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There is a view held by some that governing bodies of cities, counties, special districts and states must impose budget cuts upon their workers in order to deal with budget shortfalls. The logic goes that negotiating at the bargaining table over such reductions is futile as the public sector unions will strongly resist any reductions in pay and benefits and will obfuscate the issues.
The recent disruption in the State of Wisconsin is a good example of bull-headed and disruptive imposition by electeds who seem to think they should not concern themselves with process. There, salary and benefit reductions were put before the Legislature along with legislation to reduce or eliminate public sector collective bargaining rights under state law. Months of confrontation and disruption in the State Capital over this move was followed by lawsuits and now recall efforts directed at certain State legislators. Wisconsin is an example of how not to do it – unless you seek headline grabbing disruption and a public backlash.
The latest example of how to do it is New York State, where Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo has hammered out a 5 year agreement with the State’s largest union, the Civil Service Employees Association that implements a wage freeze, furloughs for workers and provides for an increased employee contribution for their health insurance. So reports the New York Times in a June 22 story headlined “Cuomo Secures Big Givebacks in Union Deal.” The article says savings will be $73 million this year and as much as $ 1.6 billion over 5 years.
The article points out that this union represents about one-third of the state’s 186,000 employees, and that “the process was largely free of the public rancor that accompanied efforts to reduce spending on labor in New Jersey and Wisconsin.” It also notes that the Cuomo administration is negotiating with a number of other unions representing about 56,000 state employees, and if that effort is not successful they are likely to see layoffs in their ranks.
So it can be done. The NY State agreement with its Civil Service Employees Association is testimony to that. The question that seems to surface is whether Republican electeds elsewhere can be as successful as Democratic Governor Cuomo in bringing public sector unions to the bargaining table to work out salary and benefit reductions or if the confrontational style found to date in Wisconsin, New Jersey and Costa Mesa is the only Republican approach to dealing with government budget shortfalls in these tough times. Perhaps all electeds should ask if this is about headline grabbing confrontation, or getting to results that everyone agrees are a reasonable approach to dealing with budget problems.
I agree with you in that a reasonable negotiated agreement is a better solution than confrontation. I disagree that such a peaceful solution is currently possible in California as long as the workers are the indentured servants of the unions.
In Wisconsin it was ALWAYS about the CONFRONTATION, Walker already had the union concessions. What Walker and the rest of his ilk wants is to ELIMINATE unions altogether. This was about throwing red meat to the ANTI-LABOR conservatives.
From The Milwaukee Wisconsin Journal Sentinel
By Jason Stein, Patrick Marley and Steve Schultze of the Journal Sentinel
Feb. 18, 2011;
Assembly’s abrupt adjournment caps chaotic day in Capitol
…. Earlier Friday, Marty Beil, head of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, said his members would agree to pay more of their pension contributions and health insurance benefits as Walker is demanding. But Beil said his union would never agree to give up decades-old bargaining rights.
Beil’s union is part of AFSCME, the largest state and local employee union in Wisconsin, which represents 68,000 workers for the state, Milwaukee, Milwaukee County and other municipalities. An AFSCME spokesman said Beil was speaking for all the group’s union locals in the state.
“We are prepared to implement the financial concessions proposed to help bring our state’s budget into balance, but we will not be denied our God-given right to join a real union . . . we will not – I repeat we will not – be denied our rights to collectively bargain,” Beil said in a statement.
Mary Bell, the president of the Wisconsin Education Association Council, the state’s largest teachers union, said her group also would make the financial concessions to keep its bargaining rights.
“This is not about money,” Bell said in a phone conference. “We understand the need to sacrifice.”
Walker flatly rejected the offer.
I disagree with you strongly, Geoff. The majority of California state employee unions have negotiated contracts identical to what Cuomo has “achieved.” Almost all of the bargaining units have negotiated wage freezes, furloughs, and additional contributions to retirement. What does not get noted in these vitriolic assaults against civil servants is that state workers are retiring in massive numbers and the hiring freeze has prevented most agencies from hiring replacements in order to return to normal staffing levels. Consequently, most state workers are doing MUCH more work for less money. I am a state worker who is currently covering three positions in addition to my own, for no extra compensation, and I regularly work 9-10 hour days (sometimes more). I am so incredibly sick of the ridiculously fictional portrayal of government workers. I would love for one of you critics to follow me around for a week. Not only would you stand corrected, I’d venture to guess you’d also be pretty damned tired.
Laura – the term I like about the attack on public employees is to demonize them. To me that says it all. I also like this concept, which I did not author but pass it on – for a politician to be viewed as a heroic dragon slayer, he/she must first create a dragon.
While I am the first to admit that some of scratch that…MANY of the existing contracts are atrocious and unbalanced against the taxpaying public.
Everyone should understand HOW this happened, and use this as a reason to VOTE SMART.
These contracts were approved by upward mobile politico’s like city councilmen, county supervisors and state assemblymen looking for the easy way out. they did’nt want to pay COL increases. so during negotiations (with savy HIGHLY PAID negociators vs. lowly city clerks) the unions put off a little short term gain for a BIG payday.
It doesn’t make it right, nor does it make it deserving, but this is how we got hosed and continued to. Weaklings make poor decisions when under pressure and thats who have traditionally elected in OC.
We gave the keys to the hen house away and now the scavengers have reign.