Some thoughts penned by FR correspondent Bradley Benbrook…
Why do state and local governments have public employee unions? Normal unions in the private sector organize for the purpose of negotiating with management over pay and benefits. There are two very distinct sides to the negotiating table.
Not so with public employee unions. Public employee unions use millions of dollars in member dues to elect (and then strong-arm) the very same politicians who will sit across from them at the negotiating table. In other words, there is no labor-versus-management dynamic when it comes to public employee unions. In the public sector, labor has become management, and labor has predictably rewarded itself with generous pay and benefits.
Of course, this only works because public employee unions and their political protectors are playing with taxpayer money – your money – rather than shareholders’ money, and they assume that taxpayers won’t pay close enough attention to learn about it, much less do anything about it.
For an important discussion of how this dangerous trend originated and has grown to the point where states and municipalities are facing insolvency, see The New Tammany Hall in The Weekly Standard. (Kudos to Joel Fox at Fox and Hounds for linking to this piece.)
In particular, professors Siegel and DiSalvo highlight the parity between public and private sector wages and the growing disparity between public and private sector benefits:
In other words, it would be a little too obvious for public sector workers to suddenly get paid a lot more than their private sector neighbors (“How can Bob and Shirley afford a second house? I thought they both worked for the state?”), so the trick now is to load up more quietly with generous health benefits and rich pensions that will be paid after the public employee retires and moves to Nevada or Texas to start a second career. But it is still a money grab all the same, made possible by politicians, at the expense of taxpayers.
**There is more – click the link**
October 13th, 2009 at 12:00 am
It’s time for all public employee union contracts to be voted on by the tax payers. They should be put on a website at least 90 days before the election and have a “For Dummies” version so everyone knows the salaries or wadges, complete cost of benefits, number of holiday and vacation days, work rules,etc. This should also apply to contracts with non-profits who are actually part of the government workforce.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Forget contracts…get rid of public unions before this state goes under….
The democrat governor in Michigan has declining tax revenues caused by raising taxes in a recession to support unions and gov. waste.
This fiscal idiot has been in office over six years and presides over a mess worse than Nero’s Rome.
Now to California….does anyone truly believe it could get any worse? You betcha. They are trying.
October 13th, 2009 at 12:00 am
Next they will make it so that state workers pay no state income taxes, in order to attract and retain good workers. Of course they will have to increase taxes on the private sector. We have more and more people riding in the wagon and fewer and fewer pulling the wagon.