UNIONS HAVE ONE MAIN FOCUS – MORE GOODIES FOR THEIR MEMBERS
I am very pleased for my friend Bruce McPherson that his campaign yesterday was able to trumpet 
the endorsement of the California Professional Firefighters in his first election to the position of Secretary of State (he is the appointed incumbent, so this is his first run for the office – though he did run statewide for Lieutenant Governor last go-around). It is a good endorsement to have — it is a major public employee union, and as we saw in the 2005 special election, the unions are a powerful force in politics. He also has the endorsement of the California Teachers Association.
McPherson’s union endorsements gives me an opportunity to express my concern about employee unions, and the inference that their endorsement connotes that the recipient of their endorsement means that they are "good" on policy issue concerning the professional occupation of the members of that union. This sounds awkward, so let me try to be more specific. The California Teachers Association likes to speak as if they are the authority on what is good for education. The California Nurses Association likes to speak as if they are the experts on the medical profession. And you can be sure that the California Professional Firefighters like to present themselves as people that support candidates who are good on "fire protection" issues.
The reality is that all of these organizations are unions — which is to say that their primary purpose is to look out for the job security, wages and benefits of their members. When they give an endorsement, they (by and large) are looking at these bread-and-butter salary and benefits issues, not public policy issues concerning the area of expertise of their professional membership.
Don’t get me wrong, I am not saying that these unions don’t weigh in on substantive state policy issues that effect the area of work of their members — but when was the last time that a union weighed in and said the best policy was to give employers flexibility on hiring and firing, or to outsource rather than hire more employees? In other words, there are times when the best public policy in an area is not good news for the public employees in that area, and the unions become a hindrance to the best interests of the state.
Pardon me if I am a bit cynical when it comes to employee unions — they really do only sing from one page — which is that where their members are concerned, more is more is more. But then again, it seems to work.
Don’t get me wrong, I believe in the rights of unions to exist, and to have input in the process. But I believe that public employee unions need to be reigned in — their ability to suck money out of the paychecks of their members and spend lavishly in politics has perverted the public policy process.
Getting back to the release from Bruce McPherson. Again, I am pleased for Secretary McPherson. But I suspect the union support is more about his past support on labor issues than anything to do with his attention to state policies concerning fire protection. Else it is that he is so nice that he represents an easy opportunity for this labor union to endorse a token GOPer in order to bolster the myth that they are ‘non-partisan’ — when they are anything but.
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