When labor and state quarrel, the working person pays

The New York Post reports that California's largest state workers' union is preparing for a possible strike against the Newsom administration over pay. I confess I never governed a state as large as California, but I did run a printing house, a post office, and a few other enterprises — and I know that the moment the man setting type or carrying the mail believes his wage has been quietly cut by the rising cost of bread and firewood, his industry falters. You cannot lecture a hungry craftsman into cheerfulness.

The first question I would put to both sides is the simplest one: has the real wage — what a dollar actually buys at the market stall — kept pace with what it bought when these workers were hired? Inflation is a tax that legislatures did not vote on and workers did not consent to. I argued this in my own time about badly secured paper money, and the principle is no different today. If the state issues obligations — whether currency or employment contracts — it must honor their purchasing value, not merely their nominal face.

The second question is one of public consequence. State workers are not private employees in the ordinary sense; their labor is the machinery of self-government. Courts, roads, schools, inspections — these do not pause because the treasury is embarrassed. A strike here is not merely a labor dispute; it is, in a small way, a test of whether the civic compact holds. I do not say the workers are wrong to press their claim. I say that the cost of failing to settle fairly falls on citizens who had no seat at the table.

I will also note — as inference, not recollection — that when a large employer lets a dispute fester to the point of a strike threat, it usually signals that the quieter negotiations failed because someone in authority believed the workers would blink first. That is a gamble I would counsel against. A workforce that strikes once and wins moderate terms is far less costly than one that strikes, loses, and nurses a grievance for a decade. Frugality in wages is a false economy when it breeds resentment that outlasts the contract.

For the working person directly affected: do not let a strike action, if it comes, dissolve your own household's small reserves. Keep three months of plain expenses in a form you can reach — not locked in any instrument whose value depends on conditions you cannot control. A dispute between your union and your employer is a matter of collective bargaining; your family's pantry is a matter of personal prudence, and the two must not be confused. Industry above, frugality below — that is the counsel I would leave with any tradesman facing uncertain weeks ahead.