Tag: public sector unions

Commentary: Public Sector Unions Are a Growing Threat to Taxpayers

RealClearWire

Following the resolution of the six-week United Auto Workers strike last month and the ensuing glut of news coverage, one could be forgiven for believing that private sector unions were experiencing a generational comeback the likes of which haven’t been seen since their halcyon days of the 1950s.

The reality, however, couldn’t be further from the truth: union participation in the private sector is now a tiny sliver of the overall employment picture in the United States. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the unionization rate of private-sector workers currently sits below 6% at just under 7 million workers nationwide – down from 17 million in 1950.

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Commentary: Outlaw Public Sector Unions

Admin

Money doesn’t guarantee victory in political campaigns. For proof, look no further than Meg Whitman, the California billionaire who in 2010 squandered $179 million in her futile campaign to beat Jerry Brown and become that state’s next governor.

When money is married to institutional power, however, it makes all the difference. This is why, 10 years after the Whitman debacle, Mark Zuckerberg was able to purchase the presidential election outcome in 2020 for $419 million. Whitman’s money paid consultants and bought ads on television. Zuckerberg’s money went to supplement the activities of election offices in swing states – election offices that employed workers represented by unions that overwhelmingly favor Democrats over Republicans.

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Commentary: Most Teachers Are Not Activists

Zachery Schmidt

Historically, unions have done some remarkable work in the private sector. However, union officials in the early 1950s began to capitalize on the many extraordinary powers and immunities that were created by legislatures and the courts. This allowed union bosses to no longer depend on rank-and-file workers’ input or support. Starting in the late 1950s, public-sector unions started to grow, and private-sector unions began to decrease.

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Pennsylvania Government Union Political Spending Skyrockets Even as Membership Declines

Bradley Vasoli

Even as Pennsylvania’s public-sector unions suffer net losses of members and dues, these groups continue to ramp up political donations, according to a new analysis by the Harrisburg-based Commonwealth Foundation (CF). 

According to the free-market nonprofit, spending from Keystone State government unions like the Pennsylvania State Education Association and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 13 totaled $6.34 million in the 2011-12 campaign cycle. That amount steadily rose over all gubernatorial and presidential cycles and reached a record $20.2 million in 2021-22. 

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Connecticut State Employee Contracts Ratified

Bradley Vasoli

By a 22-13 vote, Connecticut’s state Senate on Friday ratified contracts with state workers estimated to cost taxpayers roughly $1.9 billion.

The Democrat-controlled state House of Representatives approved the agreements with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) 96-52 the prior day. All House Democrats and only one House Republican, Thomas Delnicki (R-South Windsor), voted for the deals. The Senate vote came down along party lines.

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Nearly 3,000 State Workers in Connecticut Had Salaries Exceeding the Governor’s in 2021

Bradley Vasoli

A review of Connecticut’s salary records published by the center-right Yankee Institute (YI) Thursday indicated that 2,927 state employees received higher salaries than the governor in 2021.

State statute confers a $150,000 yearly salary on Gov. Ned Lamont (D). Approximately 2,000 state employees earned higher pay than him through 2017. Over the next three years, that number rose by nearly 1,000.

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Connecticut Fiscal Conservatives Warn Against SEBAC Contracts

Bradley Vasoli

The Yankee Institute (YI), Connecticut’s premier economically conservative think tank, is exhorting state lawmakers to reject contracts that the Lamont administration negotiated with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC).

YI began warning against the eventual fiscal consequences of the agreements after the public-employee labor coalition started publicizing their major features in mid-March. Later that month, the SEBAC’s 15 unions approved the agreements and, on April 1, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) requested that the Democrat-controlled General Assembly ratify the deals, characterizing them as “responsible and fair.”

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Connecticut Public-Sector Unions to Get Costly Raises and Bonuses If Contracts Approved

Bradley Vasoli
Worker in restaurant kitchen

According to a brochure distributed by Connecticut’s public-sector-labor coalition, Gov. Ned Lamont (D) and the state’s unionized employees have negotiated contracts that will cost taxpayers plenty if ratified. 

Wins for each unionized worker would include $3,500 in bonuses and and three yearly wage hikes of 2.5 percent, which would be made retroactive to summer of 2021. About two-thirds of union-affiliated employees would also get “step” raises; i.e., elevation to the next pay rate. These bonuses and salary gains would also factor into future pension payments.

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Freedom Foundation Facilitating Exit of Ohio Union Members

Peter D'Abrosca

A nonprofit is making progress in Ohio in facilitating the exit of public sector union employees from those unions. 

“For some reason, the First Amendment right for people to leave public sector is the best kept secret,” Freedom Foundation Ohio State Director Lauren Bowen told The Ohio Star. “Their hard earned money does not have to be directed to union coffers via union dues.”

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Commentary: How Unions Could Save America

Admin

The general perception within Conservatism, Inc. and libertarian circles is that collective bargaining is a violation of the right of the individual to seek work without being compelled to join a union. That sounds good in principle, but there’s much more to the story.

A few years ago, the workers at a local grocery store chain in California went on strike. The reason they voted to strike was that management had implemented a new policy whereby most of the employees, including full-time career workers, had their hours reduced to fewer than 25 hours per week. At the same time, these employees had their health coverage taken away.

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Commentary: If Biden Really Wants to Be FDR, He Should Oppose Public Sector Unions

Admin
Franklin Roosevelt

President Joe Biden has made it pretty clear he idolizes Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR). A painting of #32 hangs in his office, he frequently invokes the former president in his speeches, and the media often draws comparisons between the two progressives.
But as much as Biden seems to draw on FDR’s legacy, his knowledge of his positions seems to have one glaring omission. FDR was opposed to public sector unions.
Public sector unions are having a moment in the spotlight, and not in a good way. Their actions over the past year have incurred ire from all political directions. Many Americans have become aware of the role police unions play in protecting bad apples, blocking popular criminal justice reforms, and preventing transparency as extrajudicial killings and the resulting protests have demanded attention on our justice system.

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Study Shows Collective Bargaining, Now Reinstated in Virginia, Shields Police Officers from Discipline

Admin

A recent study of collectively bargained deals negotiated by police unions nationwide found these deals often scale back accountability and shield police from disciplinary action.

Before this year, public-sector collective bargaining was banned in Virginia. But after Democrats won control of the House and Senate, party leaders were able to pass legislation to end that prohibition, and Gov. Ralph Northam signed it into law. The law will go into effect in May 2021.

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Commentary: Trump’s Big Win Over Public-Sector Unions

Admin

by John W. York   Public-sector unions and their progressive allies just lost a major battle in their ceaseless legal campaign against this president. Last summer, one district court judge struck down nearly every provision in a package of executive orders meant to curtail the overweening power of federal employee unions. Almost a year later, the United States Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit rightly overturned the decision. In fact, it determined that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson, an Obama appointee to the U.S. District Court for D.C., should never have heard the case in the first place. One of the biggest impacts of the executive orders is to sharply curtail a wasteful practice known by the Orwellian moniker “official time.” This practice allows federal employees to do union business instead of their actual job during their regular working hours, while being paid their regular wage. While official time was authorized by statute back in 1978, its use is now out of control. In 2016, the Office of Personnel Management found that federal employees spent a combined 3.6 million hours working on union business during the work day (though this is likely a significant underestimate). Indeed, thousands of federal employees throughout the government do nothing…

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Commentary: A Deep-Dive into the Other Deep State – Public Sector Unions

Admin

by Edward Ring   When government fails, public-sector unions win. When society fragments, public-sector unions consolidate their power. When citizenship itself becomes less meaningful, and the benefits of American citizenship wither, government unions offer an exclusive solidarity. Government unions insulate their members from the challenges facing ordinary private citizens. On every major issue of our time; globalization, immigration, climate change, the integrity of our elections, crime and punishment, regulations, government spending, and fiscal reform, the interests and political bias of public-sector unions is inherently in conflict with the public interest. Today, there may be no greater core threat to the freedom and prosperity of the American people. In the age of talk radio, the Tea Party movement, internet connectivity, and Trump, Americans finally are mobilizing against the uniparty to take back their nation. Yet the threat of public-sector unions typically is a sideshow, when it ought to occupy center stage. They are the greatest menace to American civilization that nobody seems to be talking about. Ask the average American what the difference is between a government union, and a private sector union, and you’re likely to be met with an uncomprehending stare. That’s too bad, because the differences are profound.…

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