For the past two weeks I've been watching the argument between Governor Walker and the Wisconsin public employee unions. At the same time I've been putting together my own back-of-the envelope list of the issues and their consequences. Thus far, I've been dissatisfied to a greater or lesser degree with the arguments on both sides of the coin.
I've tried to understand Governor Walker, the Wisconsin unions, and both Republicans and Democrats. I was intrigued by the recent polling that showed a majority of the US population believes that unions should be able to keep their rights to collective bargaining. I also thought David Brooks made a strong case that public sector unions and private sector unions are different animals and that the Wisconsin Governor's rationale for public sector unions was appropriate. But none of the perspectives or framing of the issues was completely satisfactory and so I was still keeping tabs, curious as to which argument made the most sense.
Today, Sam Culbert of UCLA business school hit a home run. His op/ed reframed the entire subject and makes far and away the most sense. The title, Why Your Boss Is Wrong About You, gets at the real nub of the matter. Here's how Culbert sets up the issue:
In the raging battle over union rights in Wisconsin, those seeking to curtail collective bargaining for state employees have advanced an argument that seems hard to resist: It will make it easier to reward those workers who perform the best. What could be fairer than that?
If only that were true. As anybody who has ever worked in any institution — private or public — knows, one of the primary ways employee effectiveness is judged is the performance review. And nothing could be less fair than that.
As a result of his own research, Culbert points out the obvious, that the performance review is completely subjective, revealing nothing more than how "comfortable" a boss is with an employee, not how much an employee contributes to actual results. That jives 100% with my experience as an exec coaching.
Culbert digs still deeper and writes that though performance reviews are held up as objective assessments by the boss, they assume the boss has all the answers and results, inevitably, in an employee more focused on the relationship with the boss than on results. It's nearly impossible for a worker to have a trusting relationship with management. As a result, says Culbert, restricting collective bargaining will not get more bang for the buck for either the taxpayer or the governor.
Sure, you can give me anecdote after anecdote about irresponsible union members (I was a Detroit UAW member myself--for one year), and I can give you anecdote after anecdote about irresponsibile, destructive managers (I've been a consultant to executive management for more than 25 years). Based on Culbert's research and smart thinking, taking away collective bargaining from the union reveals itself as more political than intelligent. Uhhh. I'd say it's a highly destructive move, and the population needs to firmly reject that idea.
