Less than two weeks ago political strategist Dick Morris conducted a poll of likely Wisconsin voters that produced some strange results. By a margin of 74-18, those polled want teachers and other government workers to contribute more toward their health insurance premiums, and by an even larger margin (79-16) they want public employees to pay a larger share of their pension costs. Voters also want to end the automatic deduction of union dues from public employees’ paychecks (54-34) and want to require that pay increases that exceed the rate of inflation be submitted to referendum (66-30).

At the same time poll respondents say (by a 54-41 margin) that they don’t want to limit the collective bargaining rights of the public workers’ unions. But by a 58-38 margin, they want issues such as tenure, merit pay, and the right to fire incompetent teachers taken off the bargaining table.

I suppose this could be taken as proof of the Arrow impossibility theorem — that there is no voting system consistent with both individual rationality and democratic principles that will produce consistently rational results. Or, more likely, it just shows that people don’t really understand what “collective” bargaining is.

Whatever Governor Walker’s intentions, his proposed reforms amount to union-busting, just as his critics charge. Collective bargaining becomes a sham when there is nothing to bargain about. And it becomes impossible when a union loses the ability to coerce dues out of the workers it claims to represent. So for Wisconsin voters to say they support collective bargaining, while at the same time expressing strong support for reforms that will kill it, is to reveal a profound misunderstanding. Read more »