75-02-B1
- Main Page \ Reagan Radio Commentaries \ 1975
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Public Employees[edit]
Transcript[edit]When, if ever, does an argument between labor and management justify dumping millions of gallons of sewage into a bay or letting someone's house burn down. I'll be right back. In recent years, we've been subjected to strikes by government workers, organized laborers working around the clock to unionize our civil servants. In some areas, state governments have legalized collective bargaining and in others, California for one, such legislation is pending. Collective bargaining does not prevent strikes, those who promote this legislation charge that government employees without the right to strike are relegated to second-class citizenship. Are they? Let's take a look at what civil service means and what kind of a substitute it is for collective bargaining. First and foremost, public employees have a job security beyond anything the private sector can provide. Their boss can't sell out to another company or get old and decide to close up shop and retire. A new invention can't cancel out the market for the product they make. The boss can't go broke and declare bankruptcy, he just asks for more taxes. Public employees are protected against firing for private reasons, promotion is based on merit and the pay scale is ordered by law to be commensurate with the pay scale in the private sector. If government fails to abide by the law, employees can take their case to court. I believe in the right of workers to organize and to strike in the private sector. I do not believe that public employees have the right to strike. The private and public sectors are different; no amount of propagandizing can make them the same. A strike is a test of economic strength. The worker withholds his service, management shuts down. The worker gambles loss of livelihood against his employer's ability to halt production and risk loss of customers to competitors. But government can't shut down its assembly line. Government is a monopoly. When the sewage workers in San Francisco struck and let hundreds of millions of gallons of raw sewage spill into the bay, the people of San Francisco couldn't choose to use another sewer system. When your house catches fire you can't turn to the Yellow Pages to find a substitute for the local fire department. The same holds true when teachers or garbage collectors strike. In the case of public employees, management consists of the elected representatives chosen by the people. Both groups are therefore employees of the people and management, elected officials of government, can have no power accept that voluntarily granted by the people. Some have proposed resorting to binding arbitration to settle disputes between government and government employees. How can elected representatives beholden to the people delegate to some non-elected individual or group the right to make a decision which could conceivably result in a tax increase? Where governments do not have proper procedures for hearing employee grievances or allowing them an opportunity to voice their opinions and desires, the people should tell their elected representatives to correct this, but at the same time we must make it plain, we also want a law absolutely prohibiting strikes by public employees and we demand strict enforcement of that law. If public employees strike, government should start recruiting new employees. One of labor's favorite presidents Franklin Delano Roosevelt said, "A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable that says it all." This is Ronald Reagan. Thanks for listening. |
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