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United States News Title: Gov. Walker is Right: Wisconsin Union Work Rules are Insane The tax-paying public needs to read these and GET RID of this. If it’s this bad in Wisconsin, can you IMAGINE how pedantic and impossible the work rules are in California? ( I have a mental picture of one Caltrans guy digging a ditch, 3 guys watching and some girl holding the traffic sign wearing a hard hat.) Great insight and reportage this week from the MacIver Institute: After spending several days complaining about Governor Walker’s proposed compensation changes for state employees (as if a 100 percent match on pension contributions and picking up 87 percent of health insurance premiums were raw deals) the union operatives have shifted gears. “It’s about rights, not pay,” is their new mantra. Organized government employee unions are expressing panic over their would-be inability to negotiate items other than pay. They are specifically troubled at the prospect of no longer being able to dictate work rules, engage in union activities during the work week or participate in negotiated procedures to mitigate their grievances against management. News flash. The work rules and grievance procedures for public employee unions cost taxpayers dearly in loss of productivity; and state taxpayers can no longer afford to sit by while some employees engage in union-related activities rather than performing the duties for which they are presumably employed. The various contracts between the state of Wisconsin and their multiple government employee unions contain dozens of provisions regarding guaranteeing the ability of union stewards to operate in and out of the workplace, often while paid. They are allowed to use work interoffice mail, phones, email and fax machines to communicate union business. They are guaranteed time off to attend union-mandated educational classes as well as to attend annual union conventions. Employees on leave without pay to attend to union and contract bargaining activities are allowed to still accrue vacation and sick leave, not for time working for the state, but for time participating in authorized union activities. The most-senior employees are generally allowed to bump down to a lower classification if they are minimumly qualified to perform the new job, yet they still maintain their current rate of pay when (or more precisely if) layoffs occur. This routinely leaves the newest employees the most vulnerable while reducing the cost-savings associated with employee attrition. Those who do receive notice of layoffs are allowed to search for new employment while at work. These work rules are so pervasive and the contracts are so arcane, that they actually mandate the size of the bulletin boards at the work place. (You think I’m kidding?) The Employer shall provide bulletin boards at locations mutually agreed upon for use by the local Unions to enable employees of the bargaining unit to see notices posted thereon. Such mutual agreement shall be arrived at locally. The normal size of new bulletin boards will be eight (8) square feet. The Employer will maintain bulletin boards provided under prior negotiated collective bargaining agreements and they need not conform to the normal size. In the event any new bulletin boards are mutually agreed upon, the Employer shall pay fifty percent (50%) and the Union shall pay fifty percent (50%) of the cost of such new boards. None of these provisions give taxpayers more return on their investment in these employees. They may strengthen the union, but again that is counter-productive to the best interest of the employer (read: Taxpayer). And the work rule insanity is not limited to state employees. There are a myriad of examples at the municipal and school district level, too. As I wrote in November: Since the advent of government employee unions in the middle of the 20th Century, “the cost and scope of government in the United States has grown exponentially. Government employs more, attempts to do more, involves itself more and more into previously private matters and consumes larger and larger amounts of private sector wealth to fuel this binge. This growth is fueled by the influence of public employee unions, who gain their power through taxpayer paid union dues, which in turn are used to leverage policies that lead to the increase in the size, scope and cost of government, which means more public employee union members, which means more union dues and the cycle continues. The result? We now have more government jobs than manufacturing jobs in Wisconsin. We used to be a state where we make things. Now we are a state that makes excuses for why the government behemoth cannot be tamed.” This budget repair bill is a step in taming the behemoth. The Walker Administration projects $330 million in savings over the next two years. What is not calculated is the increased productivity taxpayers will see when union business is no longer conducted on their dime. You can’t balance the state’s budget by these measures alone, but without these measures, the budget won’t balance, workers will be let go, children will be kicked off Medicaid, or a combination of those results will occur. So that, folks, is why changes to collective bargaining practices are included in the budget repair bill, alongside the wage and benefit changes. Doing so will save taxpayers money.
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