UI Law School panel debates public collective bargaining

IOWA CITY - Concerns about collective bargaining for public unions should cross political and ideological lines because it gives undue power to one group at the expense of others, a Northwestern University law professor said during a panel discussion at the University of Iowa Friday.

But another panelist said collective bargaining for public unions has come under attack in many states not because such unions are the cause of budget problems but because the majority of unions in the United States are for public workers.

The hot-button issue drew differing views from the panel during the hour-long discussion at the UI School of Law. Panelists were Iowa Rep. Nate Willems, D-Lisbon; Matthew Glasson of the University of Iowa Labor Center; and Professor John McGinnis of Northwestern University Law School.

Private sector unions have certain constraints that make their demands more reasonable than public-sector unions, McGinnis said, such as being constrained by the market.

But the most important different between private and public unions is who is sitting on the other side of the bargaining table, he said. In the case of public unions, it is politicians or the appointees of politicians, which McGinnis said raises questions of influence and power, since politicians spend more time courting concentrated groups than diffused groups. It's completely reasonable to applaud private-sector unions and to believe public-sector unions are damaging, he said.

“Public sector unions are likely to have large influence over the people they are negotiating with,” he said. “It distorts our Democracy.”

But Glasson, with the UI Labor Center, said public-sector unions are under attack because that's where the most union representation is right now. National numbers from 2010 show that 11.9 percent of American workers were in a union, with 6.9 percent of workers in private industry represented by a union and 36.2 percent of public-sector workers represented by unions. Union members are known to be vocal and politically active, making them targets, Glasson said.

“The more unions you have in the economy, the more equality of wealth you have,” he said.

A lot of times gender is overlooked in what unions have accomplished, Willems added. Public-sector unions represent a number of professions populated by women, he said.