Editing User:Gbalfour

Gene, you added the text below, to the talk page of an automated page.  It doesn't belong there.  We need to somehow get the ideas below, into the final text for the new platform.  --[[User:JNMcLarty|Jeffrey McLarty]] 12:04, 18 July 2012 (EDT)


Problem: A systematic voting bias that favours public servants.

There exists a systematic, undemocratic bias that appears during every political election that  favors public servants - in particular those that are represented by the collective bargaining process that is the government granted privilege of union membership.

The problem has  two dimensions. 

First. All tax revenues come under the spending discretion and control of public servants. Consequently,  then public servants  as a class of society ultimately possess the collective voting power (and self-serving) tendency to vote in favor of political platforms and government internal policies that will serve their individual and personal interests AS public servants. Examples of such self- interests include:  voting for new or expansionary government programs that will provide more job opportunities for themselves within the public service; voting for employee compensation and benefits increases for themselves; voting against any measure that proposes a reduction in the power, size, mandate, revenues and influence of government in our lives.

Second. When public servants are members of a union, this systematic bias becomes dramatically reinforced. Since the majority of public servants are union members, then this systematic bias clearly favors society's 'political class' over those that fund their jobs - the wealth-generating citizens who are employed in the private sector. It must be noted that the citizens who are employees of the public service are members of the wealth-consuming class, and that any taxes that they must forfeit from their pay-check  are paid by monies that originated from taxation rather that the wealth-creating activities of business.

Everyone understands the power and influence of unions today.

Unions have been granted by government authority the "right"  to employee "collective bargaining" tactics  to extract compensation and other job-related advantages from employers for their members. Their leverage to achieve these ends is directly proportional to the percentage of the employer's workforce that belongs to the union membership. The threat that the union presents to the employer to “negotiate” better employment terms is strike action, or other less-punitive job action which will threaten the employer's reputation and will withdraw from the public community that the employer serves the services upon which they have come to depend.

Solution: Collective voting.

I am proposing “collective voting” to counter the bias of "collective bargaining".

Under collective voting, any public servant that enjoys the benefits of collective bargaining under union membership must forfeit his or her individual vote at election time, but  will be entitled to influence the single collective vote that will be granted to every separate union organization that employs public servants. Furthermore, to prevent unions from re-structuring themselves into many smaller voting units in order to counter the purpose of this collective voting scheme, a single vote will be allowed for every distinct community  of public servant - one vote for all teachers; one vote for all health care worker; etc.

It is anticipated that many union members will not willingly  forfeit their individual vote in favor of the voting restriction imposed by union membership - they will likely argue this as being  "undemocratic”. I sympathize with them. 

For this reason, a concurrent law must be passed to make union membership voluntary. In this way, every public sector employees will have  the democratic choice between the advantages of collective bargaining and the ability to exercise their right to vote as a citizen of Ontario.

Anticipated consequences:

While this "collective voting "proposal is not ideal, if implemented it will greatly reduce the systematic and undemocratic voting bias that currently exists. Two scenarios are likely to become manifest as result of this change. 

First, union membership may not change at all but the voting influence of unions will become almost nonexistent, thereby eliminating the bias. 

On the other hand, if membership in unions drops radically, then the number of citizens who lobby for internal policy changes  or at election time, vote  in favor of self-serving political objectives - these will also be reduced along with the bias. 

In either case, the interests of democracy will be served.