One argument often heard in politics today is that decisions should be made by the people and their local leaders whenever possible. Yet, here in North Carolina, we have a strange law that prevents local governments from bargaining contracts with their employees.
How did North Carolina end up with a law so hostile to the rights of municipalities across the state? You have to go back almost 50 years to 1959, a time of the Cold War and Jim Crow segregation. City leaders in Charlotte worried that their police force was going to organize so Mecklenburg County legislators drafted a bill to ban all public sector workers throughout the state from joining a union or engaging in collective bargaining. The legislature eventually passed a ban on unions for police officers and fire fighters, a prohibition that was later ruled unconstitutional, but the statute preventing local governments from collectively bargaining a contract with their employees has remained on the books for nearly half a century.
Today public employees across the state are supporting a repeal of the law and hope to restore the right of local governments to bargain with their employees. There are many reasons to remove this antiquated law from the statute books. Obviously, public employees hope to benefit from the right to bargain collectively through associations or unions of their own choosing. A collectively bargained contract would give these workers a voice at their jobs--a voice for dignity and fair treatment from their employers, and a voice to share ideas for solving problems and making the public sector serve taxpayers more efficiently and effectively.
Yet the reasons for supporting collective bargaining go beyond even those real needs and interests of public employees. Though some say the present law has served the state well, research indicates that citizens do not benefit from a public workforce without any access to collective bargaining rights. In fact, several studies show that states with a high percentage of unionized public sector workers have fewer government employees (as a proportion of their populations) and these employees stay on the job longer.
Employees who know they can resolve problems through contractual grievance procedures are less likely to quit or take to the streets--as the sanitation workers in Raleigh did recently when they had no mechanisms for resolving their differences with city officials. Those states with comprehensive collective bargaining laws for public employees often save money on turnover costs--after all, recruiting, hiring, and training new workers is an expensive process. Moreover, new workers are often less productive as they go through a learning curve on the job. So, public sector workers who have the rights and advantages of a collectively bargained contract often form a more stable, satisfied, and productive workforce. The higher wages and benefits of a union contract may well be offset by savings through those lower turnover rates, and higher productivity from a workforce that stays on the job.
Many local leaders across the state also recognize these advantages; they want the opportunity to investigate the possibilities of a collectively bargained contract with their employees without the state telling them that such agreements are illegal. Such contracts could make public employment more attractive and predictable; public workplaces could emphasize cooperation rather than conflict.
The current proposal does not require collective bargaining, nor does it repeal North Carolina laws prohibiting public employees from striking. The proposal simply allows local governments to explore the benefits of collectively bargained contracts for public sector workers--better jobs for those who serve the citizens of this state, labor relations that are based on dialogue and negotiation, and a public workforce that is stable and productive. Public workers, managers, political leaders, and citizens could all gain under agreements the encourage people to stay on the job and do their best to meet the challenges of our rapidly growing state.
It's time to let local governments in the state have the right to choose their own path in building the best possible public sector workforce. Given that right to choose, many local leaders may see that collectively bargained contracts offer far more benefits than they cost.
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Zonderman is a history professor at North Carolina State University and a member of the Triangle Labor Group and the HOPE Coalition.
