, and it is a natural outgrowth of liberty and freedom.
Another outgrowth of liberty and freedom is that employers have the right to either accept or reject a demand that is the result of collective bargaining. This is called negotiating.
Now to the reality check part: With the hubbub in Wisconsin bringing the issue of collective bargaining into our collective living rooms, one assertion that we've heard over and over is that collective bargaining has nothing to do with balancing a budget. I have yet to see anyone challenge this patently illogical assertion. I would like to loudly and clearly call bullshit, since nobody else is doing it.
One of the main objectives of collective bargaining is to get higher wages for the workers. Another is to get better benefits. Now here's the tricky part... more money spent on wages and benefits means less money in the budget for other things. In mathematical terms:
If: B=budget, W=wages, and b=benefits
Then: B-(W+b)<B
So the next time you hear the assertion that collective bargaining has nothing to do with budgets, you too can call bullshit, and have the math to prove it. And the next time you see a talking head, or even an opponent of collective bargaining, fail to challenge that assertion, you can conclude that our collective capacity for critical cogitation is critically crippled. In other words, our collective heads are in our collective asses. Waddaya say we pop that cork?
Then, and only then, can we begin an intelligent dialogue.
