Probably the most sensible article I've read to date re. our current situation and a plea for one word.....

From John Curry, February 20, 2011

...and that word is "NEGOTIATION."

John

"Some of the Senate bill's provisions are valid, or at least worth discussing. But taken together, these proposals go too far. However dire the immediate fiscal condition of Ohio governments, you won't fix it by imposing a 19th-century model of labor relations."

"Why is it right to force taxpayers to bear pension costs that should be the responsibility of employees, as the City of Toledo still does for many of its senior workers? That may make the immediate cost of a contract settlement look smaller, but city government doesn't need more excuses to keep taxpayers in the dark."

http://beta.toledoblade.com/Op-Ed-Columns/2011/02/19/Pols-vs-unions-what-about-taxpayers.html

Pols vs. unions — what about taxpayers?

By DAVID KUSHMA
BLADE EDITOR

Proposition 1: It is unreasonable to strip public employees in Ohio of their basic rights to bargain collectively on issues of pay, benefits, pensions, and working conditions.

Proposition 2: It is reasonable to expect public-sector workers to help resolve the budget crises that afflict state and local governments and school districts, by accepting meaningful concessions on their compensation.

These notions aren't mutually exclusive. But instead of working to reconcile them, the new Republican-controlled state government and the unions that represent public employees are engaged in an all-or-nothing political power struggle that largely ignores the interests of the citizens whose taxes pay both sides' salaries.

Gov. John Kasich and the General Assembly are using the bare cupboard in the Statehouse as a pretext to roll back decades' worth of public-employee labor law. A bill on a fast track in the Ohio Senate would outlaw the use of binding arbitration to resolve contract disputes that involve police officers and firefighters, who are legally barred from striking. It would allow governments to hire permanent replacements for public workers who do strike.

The bill would remove health insurance as a subject of bargaining, instead placing public workers in a one-size-fits-all plan that would require them to pay at least 20 percent of the cost of their premiums. It would enable governments to lay off workers and fill job vacancies — in a classroom or on a police shift — on bases other than seniority.

The juggernaut doesn't stop there. Governor Kasich wants to forbid all public employees from striking. Although the Senate bill eliminates the collective-bargaining rights only of state employees, some lawmakers want to expand it to cover local public-sector workers as well. There's even revived talk about making Ohio a right-to-work state, a change that would render union membership, in the public or private sector, virtually meaningless.

Some of the Senate bill's provisions are valid, or at least worth discussing. But taken together, these proposals go too far. However dire the immediate fiscal condition of Ohio governments, you won't fix it by imposing a 19th-century model of labor relations.

It isn't a coincidence that public-sector unions were among the most aggressive opponents of Mr. Kasich and other Republican candidates during last year's campaign.

"This is about payback, taking revenge," says Ted Iorio, a veteran Toledo labor lawyer who represents a number of public-employee unions in the region. "Kasich wants a complete evisceration of the public sector.

"We have a mechanism to get things resolved, and Republicans want to take the whole thing down," he says. "How arbitrary are employers going to be if they have no constraints on them? Do we want police and fire strikes again? How will we recruit teachers? You think that's going to bring business to Ohio?"

The problem arises, though, when you ask leaders of public-employee unions what their members are prepared to give up to help their employers, and the taxpayers they represent, get past their fiscal emergencies. You'll hear a lot about what union workers already have sacrificed and what lousy managers the bosses are.

They'll remind you what swell folks the cop on the beat and your kid's teacher and the guys at the firehouse and on the trash truck are. They'll revile Wall Street or banks or big corporations or George W. Bush or any other convenient scapegoat for causing the recession that sent Ohio into an economic tailspin.

Whatever the merits of these arguments, changing the subject won't balance the books. And they ignore a lot of features of union contracts that are indefensible.

Why is it right to force taxpayers to bear pension costs that should be the responsibility of employees, as the City of Toledo still does for many of its senior workers? That may make the immediate cost of a contract settlement look smaller, but city government doesn't need more excuses to keep taxpayers in the dark.

What is the benefit to taxpayers of allowing public employees to double-dip, collecting a salary from a current public job as well as retirement benefits from a previous public job? Of allowing workers to bank — and ultimately collect — huge sums in unused sick leave and vacation time, accumulated over years?

Of gaming the pension system to fatten retirement payments? Of expecting private-sector workers — many of whom have lost their jobs or had their wages or hours cut — to subsidize with their taxes public-employee benefits and perquisites they can only dream of? Of enduring cuts in public services and layoffs of some government workers to preserve the generous pay packages of others?

To be sure, these abuses aren't confined to union-represented workers; plenty of government executives engage in them as well. And unions don't negotiate with themselves: If they gain something that should be a management prerogative or that will cost taxpayers too much down the road, it's because someone on the other side of the bargaining table gave it away.

You can't expect unions to save management from itself. But you can expect governments to bargain more effectively and assertively, instead of settling for short-term expedients that have long-term costs. And you should expect a government's ability to pay to be a consideration in arbitration decisions.

One way or another, the state will meet its legal mandate to balance its budget over the next few months. So will even the hardest-hit local governments and school districts. Inevitably, public-sector unions will have to contribute a lot to these solutions — voluntarily or otherwise — because employee compensation is by far the largest item in these budgets.

But you aren't likely to achieve such cooperation by threatening to cut your adversary off at the knees. Instead, it will take — what's the word? Oh, yeah: negotiation. Instead of screaming at each other, both sides might want to try it.

David Kushma is editor of The Blade. Contact him at: dkushma@theblade.com