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TOMORROW, June 25 at 3pm EDT: Join Us for a JMC Webinar
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The Problem of Government Labor Relations: From Party Machines to Public Sector Unions
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Do public sector unions prevent government workers from being held accountable? Or do they rightly protect the interests of those who serve us?
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Picture above: 1919 Boston Police Strike in which
officers demanded a trade union.
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As police unions enter the national spotlight in response to incidents of police brutality, join us for a virtual discussion with faculty partner Daniel DiSalvo (Professor and Chair of Politics, City College of New York) on the current role of American public sector unions and their history.
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Several state governments, beginning with Wisconsin in 1959, have adopted collective bargaining statues for public employees that facilitate the unionization of public workers. By the 1980s, public employee unions were the mechanism by which the political power of government employees was affected.
After three decades of relative stability in this system, government-labor relations exploded as a subject of intense political controversy in 2011. For the last decade, they have been at the top of many state legislative agendas and the subject of litigation in state and federal courts, including the Supreme Court.
Most recently, in the wake of the killing of George Floyd, police unions have been in the national spotlight. It is not their pay or benefits at issue, but the job protections negotiated into their union contracts. Such complexity in these contracts frustrates attempts to evaluate the effectiveness of public programs and undermines democratic accountability.
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Questions on the topic are encouraged and may be sent in advance to [email protected]. Audience members will have the chance to submit questions during the event as well.
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Thursday, June 25, 2020 • 3:00 PM EDT
A virtual webinar through Zoom
Free and open to the public. Registration required.
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Daniel DiSalvo is Professor and Chair of Political Science in the Colin Powell School at the City College of New York–CUNY and a Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute. His scholarship focuses on American political parties, elections, labor unions, state government, and public policy. He is the author of Engines of Change: Party Factions in American Politics, 1868–2010 (Oxford, 2012) and Government Against Itself: Public Union Power and Its Consequences (Oxford, 2015).
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Professor DiSalvo writes frequently for scholarly and popular publications, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, National Affairs, American Interest, The Weekly Standard, and the New York Daily News. He is coeditor of The Forum: A Journal of Applied Research in Contemporary Politics.
This fall, Professor DiSalvo, a JMC faculty partner, will be teaching a JMC-funded graduate level course, "Confronting the Constitution," for working high school civics teachers in New York City through City College of New York's School of Education. Modeled on a series of graduate courses for teachers that JMC developed with Lake Forest College, the course offers teachers a rare opportunity to consider the ideas that informed the creation and development of America's political system and to enliven their curriculum with primary documents.
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History can always teach us something about the present, but only if it remains a priority. Without knowledge of our predecessors' experiences, we have no basis to make important decisions about our country's future.
JMC supports those teachers who are championing education in America's history and its founding principles. Our growing network of more than 900 dedicated professors are making a difference on hundreds of campuses across the country. So far, they have taught more than one million students. Will you help us reach more?
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Watch Our Previous JMC Webinar: "What Good is Federalism in a Pandemic?"
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On May 20, 2020, John Dinan (Professor of Politics, Wake Forest University) and JMC board member Benjamin Kleinerman (R.W. Morrison Chair of Political Science, Baylor University) discussed the role of federalism in government response to the pandemic.
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About the Jack Miller Center
The Jack Miller Center is a 501(c)(3) public charity with the mission to reinvigorate education in America's founding principles and history. We work to advance the teaching and study of America's history, its political and economic institutions, and the central principles, ideas and issues arising from the American and Western traditions—all of which continue to animate our national life.
We support professors and educators through programs, resources, fellowships and more to help them teach our nation's students.
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