The Columbus Dispatch published my opinion about prohibiting public employees from going on strike 25 years ago. The bus drivers were on strike here in Columbus then. I had recently purchased a car and considered myself fortunate to have one. I would not have been able to get to work during a transit strike.
I still believe that public employees should not be able to go on strike. I believe in collective bargaining, but disrupting public services is different than refusing to help a business make a profit. People could lose their lives, jobs or property if public workers go on strike.
A question sometimes comes up during discussions of education reform; Why does a basketball player make more money than a teacher? This question is often used to illustrate our misplaced priorities. The people who do the most important work get paid the least, and the people who do the least important work get paid the most. The people who harvest our fruits and vegetables are de facto slaves, while the people who rigged our financial system so that they could bet on a failing housing market receive multi-million dollar bonuses.
A teacher should make more money than a basketball player. The children of undocumented migrant workers should have U.S. citizenship and a free education and free health care. That is the least we can do for them. A police officer should make enough money for a comfortable living and so that he or she is unlikely to accept bribes.
If we prohibit public workers from going on strike, we should compensate them adequately. Rather than balance the state budget by trimming their pay and benefits, we should soak the rich. No one needs to be a billionaire. We cannot argue that heavy taxes on the rich will stifle free enterprise. We gave up on free enterprise when we bailed out the banks and the automobile manufacturers. It is scandalous that teachers in Ohio face diminished retirement benefits while a basketball player from Akron sits on $90 million that he received for endorsing a brand of shoes.
