…. use the case, Harris v. Quinn, to strike down laws in 26 states requiring teachers, police officers, firefighters and other public-sector employees to pay dues to the unions that negotiate contracts on their behalf, even if the workers don’t want to become union members. …

How bad could the Supreme Court decision be for unions? Consider that in the two years after [Wisconsin Gov. Scott] Walker ended compulsory union membership in his state, the American Federation of Teachers lost 65 percent of its statewide members and the National Education Association shrank by 19 percent. Other public-sector unions also took big hits, with revenue plunging by 40 percent or more.

Instead, the ruling was limited in scope, per AP:

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay fees that help cover the union’s costs of collective bargaining.

In a 5-4 split along ideological lines, the justices said the practice violates the First Amendment rights of nonmembers who disagree with the positions that unions take.

But if this wasn’t the bombshell that some expected, it still could have major impact in California, where 400,000 state-paid in-home care workers are represented by the SEIU. This month, they’ve been celebrating a huge victory. The state budget for the fiscal year starting Tuesday for the first time allows them to receive overtime.

But we can expect efforts prompted by today’s Supreme Court ruling to get these workers to opt in to union coverage. These efforts could well succeed. As the Wisconsin numbers cited by Politico show, a lot of union-represented workers don’t much like unions.

Fortunately, public sector union reform is something even Democrats are realizing is essential if governments are going to get budgets under control, implement labor-saving new technologies, reform public education, and have funds left over to rebuild and upgrade infrastructure.

Now a Democratic state senator in Wisconsin, Tim Carpenter, has picked up where Gov. Walker left off. An article in the Wisconsin Reporter entitled “Police union says Dem proposal on collective bargaining is retaliation,” describes Carpenter’s “Act 10 Equity” legislation that would “expand the state’s controversial restrictions on collective bargaining to the two sectors spared from the new law more than two years ago.”

Again, a cynic might suggest this is indeed retaliation — if those liberal teachers unions are going to be restricted, so should those conservative police unions. But if conservatives truly adhere to the fundamental principles of limited government and individual freedoms, it is the right thing to do.

‘Intrinsically in favor of less freedom’

With all public employee unions, the more restrictions on property rights or personal freedoms there are, the more public employees are needed to enforce them. Public employee unions are intrinsically in favor of bigger government and less freedom because that is how they serve their members and build their organizations. Even if public employee unions were banned entirely, public employees would still be extremely active and influential in politics, because their livelyhoods are intimately affected by public policy.

This conflict of interests — the fact that a bigger, more intrusive government serves the interests of government employees but does not necessarily serve the interests of private citizens — is magnified in the case of public safety unions. As noted in a UnionWatch editorial earlier this year “How Public Sector Unions Skew America’s Public Safety and National Security Agenda,” as we enter an era of ubiquitous surveillance and automated law-enforcement tactics, it is vital that civil libertarians on both sides of the political spectrum recognize that government unions have a vested interest in expanding the size and the powers of government.

There are compelling reasons why law enforcement is more challenging that it has ever been. The globalization of crime, the emergence of cyber-crime, asymmetric terror threats and cultural upheaval, all combine to require police work of unprecedented scope and sophistication. But how we maintain the precarious balance between security and liberty should be a discussion that isn’t preempted by public safety unions whose primary agenda is to increase the payroll and power of their agencies. In Wisconsin, for example, they will still wield tremendous political influence even if their unions are subjected to the same restrictions as unions representing other public employees.

Walker may ‘finish the job’  in Wisconsin

Gov. Walker has recently opened the door to completing the work he started. As reported last week in Wisconsin Public Radio News and the Huffington Post, he said “state Republicans might expand the state’s controversial restrictions on collective bargaining to the two sectors spared from the new law more than two years ago.”

If Walker decides to try to finish the job, he may encounter resistance from Republicans who lack the courage of their convictions because they need to accept political contributions from public safety unions. But Walker may find unexpected support from Democrats.

Wisconsin, along with most states in America right now, is in the midst of an epic debate over whether or not public sector unions should be more heavily regulated, if not outlawed entirely. In a partisan, and very superficial context, it is a debate between Democrats and Republicans. In an economic context, it is a debate as to whether or not government employees should be permitted to use union clout to elevate themselves to positions of extraordinary economic privilege, exempting themselves from the challenges facing their fellow citizens. And in the related context of civil liberties, it is a debate as to whether or not unionized government workers are enabling a police state that ensures perpetuation of a status quo favoring anti-competitive monopolies, wealthy elites and government workers.

Ring is the executive director of the California Public Policy Center, and the editor of UnionWatch.org.

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO — During recent travels to Madison and Milwaukee for some research about reform-minded Wisconsin Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s survival of a union-backed recall, I found little residual anger among the friendly folks there, despite seemingly endless pitched political battles that divided families and led to angry water-cooler discussions.

Perhaps the central issue — Walker’s Act 10 plan that rolled back collective-bargaining excesses — has been resolved, or perhaps Wisconsinites simply got tired of two historic recall elections, legislators who bolted the state to avoid voting on legislation, endless national media attention and union protesters swarming the Capitol and screaming into their bullhorns.

Midwestern culture values community and “nice,” and the ongoing events in Wisconsin strained the social fabric. Californian residents, typically oblivious to events east of the Sierra Nevada, owe a debt of gratitude to the folks in Packer country. Had Wisconsin voters replaced their governor and other Republican officials, the message would have been heard nationwide: Pension reform, and efforts to rein in the public-sector union power at the root of the problem, would be dead for years.

Instead, Walker is becoming a national GOP figure. Another budget reformer from Wisconsin, U.S. Rep. Paul Ryan, is on the GOP presidential ticket. And Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, from Kenosha, will no doubt tout the Wisconsin reforms as Republicans gather in Tampa for their national convention.

Wisconsin’s Progressive political tradition rivals California’s, which only highlights the disparity between the two states as California’s leaders refuse to even acknowledge fiscal reality, let alone confront it in a serious way. Walker and his reforms were sparked by a $3.6 billion budget deficit, which is a rounding error in California budget terms. But his understanding of the core issue — the abuses perpetrated by the privileges and greed of public sector unions — may have stemmed from his stint as the county executive in Democratic Milwaukee County, where he had to clean up an ugly pension scandal where government workers were granting themselves outrageous bonuses.

Wrote Bruce Murphy in the Madison alternative weekly called the Isthmus, “In the bitter aftermath of the failed recall, there will be many blaming a vast right-wing conspiracy, out-of-state billionaires like the Koch brothers, and Gov. Scott Walker’s polarizing, take-no-prisoners style. But Democrats and unions might want to take a look in the mirror. For it was their willingness to abuse government benefits — with sweetheart deals benefiting only a minority of workers — that led directly to defeat.”

Sweetheart deals

In California, sweetheart deals are a daily occurrence. In San Francisco, police and fire officials are granting themselves half-million-dollar payouts as they leave government “service.” The ranks of the $100,000 pension club are escalating rapidly, even as Moody’s Investor Services warns of a coming tsunami of municipal bankruptcies across the state. The California Public Employees’ Retirement System, which has itself been through a disgusting “pay for play” scandal, believes that bankrupt Stockton ought to stiff its bondholders — the same ones that gave the city $125 million in pension bonds to help it make good on pension promises it couldn’t afford to pay — rather than trim the lucrative pensions received by city retirees.

Meanwhile, cities slash public services and the state’s leadership demands higher taxes even as they embrace costly new programs (i.e., high-speed rail) that will mainly benefit government employees and special interests.

The ongoing state parks scandal is a poster child for the problems here. As the San Jose Mercury News reported, “With state leaders scrambling to find out how state parks officials kept tens of millions of dollars hidden for more than a decade, California’s top finance officials Tuesday acknowledged what could be a far bigger problem:

“They have no system in place to account for $37 billion in ‘special funds’ scattered throughout state government. Instead, finance officials revealed, they rely on an honor system to track money that could be stashed away in untold accounts similar to the funds that turned up last week, sparking a scandal in the state parks department.”

Parks officials were allowing many parks potentially to be closed while they had money “stashed away” in hidden accounts. Thanks to this “honor” system, dishonorable state employees were granting themselves huge vacation buyouts, all done secretly, accounting for it through Post-It notes to “avoid a paper trail,” as the Sacramento Bee reported.

Serving themselves

This is the same basic storyline repeated across the state: Government is not serving the people, but the people within government are serving themselves. This touches on the nature of government, although overly large and unaccountable ones are more plagued by such corruption than others. As the free-market writer Frederic Bastiat wrote, “The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” We should at least recognize the truth and not deceive ourselves about talk of “public service.”

These attitudes — the raiding of public treasuries for personal gain, the refusal to rein in unsustainable pension benefits that dwarf those earned by people in the private sector — reflect a “corruption” of public service, in the words of San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed, a progressive reformer. That’s what these debates are about, and what people in Wisconsin — despite the discomfort of it all — decided to hash out in a series of elections and budget reforms.

Unfortunately, Californians are steadfastly avoiding that needed debate. Perhaps voters here are still burned out from the 2003 recall election, in which voters booted a terrible governor and replaced him with someone not much better.

Or perhaps it’s a reflection of California “exceptionalism” — the idea that the normal rules don’t apply here, and that we can have everything without making any tough choices.

Either way, we need to learn some lessons from the Badger State and have our defining debate over unions, or watch helplessly as cities go under and services deteriorate.

Steven Greenhut is vice president of the Franklin Center for Government and Public Integrity. He is based in Sacramento. Write to him at: steven.greenhut@franklincenterhq.org.

By Katy Grimes
Commentary

When the big news outlets called the Wisconsin election for Gov. Scott Walker early, it was apparent that blue is going to be the new red in November.

Despite the Associated Press announcing that Walker “survives” recall, Republican Governor Scott Walker’s win is big in Wisconsin. But his win also has national implications–he not only retains his office, with 61 percent voting to retain him, and 39 percent to recall, but the win sends a very loud message to union-loving politicians.

Take that unions!

In California, the message to Gov. Jerry Brown is I hope you are listening.

California’s house of cards may fall as well… eventually.

Public sector unions are yesterday’s news in other parts of the county. Not only did Gov. Walker do exactly what he said he would do when he was elected, when given the choice, employees always just say no to unions.

This is a tipping point moment for every blue state, every blue county, and every blue city, ruled by unions.

And, this is proof positive that union leadership and most Democratic politicians are working  harder to save their own behinds, instead of working for the people. Unions have been dictating elections for decades. Now that the economy has crumbled under Democratic and union leadership, voters are saying “no” to unions.

Walker showed that through leadership, accountability, and a budget surplus after he inherited a monstrous deficit, unions are not representing the employees or the will of the state.

This is an enormous defeat for organized labor and a win for principled politicians. And yes, there are some principled politicians out there.

After Walker was elected, he made difficult budget cut decisions, made public employee union membership optional, and union members voted with their wallets. In doing so, Walker also balanced the state budget, erased the deficit, and Wisconsin is now enjoying a budget surplus.

Voters overwhelmingly showed their approval of Walker’s leadership with the denial of his recall.

A budget surplus? Are you kidding? California can only dream of a budget surplus after voting Gov. Jerry Brown back into office. During his first two terms as California Governor (1975-1983), Brown ushered in public employee unions, thereby creating one of California’s largest entitlement classes.

Calling out union-loving politicians

While Brown’s election was funded by big labor and public employee unions, they should not rest on his California creds. California has demonstrated beyond a shadow of a doubt that the liberal elite in the state are out of step with working America.

Voters everywhere are fed up with union-negotiated benefits, which are clearly out of sync with the rest of the workers in this difficult economy.

As President Ronald Reagan followed the groundbreaking election of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Presidential candidate Mitt Romney may just follow Walker’s win.

By Steven Greenhut

SACRAMENTO — Before Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker became a recall target for his efforts to reform collective bargaining in his state, I was a guest on a Madison radio show discussing the influence of public-sector unions and the significance of the state’s unfunded pension liabilities.

Instead of “Wisconsin Nice” — a euphemism for the polite, conflict-avoiding nature of Badger State culture — I faced a torrent of angry callers who accused union critics of trying to destroy the quality of life for working people. I asked one caller: What do we do about unfunded liabilities, those debts that current pension promises place on future generations?

“I won’t answer your question,” he said, refusing to dignify this perfectly reasonable question with a response.

The radio show was a preview of what was to come in Wisconsin — a season of angry diatribes, militant union marches, not-so-nice attacks on a governor who, after all, has done nothing more than reform a debt-laden system and has actually saved union jobs and saved unions.

Rather than engage the issues, the Left has chosen to echo the approach taken by callers to that radio show – stomp their feet, yell and scream and absolutely, positively refuse to provide an alternative path.

There’s something bizarre in all this, a reminder that the once-proud movement of working people has morphed into an upper-middle-class movement of coddled public employees who do not care about debt levels and eroded public services. They have their gold-plated pensions, and no one had better touch them or else.

Progressives used to pride themselves on their desire to help the poor, but in Wisconsin these days they’d rather throw the poor under the bus — a public bus, of course, with a union driver — to protect the relatively wealthy class of workers who administer government programs. So we’ve watched the antics – legislative Democrats heading to Illinois to deny the governor a quorum for his budget vote; truckloads of union activists and boatloads of union money pouring into the state capital; attempts to portray Walker as someone who is destroying the state.

Wisconsin rebounding

But a funny thing happened on the way to the recall. Wisconsin’s economy is rebounding, its debt receding. The state is gaining jobs everywhere except in downtrodden Milwaukee, where Democratic gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett serves as mayor, and where union control has its tightest grip.

At this late stage in the race, it’s purely a numbers game as both sides bring out the ground troops to get their voters to the polls.

Democrats will surely resurrect dead voters in Milwaukee, so I’m hoping that Walker’s margin of victory — poll late last week showed his lead at 5 to 7 points — is strong enough to exceed the expected margin of voter fraud.

Both sides are being careful, avoiding anything that might backfire.

For the pro-recall movement, that means desperately avoiding the central issue. For instance, the Barrett campaign website features a story on Walker’s supposed attack on hunting – yes, hunting – because of a privatization effort he is spearheading. Walker’s website isn’t too much better, as it focuses on crime problems in Milwaukee.

Many national pundits are focusing on the implications for the national presidential race, and on President Barack Obama’s chances of being re-elected. There are some clues in it, as national Democrats steadfastly avoid the state. But we all know that the Walker recall is a referendum on public-sector union reform.

One of the nation’s biggest problems involves public employees, their compensation levels and the degree to which their special privileges and demands are destroying public services and bankrupting cities, especially in California. Wisconsin is arguably an even more progressive state than California. It was the first state to allow public-sector workers to evolve into the equivalent of Teamsters.

But California has taken the matter much further than anywhere else in the nation.

California used to be the model for the nation in terms of public services. But without political competition, there has been no push-back as the unions grab more and more. No wonder the Golden State’s roads are crumbling, and our services are tarnished. The only answer from the union movement and their Democratic patrons, including Gov. Jerry Brown: higher taxes. The real question is whether Wisconsin voters want their state to turn into California but without the warm winters.

Collective bargaining

In particular, the Wisconsin governor recognized that collective bargaining is the core problem, in that it remains the key obstacle to improving public services through competition and truly progressive reform.

“The collective-bargaining component of Walker’s plan has yielded especially large financial dividends for school districts,” Christian Schneider of the Wisconsin Policy Research Institute wrote in City Journal magazine. Individual districts have saved millions of dollars because they can send their plans out to bid rather than buying from the union-monopoly health trust. That’s money they used to save teaching jobs.

Progressives should applaud; instead, they march on Madison. What phonies.

While California’s government is hopeless, we are seeing serious reforms at the municipal level, often spearheaded by progressive Democrats. San Jose Mayor Chuck Reed is promoting a pension reform initiative on Tuesday’s ballot, and he’s doing so with support from progressives in his city. Reed says there’s a big difference between union Democrats and progressive Democrats. The former are protecting one special interest group, and the latter have the public good in mind. It’s a compelling argument as we head into the final days of the Wisconsin recall.

If Walker wins, reform will spread across the country. If he loses, Wisconsin will head down the path of California or maybe even Greece, where rising debt, soaring taxes, a surly union movement and crumbling public services will be the order of the day. No wonder the recall movement wants to play on emotion rather than answer serious questions.

By Brian Calle

Californians know a thing or two about recalls.

Only two state governors in U.S. history have been removed from office via recall; the first was North Dakota Gov. Lynn J. Frazier in 1921. Of course, the second was California’s Democratic Gov. Gray Davis in 2003.

Public-sector unions in Wisconsin — with their national counterparts cheering them on — hope Tuesday to make Gov. Scott Walker the third governor recalled from office because he dared to challenge union power and influence in state governance.

But compare Walker with California Gov. Jerry Brown — and contrast Wisconsin’s progress since Walker enacted his union-bucking policies with California’s continued decline under Brown’s union-friendly leadership, and you see two different outcomes.

Walker and Brown, who both took office on the same day, Jan. 3, 2011, faced tremendous budget deficits and squawking public employee unions demanding higher taxes. Brown obliged; Walker would not.

Faced with a $3.6 billion deficit, Walker lowered taxes — freezing property taxes and bringing down school property taxes. He also painted a realistic and honest budget picture for his constituents and pushed for painful but necessary reforms that cut collective bargaining rights for government unions and created more competition, like allowing private vendors to bid on health insurance contracts for school districts, which reduced costs.

Seventeen months later, Wisconsin is projected to have a $154 million surplus by the summer of 2013. And, the Wisconsin-based MacIver Institute reported that Walker’s reforms have saved taxpayers $1 billion.

In California, Gov. Brown, returning to the post he left in 1983, sided with unions from day one. Early on, he appointed a California Teachers Association lobbyist, Patricia Rucker, to the state Board of Education. He also presented Californians with an unrealistic budget that projected far more state revenue than what eventually came in.

Partially as a result of such budgeting gimmickry, the state’s projected $9 billion budget shortfall has ballooned to $17 billion.

Brown’s plan to close the gap is to convince voters in November to inflict higher taxes on themselves, an approach blessed by unions. Should his tax increases pass, they would raise only about $8.5 billion, a far cry from the $17 billion needed to close the budget hole. And that means California will continue on the path of dysfunctional budgeting and sidestepping meaningful reform.

Unlike Walker, Brown has yet to challenge the stranglehold that public employee unions have in the state — if anything, he has emboldened them. That is one of the reasons he prefers seeking new taxes to making deeper spending cuts or expending political capital on reforming unsustainable public-employee pensions.

Also, unions had been a pillar of Brown’s political career for decades. They helped get him elected again to the governorship in 2010. Early in his first administration, Brown signed the Rodda Act in 1975, which bestowed collective bargaining rights on California public school teachers.

Walker in many ways is the antithesis of Brown.

As Douglas Belkin and Kris Maher wrote for the Wall Street Journal: “Public-employee unions in Wisconsin have experienced a dramatic drop in membership – by more than half for the second-biggest union — since a law championed by Republican Gov. Scott Walker sharply curtailed their ability to bargain over wages and working conditions.” Specifically, Walker stopped the practice of automatically withholding union dues from the paychecks of employees — the main source of funds for union political operations.

“Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees — the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers — fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011,” Belkin and Maher reported.

Examining Brown and Walker’s records, one might argue the recall efforts ought to focus on the former, rather than the latter, as the California governor continues to preside and perhaps enable the Golden State’s fiscal calamity.

Walker’s day of reckoning comes Tuesday, and, fortunately, the latest-available polling data, including a poll from Marquette University, indicated he would prevail, with about 52 percent support.

Brown’s day of reckoning will come in November, when votes are cast on his tax increase ballot measure.

What happens in Wisconsin in a couple days will have significant repercussions for those hoping, eventually, for similar reforms in the Golden State. If Walker keeps his job, other governors, like Brown, well could find themselves with more leverage with their unions. If Walker is recalled, unions nationwide will be emboldened.

Yesterday and today, the California Labor Federation’s joint legislative conference has been in full-swing, but was announced as closed to reporters (there’s a lot of that going around).

However, from the comfort of my office, and because of that internet thing called Twitter, I was able to follow the conference yesterday… in a sound bite fashion.

Some of the comments that came from the California Labor Twitter account allowed a peak inside the heads of California labor, as well as the Democratic politicians who appeared and spoke to the labor group.

And whoever was responsible for the social media for the federation, posted Tweets continuously for two hours from the conference, identifying who the speakers were. Taken out of context of a full speech, the statements are hilarious:

Bob Balgenorth of the Building Trades: Unions are not this countries [sic] enemies! Corporations, Politicians and corrupt business people are!

Democratic Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg: Because of your work, we passed Prop 25 so we can pass a budget on a simple majority vote.

Steinberg: This is a historic week, because this is the week that the GOP must do their duty and allow voters to have a voice on CA budget.

Steinberg: If the people don’t have the choice to vote, we will be forced to make another $12.5 billion in cuts. Can‘t have it both ways.

Assembly Speaker John Perez: I believe Californians deserve the opportunity to weigh in on tax extensions, and we will get it on the ballot.

Perez: This is an historic opportunity to come together and take control of California’s finances.

Perez: The California budget has got to be a collective expression of our values as people and Californians. That’s the only path forward!

Assemblyman Labor Committee Chairman, Sandre Swanson: We can’t be an open hand. We’ve got to be a closed fist. We’ve got to stand together.

and… Swanson is thanking the many unions that have helped his family make a living and retire with security.

Swanson: Campaign to correct injustice in WI is part of value and fabric of what we are.  Turning back 50 years of progress is unacceptable.

California Senate Labor Chairman, Ted Lieu: It’s time to change the narrative – it’s called telling the truth about what caused this economic collapse.

Lieu: Not willing to forget what Wall Street did to our economy & we can’t let people revise history and put blame where it doesn’t belong.

Lieu: We need education and training to add to add that competitive edge to our workforce. As chair, I plan on working on that with you.

Special guest at California Labor event: Bryan Kennedy, President of ATF Wisconsin.

California Labor Federation: Thanks to the generosity of our attendees, we raised $4712 for the WI union workers!

CA Secretary of Labor, Marty Morganstern – We have to win the battle of the California budget, and we can only do it by sticking together the way we did last fall.

Art Pulaski: there’s a concerted effort to take away our rights state by state, from Wall Street to Capitol Hill, from Wisconsin to Costa Mesa.

Pulaski: In Costa Mesa, they outsourced every job, ended collective bargaining, threw out the unions and caused a terrible tragedy.

Bob Balgenorth of the Building Trades: we can sum up Wisconin Gov. Walker’s plan in three words: Gall,  greed and gluttony.

Balgenorth: In the last 30 years, taxes for rich have been cut repeatedly while wages for workers have stagnated, and middle class faces extinction.

**The motto for the California Labor Federation states, “Fighting for California’s working families! We represent more than 2.1 million workers in 1,200 AFL-CIO and Change to Win unions across the state.”

Ah, there’s nothing like protection from  gall, greed and gluttony for California’s families.

MAR. 22, 2011

The best part about the turmoil in Wisconsin is that the government there is jammed up. AP reports:

Wisconsin’s budget stalemate over union bargaining rights shows no sign of resolution – and it could be a long wait.

The governor isn’t budging. AWOL Democrats aren’t planning to come back. And, despite talk of deadlines and threats of mass layoffs, the state doesn’t really have to pass a budget to pay its bills until at least May. Even then, there may be other options that could extend the standoff for months.

As the teenagers like to put it: YES!!

Writes Robert Wenzel (who has a great blog on economics): “Just think, no new laws, no new regulations and no new taxes can be passed in the state of Wisconsin.”

That’s what we need here with California’s Legislature: total gridlock. Don’t put Gov. Brown’s tax-increase vote on the ballot. Don’t enact any laws. Don’t pass a budget.

Do only one thing: Leave us alone.

March 3, 2011