I take issue with Matthew Gagnon’s view on public sector unions published in his Sept. 16 BDN column. Full disclosure: I am a U.S. Department of Defense employee, a registered Republican and not a member of a union. I believe Gagnon truly misrepresents the power and prestige of those representing federal employees.
One must understand one of the most important restrictions on federal employees is they are not allowed to strike; they cannot hold back government services in an attempt to extort better pay, benefits or working conditions. When the federally employed air traffic controllers went on strike in the 1980s, President Reagan fired them almost immediately, and they had no ability to appeal the decision as they had violated federal law. In that same decade, the federal retirement system was changed so that new federal employees were required to pay into their retirement and pay a large portion of their health insurance premiums (recently, the amount employees contribute was raised).
Many who say federal employees are overpaid use misinformation to make those claims. When one compares the average U.S. government salary to that of the average private-sector worker, yes, the federal worker earns more. This methodology fails to take into consideration that as the federal government has shed workers, unskilled jobs such as those of cafeteria workers and janitors have been eliminated and the services farmed out to contractors, leaving a workforce generally better-skilled, better-educated and more experienced than the national workforce in general.
Even those highly educated federal workers could earn more if they left government service. A 2012 Congressional Budget Office report found federal workers with graduate degrees earned less than their private-sector counterparts. In my own field, marine transportation, I have determined that I make about 25 percent less than I could on the outside, and I wouldn’t have had to serve in places such as Pakistan, Iraq and Afghanistan. I consistently travel away from home over 150 days a year and have served up to 18 months deployed without my family. Why do I do it? It is not for the money. It is the desire to serve something more than a paycheck. After being injured on active duty, becoming a DOD civilian employee allows me to continue to serve this great nation.
It has been over 10 years since federal employees have received a raise that matches inflation. This year, a three-year pay-freeze ended, and employees received a 1 percent cost-of-living increase, again, well below inflation. In 2005, the Defense Department instituted a change to the pay plan used for its civilian employees, the National Security Personnel System. This system was found to be rife with cronyism. Unfair practices such as reclassifying supervisors as “leaders,” resulting in less money for the same responsibility, became the norm and broad pay bands rather than more specific pay grades classified senior people in the same pay group as newly hired, less experienced employees. This system was so corrupt and unfair Congress stepped in and forced the DOD to discontinue it. These all-powerful unions Gagnon speaks of were powerless to prevent the implementation of this plan, although they fought against it.
I am eligible to join the American Federation of Government Employees but I have not, mainly because union political funds go primarily to Democratic candidates whether or not they have union members’ best interests at heart. I have in the past been required to join maritime, local employee or industrial unions, but as the federal government is “right to work,” I have the choice. I would not ban unions nor would I require anyone to join them. I believe they serve a purpose, such as when someone like Scott Walker attacks a group of people for not wanting to join in on the race to the bottom for middle-class wages.
I believe Walker is using government employees to send a signal to big business, in an attempt for campaign cash from corporate donors, that in a Walker administration the degradation of the earning power of all middle-class workers will continue in the public or private sector.
The middle class is under attack, and one of the things holding back corporate America is the example the federal government sets in the fair and equitable compensation of workers. I believe that part of the backlash against the Republican Party is based in part on its failure to support the average wage earner. Its lack of action on illegal immigration (which keeps unskilled wages low), its support for H1B visas (which affects skilled workers) and its lack of concern for the deterioration of living standards are hurting the working classes.
These voters do not want to sit out the election nor are they likely to vote for a Democrat. Donald Trump, Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina offer a choice that sends a clear message to the GOP: The days of taking middle-class voters for granted is over.
Mark Bigelow, a native of Goodwins Mills, Maine, is director of the U.S. Navy’s Military Sealift Command office in Rota, Spain. He is a former Coast Guard and Merchant Marine officer.