“Although the city is recovering, we are and will continue to have difficulty attracting and retaining experienced and skilled employees if we don’t achieve a solution now.” Palo Alto City Employee and SEIU Local 521 Chapter Chair, Palo Alto Online, January 14, 2014

This refrain has been heard for over 20 years. It plays out in every city and county in California, whereby unionized workforces claim that if their employers don’t pay as much as the neighboring city, all the good employees will leave, and nobody will want to work for them.

The problem with this, of course, is that as soon as one city raised their wages and benefits to make their jobs more attractive than the neighboring city, then the neighboring city had to endure the clamor from their unions to keep pace. The result? We have workers in Palo Alto, whose average pay and benefits were $139,907 during 2012, claiming they don’t make enough money, and so they’re considering going on strike (ref. “Palo Alto calls impasse in union talks,” January 14, 2014,… Read More