Public employee unions are not like other unions and the difference is extremely important. Why you should support efforts to change the process of providing employee benefits to public employees.

Government, Politics Leave a comment

Since you can’t separate politics from public unions and both parties leverage their influence to mutual advantage, how in the world can we expect honest collective bargaining with public employee unions?

Let's talk, or are you just chicken?

I negotiated union contracts for over thirty-five years. I know how an informed, intelligent union leadership works.  I know that a good union leader is able to balance the interests of his or her members with the reality of issues facing the employer in good times and bad. I know a good union leader has a long-term vision and places job security and working conditions high on the list of priorities. I know a good union leader is not greedy and is informed about employee benefit matters, understands how a pension plan works and what is driving health care costs.

Contrast that to public employee unions that are so political they seem unable to deal with reality.  They place the interests of their members ahead of the interest of all taxpayers who are footing the bill.  In New York the teacher’s union runs ads saying the mayor refuses to have “millionaires to pay their fair share.”   Listen to the rhetoric coming from the unions and you hear the standard progressive political phrases such as protect the middle class, raise taxes, and that the efforts of governors to manage costs are nothing more than an anti-union campaign.  Their view is short-term and greedy.  They have a “we are special, job for life” mentality.  They ignore the middle class working citizens who pay the taxes to pay the benefits and who in most cases have no such generous benefits of their own. Public unions are among the top contributors to political campaigns with 95% of the money going to Democratic candidates.  

I have heard people say that the best way to resolve these critical matters is through the collective bargaining process.  Under normal circumstances, I would agree with that.  I resolved many financial issues through collective bargaining; I managed long–term costs through collective bargaining.  I worked with union leaders who were able to equate the viability and success of the employer with the best interests of their members. Public employee unions have no such perspective or incentive to do so; states don’t go out of business after all. Public employee unions tend to “negotiate” by way of political donations and attack ads when there is a threat to continued spending.

So-called collective bargaining in the public sector is what got us into this mess in the first place. The fact is that bargaining with unions closely aligned to the politicians in a state, is not true bargaining.  Rather, there is protecting ones turf and ones voting bloc. The unions collect millions from their members and put much of those dues into advertising and supporting politicians who support the unions. According to published reports, the New Jersey Education Association collects $100,000,000 a year in dues and last year spent $300,000 a week fighting budget cuts.

I served on a state health benefits commission for teachers set up by a Democratic governor in return for some minor concessions by the unions.  The commission was made up mostly of union leaders and state employees.  I was the only uninterested party representing the public and I was frequently the only dissenting vote.  I witnessed union leaders on the commission vote to increase premiums at a level known in advance to be insufficient to cover project claim costs, I witnessed the same group vote down a proposal to increase the retiree co-pay for a prescription from $1.00 to $2.00, both actions when retirees pay nothing for their coverage and the state (and its citizens) has an unfunded liability for these benefits of $55 billion.  Yes, the liability is that high and unfunded because of decades of irresponsible politicians who ignored the growing costs and kept improving the benefits (dare I speculate in order to keep the union PAC money flowing).  These are same people who are supposed to “negotiate” with the unions.

What has collective bargaining got us?  Well, in New Jersey their plan had (recently changed) internal coordination of benefits.  That means that a husband and wife both enrolled in the state benefits plan could coordinate their benefits and then receive 100% reimbursement for their bills.  No employer in the world would permit this.  During hearings we held in the process of evaluating the state’s benefit programs, the unions bused people to protest.  One woman testified that we should not lower her benefits.  She was a temporary worker from January to May each year, and then collected unemployment for the rest of the year. However, for the entire year she received her health benefits for free.  There are numerous similar examples.

Lest you don’t agree that politics are the main driver in the relationship between public employee unions and their bosses consider this.  In Wisconsin, the governor exempted the police and firefighter unions from his effort to limit collective bargaining.  No doubt it is only a coincidence that these two unions supported the governor in his election campaign. 

Don’t be confused or swayed by the rhetoric on this issue.  The simple fact is that in many states the benefits and total compensation for government workers are out of control.  They got that way through poor management by politicians and by the irresponsible actions of the unions.  You are footing the bill.  These liabilities will make borrowing by states or local governments more expensive, these liabilities will be reflected in your income, sales and property taxes.  As I have said before, public employees deserve a fair, competitive pay and benefits package.  That package should reflect the total compensation of all workers in the state where they are employed.

That is all this should be about!

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