Collective bargaining is not a right.

Over the last couple of months we have heard a lot about rights. One of the biggest "rights" we have heard about is that collective bargaining is a right. Collective bargaining is not a right; it is about as much as a right as driving is a right. What is a right? A right is bestowed upon us by our Creator, they are unalienable. Judge Andrew Napolitano discusses rights in his book, A Nation of Sheep. We must first make the distinction between laws and rights. Rights are natural in human nature and our freedoms stem from that humanity. Law, on the other hand, is Positivism in nature. It is created by the lawmaker and as long as the lawmaker is legitimately in power, the law is just. Natural law rejects any law that subverts the rights common to all in humanity. The Declaration of Independence includes some of these natural rights, John Locke, in his Second Treatise on Government, wrote "that being all equal and independent, no one ought to harm another in his Life, Health, Liberty, or Possessions." Thomas Paine in The Rights of Man, wrote that natural rights include "all the intellectual rights, or rights of the mind, and also all those rights acting as an individual for his own comfort and happiness, which are not injurious to the natural rights of others." One of the simplest explanations I have heard came from the Wilkow Majority and it was simply put, "a person's right can not trump another person's right." With the above explanations, it is quite obvious that collective bargaining is not a right; there is no right to a job, or right to housing or even medical care. All of those items must be given freely (no coercion, not free of charge) by another, a business, an employer, a home builder or a doctor, respectively.
Why is this important? There have been budget battles across the country, even in Nevada. States facing budget deficits are working to balance their budgets anyway possible. Public sector unions have come under much attack and with good reason. Public sector unions have a special relationship with the government monopoly. Public sector unions collect dues from government workers and use that money to elect politicians that are sympathetic to the organized labor movement. It's those same politicians that then negotiate with the very group that got them elected at the expense of the taxpayer, who has no voice in the proceedings. This creates a cozy relationship that drains states coffers as the unions demand more and more. In Nevada, about 40 years ago, NRS 288 came into effect to pacify public sector unions and force collective bargaining between the government and the unions that represent them. This affected all government employees, except state employees. Over the 40 years since NRS 288 became law, the unions have been usurping power from the local governments and school boards until we arrive at the $3 billion budget shortfall we are currently facing.
In my next article, I will continue to look into NRS 288 and how it is bankrupting the state and ruining education in the Silver State.

Please check my examiner article for links.