UAW rank-and-file reject Ford contract

Here’s a very interesting article from Forbes about how then-governor Calvin Coolidge handled strong-arming from a union:

Calvin Coolidge Rules

“Just this once.” That’s what state and town governments all across the country say when they give in to the National Education Association, municipal police departments or the pink-collar workers at state capitals. Over the years our authorities have said “just this once” so often that our fragile economy is now hostage to these workers and the exorbitant pensions lawmakers have promised them.

What is it about public-sector unions that makes governments give in so often? Daily disruption, for one thing–unplowed streets, locked school doors, skies without air-traffic controls. Another is respect for public office. Most voters view respecting policemen, teachers and firemen as the obligation of a good citizen. And another is the enormous campaign contributions lawmakers accept from the public workers’ unions. In short, politicians believe they have to make concessions or they won’t be reelected. So they give in again and again, telling themselves, “Just this once.”

Courage of Conviction

There are two Presidents who wouldn’t give in–not even once. The better known is Ronald Reagan, who fired air traffic controllers when they went on strike in 1981.

Less known is Reagan’s hero, Calvin Coolidge. Ninety years ago, while he was still governor of Massachusetts, Coolidge halted a police strike in Boston by refusing to concede on even small points. Coolidge’s methods earned him the eternal hostility of the fastest-growing American political group, the Progressive movement. Yet Coolidge’s action didn’t hurt him politically. On the contrary, the Boston strike put Coolidge on the road to the presidency.

To gauge the scale of Coolidge’s bravery, it helps to recall how radical a year 1919 was. The Bolsheviks were solidifying their hold on Russia. In Europe politicians were making major concessions to striking socialists. Across the U.S. workers were unionizing and demonstrating to an extent never before seen. That winter in Seattle workers from many trades had joined shipyard hands in a general strike modeled on the Russian strike in Petrograd. Seattle’s mayor, Ole Hanson, was able to end the strike only by organizing 1,000 extra police and ordering them to shoot on sight anyone causing disruption. WWI veterans were restless, and riots were tearing at cities across the country.

Boston policemen believed their decision to join the American Federation of Labor might succeed. Their cause–higher wages, better conditions–seemed legitimate. Raises weren’t keeping up with the cost of living. Policemen, who got one day off every two weeks, were paid less than unskilled steelworkers. Conditions at station houses were atrocious. As a strike historian later reported, “In the Court Square station house, just behind City Hall, the bugs were so voracious that they ate the leather on the police helmets and belts.” Believing that public opinion was on their side, the police voted to strike 1,134 to 2.

Trouble came the very evening the police walked off the job. Gangs busted windows in South Boston. In Roxbury someone sabotaged rail switches, causing a streetcar to derail. Banks and big companies felt compelled to organize private guards, and Harvard University’s president, Abbott Lawrence Lowell, admonished students to “prepare themselves” for possible service to the city. In the days that followed the rioting continued, yet Governor Coolidge kept his distance, leaving Police Commissioner Edwin Curtis in charge. Some took this as a sign of gubernatorial weakness. Samuel Gompers, head of the AFL, offered a classic crisis compromise to Coolidge: Remove the unpopular Curtis, maybe raise pay and consider “the human side of the question,” and Gompers would halt the strike.

But Coolidge did not remove Curtis. Instead, he backed up the commissioner when Curtis fired the policemen–forever. Insult was added to injury when the replacement policemen received wages higher than those the strikers had been paid. Two things, Governor Coolidge said, mattered: First was respecting the local authorities–protecting Boston, at least in the initial stage, was Commissioner Curtis’ job, not the governor’s; second was to draw a bright line defining what actions within the law public-sector workers are permitted when they have grievances. Coolidge drew that line, saying, “There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”

Coolidge’s bright line reassured people: We were not like Europe or Russia; there was a limit to how far the left could go here. Massachusetts soon reelected Coolidge as governor. The GOP then made him its vice presidential candidate. When Warren Harding died, Calvin Coolidge became President. And in 1924 Americans voted to keep Coolidge in office. In the 1920s the American economy grew fast, and workers’ wages rose. By the 1928 presidential election the Progressive movement had faded.

To fire a police force during a riot takes more courage than to refuse a union negotiator demanding an endless supply of Lipitor for city clerical workers. Yet Coolidge demonstrated that he was willing to risk his job to do what was necessary, telling one official during the strike: “It does not matter whether I am elected or not.”

Today many Americans see the economic threat voracious unions–public sector or private–represent. Voters are more open to cutbacks and less sympathetic to spending than lawmakers believe. The politician who tries the Coolidge method may find himself pleased with the results.

Amity Shlaes, senior fellow in economic history at the Council on Foreign Relations

Article Link here:

http://www.forbes.com/forbes/2009/1102/opinions-amity-shlaes-current-events.html

emphasis mine

SouperConservative on November 2, 2009 at 12:01 PM