"Release" or "official" time is the innocuous sounding name for governments paying the salaries of public employee union officials. George Will's column yesterday hits the tip of an iceberg. He relies on a report from the Goldwater Institute, whose investigative work uncovered that the City of Phoenix is paying the $900,000 annually to the officers of the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association (PLEA), the police union. These monies pay them to work exclusively on union business, including lobbying. In addition, the officials of the six other public employees unions in the city also have full-time city jobs. The total annual bill annual for release time is $3.7 million. And this is in a weak union state. This is not the only way that cities and states can pay for union officials...
In Illinois, two teachers who worked as union lobbyists qualified for public pensions by serving for one day as substitute teachers. Thus the union paid their salaried but the the school district will pay their pensions--based, of course, on their union salaries. In Chicago, eleven union officials are under federal investigation for collecting public pensions. These union leaders who once worked for the city were able to count their private union work toward their public pension plan.
Much more research needs to be done about the modes by which public sector union officials are compensated directly or indirectly by government. This is a complex task. Just to discover the cost of release time would require reviewing state and local contracts throughout the nation, something which analysts have yet to do.
Much more research needs to be done about the modes by which public sector union officials are compensated directly or indirectly by government. This is a complex task. Just to discover the cost of release time would require reviewing state and local contracts throughout the nation, something which analysts have yet to do.
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