The nation's public-sector union movement received a big boost in 1962 when President John F. Kennedy signed an executive order allowing federal employees to form unions. However, Kennedy's order only required federal agencies to "meet ... and confer" with unions "with respect to personnel policy and practices
and matters affecting working conditions, so far as may be appropriate
subject to law and policy requirements."
Federal unions still do not have the right to bargain wages and benefits, which are set by law through the federal budget (in which President Obama is seeking a two-year wage freeze for federal employees). Nor does the employer collect their dues for federal unions. The federal government remains, in labor relation parlance, an "open shop," in which employees are free to shun unions and to refuse to make any contribution to union coffers.
States like Wisconsin, by contrast, mandate "agency shop" environments. Through payroll withholding, state and local governments collect either union dues or an equivalent fee from all employees, including those who prefer not to belong to the union.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is proposing to end the automatic union dues checkoff and to require that unions be annually recertified in secret ballot voting by employees. He is also seeking to limit (but not eliminate) bargaining of wages, and to end bargaining of employee benefits. For this, he is being branded in some quarters as a "union buster." But if his proposals are adopted, public employee unions in Wisconsin will still enjoy more rights and privileges than JFK granted to federal unions nearly a half-century ago.
Federal unions still do not have the right to bargain wages and benefits, which are set by law through the federal budget (in which President Obama is seeking a two-year wage freeze for federal employees). Nor does the employer collect their dues for federal unions. The federal government remains, in labor relation parlance, an "open shop," in which employees are free to shun unions and to refuse to make any contribution to union coffers.
States like Wisconsin, by contrast, mandate "agency shop" environments. Through payroll withholding, state and local governments collect either union dues or an equivalent fee from all employees, including those who prefer not to belong to the union. Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is proposing to end the automatic union dues checkoff and to require that unions be annually recertified in secret ballot voting by employees. He is also seeking to limit (but not eliminate) bargaining of wages, and to end bargaining of employee benefits. For this, he is being branded in some quarters as a "union buster." But if his proposals are adopted, public employee unions in Wisconsin will still enjoy more rights and privileges than JFK granted to federal unions nearly a half-century ago.
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