The unions of legend were socialist affairs: all for one, and one for all. The unions of today are more capitalistic — run for their own profit, minimizing services and maximizing revenues. For a given amount of money paid by an employer, those revenues are generally greater if the employer hires a larger number of lower-paid workers than for a smaller number of higher paid workers. The reason is that union dues are generally regressive, and take a higher percentage of pay the less the union member earns. As a result public employee unions often push contract provisions that not only are contrary to the interests of the broader community but also are contrary to the interests of many if not most members, in order to get more people paying dues. The current police contract negotiations are a case in point.
The NYPD is one of the most expensive police forces in the world, as measured by the share of all of our income all of us have to pay in taxes to support it. Yet New York City police officers are grossly underpaid. The high costs are due to a combination of a huge police force, with more than double the national average in officers relative to population, and generous retirement benefits, with New York City possibly paying as much or more for officers who are retired as for officers who are working.
It is a credit to the NYPD that New York City’s crime rate is lower than the national average. That means that in some parts of New York City, the crime rate is vastly lower than the national average. Imagine that in those places New York City had one police officer patrols, which are the standard in much of the country, in such areas, and poured all the savings of a smaller force — wages, pension contributions, health care for employees, health care for retirees — into higher wages. The increase in wages would be absolutely massive. Would a smaller, better paid force be better for public safety? You’ll have to ask Ray Kelly. Would it be better for the police officers themselves? You’d have to ask them. What I do know is it would be worse for the union, assuming the structure of its dues is typical, with a fixed rate that increases with wages by a smaller percent than the wages themselves. The added dues from all that higher pay would not offset the lower dues from fewer officers, as things are typically structured.
How about teaching? I’ve advocated having teachers with tougher jobs — in schools with many poor and troubled children — getting more pay. The teacher’s union released its own plan, without higher pay, but with just four classes per day for teachers in those difficult schools, and smaller classes. What are the periods, 50 minutes? That’s 3 hours and 20 minutes per day in the classroom! Why is that preferable to higher pay? Because it would require more teachers, which for a given amount of money would mean more dues. Don’t kid yourself — that’s all it is about. How about offering the higher pay, but also allowing teachers with young children at home to work fewer hours for less money? A choice for the teachers between my suggestion and theirs, in other words? That would mean a choice between more dues and less, and the teacher’s union does not want to allow that choice. Better for teachers to be underpaid, so the union can go on saying New York City’s children deserve an inferior education for that reason.
My point of view on unions has evolved. I think much less of them than I did, say, 20 years ago. Gone are the days when they were really unions of dedicated members, especially the public sector where dues are compulsory. Gone are the days when they pursued broader community values. Fine, some would say — their fiduciary duty is to push their members’ interests regardless of the effect on the broader community, particularly when the members who matter don’t live in that community. But I don’t even accept that public employee unions advance the interests of the majority of their members. What they do is maximize dues. They are the public sector equivalent of private equity raiders.
If dues were proportional to wages, I guarantee unions would seek different contract terms. If they were progressive, with a low share of wages for low wage workers and a high share of wages for those earning more, the contract terms they would be in favor of would be even more different.