Chapter 14 is focused on Collective Bargaining and Labor Relations and a decision made today by President Barack Obama, shows the role of a union and the cost saved to American peoples by de-unionizing labor. The National Treasury Employees Union is vehemently against President Obama’s decision to freeze pay increases for nearly 2 million federal government employees. The President of the NTEU said that they plan on fighting the measures taken by Obama, in Congress.
‘The administration had examined pay levels, "and the data we get back indicates that high-skilled workers in government are slightly underpaid. Lower-skilled workers are slightly overpaid relative to the private sector," Obama said. "And that's not surprising," he added, "because it's a unionized workforce" in government, while the private sector typically is not.’
The proposed cuts will save American taxpayers roughly $30 billion over the next five years. At the end of the chapter, I also learned that it is illegal to strike at the federal level of the public sector and most states. However, this hasn’t prevented work stoppages in state and local governments. Therefore, in regards to the Obama administration’s new policy, we should not fear a strike of our national government, but do expect the NTEU and the American Federation of Government Employees to file grievances and fight for this to be reversed in Congress.
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