This past Monday, a New York Times article was published describing prison guard brutality on convicted inmates. The situation under scrutiny deals with an inmate due to serve 12 months for drug-related crimes in a medium security New York state prison who was beaten gruesomely by a prison guard—so gruesomely that he had to get his right testicle removed. The proper punishment for any industry handling an employee who is failing to do their job is termination of employment; however, due to the high unionization of the prison guard industry, the case was handed down further and further, eventually dismissed, and the aforementioned guard still works for the state and collects his paychecks.
This case is one of many, and I think that the general consensus among rational people is that the fact that cases like this still exist is an injustice and, frankly, an embarrassment.
Since 2010 the state has moved to fire 30 prison guards, and due to union contract regulations that require a convoluted arbitration process, only eight were fired. Another 80 cases were handled internally by the union itself, and resulted in a punishment other than dismissal.
This opens the conversation regarding “guaranteed employment” that unions have provided for certain industries throughout our economy. Though unions are generally positive (union wage and salary earners make 21 percent more than non-union wage and salary earners) and give employees a voice and a presence in the administrative office, they can also hinder a company or an entire system from working properly (though it does also happen in the private sector, given the case above I will focus on the public sector unions). Additionally, the public sector has 35.7 percent union membership while the private sector has 6.6 percent union membership).
The concept of guaranteed employment, or “un-fireablity,” is one that doesn’t belong in our governmental or economical organization. I say “our” because, sure, it may work somewhere else, but I’m not comparing us to an idealist, homogeneous European country. In America, if you abuse your employment and union membership by being a danger to the workplace, you should be dismissed from that job, accordingly. I am confident, kind of, that the most liberal socialist and the most conservative fascist would agree with that statement. There are countless anecdotes of policemen, teachers, and now prison guards that have done their job poorly or abused their privilege as an employee with no repercussions (yes, I think being an employee is a privilege. The employer owns the job, not the employee—another grand misunderstanding of unions and their members).
Guaranteed employment inhibits growth and disincentivizes innovation (spoken like a true capitalist), but economic limitations are just the surface of the “impossible-to-fire” iceberg. The effects of not just under-performing employees, but dangerous employees need immediate attention from aware union members and the unions themselves.
Guaranteed employment, called tenure in academia, kept Aryeh Eller employed at the New York City school district office (fortunately, away from children) for over 10 years after he admitted repeated sexual assault of female students at Hillcrest High School in Queens. The district administrators were forced to reassign Eller to the district office after he was deemed “too difficult to fire” because union arbitrators would not approve his termination of employment. Eller receives annual, union-negotiated pay raises, and makes $85,000 per year. He’s earned nearly $1 million in salary since being yanked from the classroom.
Moreover, the quality of domestic protection provided to us is becoming shakier and more controversial (i.e. the shameful police brutality that has haunted our country for months and months now).
The argument for a guaranteed employment benefit is that these people are doing jobs that no one wants to be doing, and as such deserve a stimulus in order to maintain a steady flow of teachers, officers, and garbage men entering the market. I understand the argument, and reject it.
There are numerous other ways to draw wage earners to certain industries without compromising the quality of the work done or the safety of U.S. citizens (even convicted inmates)—especially when the industry concerns civil protection and public education. I think the argument against guaranteed employment is pretty reasonable and is understood by all parties involved. We, with cooperation and awareness from the unions, need to right these wrongs and catapult America forward. Safe environments to work, learn, and serve should be guaranteed in this country. Employment, however, is something that should be valued and respected, not warrantied.
Regarding the prison-guard case above, Brian Fischer, New York state corrections commissioner from 2007 to 2013, said, “It is tough to get rid of a bad officer, just like it’s tough to get rid of a bad teacher…it’s frustrating.”