According to most California Democratic legislators, the real problem in our state is that the public employee unions don't have enough muscle at the local level. FOX News' report on a bill, which passed the Senate and heads to Gov. Jerry Brown, mandates that local civil service commissions have half the membership made up of union members. Given that the elected officials are mostly elected by the same unions, this assures that unions can hike their own pay and benefits at will. Unbelievable. FOX quotes Manhattan Institute's Daniel DiSalvo: "Let's say it passed and you have half of this board appointed in
effect by the unions, the result is in any dispute -- say a worker
files a grievance, or someone is trying to fire someone -- this would
make it very difficult, make the process much slower and add a huge
layer of bureaucracy. It would probably create a more
bureaucratic and difficult process." And people wonder why California won't reform its pension mess!
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And they wonder why they're so screwed up. Another example of why government-sector unions should not exist and a further validation of the dire warnings my good friend and colleague Bob Williams of the Freedom Foundation in Washington state has been sounding for decades.
In the private sector, the one who pays the bill is represented in union negotiations. In the government sector, he's not. The cozy and incestuous relationship between unions and politicians, usually, but no exclusively, Democrats, has brought us unsustainable compensation packages, large-scale entitlements, business-killing rules and regulations and more.
This part and parcel of what a recent Washington Post article called "the great reckoning of our age." And it's a hill upon which dying is both worthwhile and necessary.