Union boss bargaining hurts America's most productive workers

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Last week, while addressing an AFL-CIO crowd, President Obama extolled the virtues of empowering union bosses as employees' exclusive representatives. But here is something he failed to mention while praising union monopoly bargaining: It often hurts America's most productive workers.

Union bosses almost always resist pay plans that take into account individual effort or ability. Consequently, union contracts routinely lower the earnings of the most productive front-line workers. And employees who work especially hard or are especially talented are not the only victims.

When businesses are unable to offer their front-line employees incentives for good performance, they often find fewer employees bother to perform well. Such firms become less competitive, and all employees suffer the consequences.

Under current federal labor law, unionized job providers can offer merit-based individual pay increases or bonuses only if union officials give their permission, or if federal authorities find bargaining between the employer and union officials has come to an "impasse."

With the exception of star-driven industries, like Hollywood movies and professional sports, union bosses have rejected virtually all requests by unionized employers to offer merit pay or bonuses. And employers risk costly strikes and legal trouble if they try to bargain to an impasse.

Consequently, unionized employers rarely try to reward employees on the basis of their individual performance, because they can expect only to suffer nasty repercussions.