Union Costs Help Lead to City’s Bankruptcy
Posted on April 25, 2008
-By Warner Todd Huston
Looks like the California city of Vallejo is closer every day to bankruptcy. And one of the chief reasons is the unfunded mandates forced upon it by the unions that contract with the city workers.
City staff members have been unable to come up with a detailed, long-term financial plan because negotiations with the police and fire unions are still ongoing. The city is asking for steep concessions from the unions, whose members are among the highest paid in the Bay Area and whose salaries comprise about 74 percent of the city’s budget.
Naturally, the unions couldn’t care less about good fiscal policy and what is right for the people of Vallejo. They are too greedy for that.
Negotiations with the unions are not going well, according to city officials. The parties met three times last week and the city is expected to look at a proposal from the unions on Monday, but no meetings are scheduled after that, Davis said.
Yeah, I’ll bet “not going well” is an understatement.
Here is the reason why unions are anathema to good government. Unions are not interested in what’s best for the people, they are only interested in high salaries, whether the city has the revenue or not, for their members. Good government, good fiscal policy…. well those are things no union cares about.
Government workers should never be allowed to be under a union contract. This is perfect proof of that maxim, too.
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This exactly why the public education system is a mess. It’s subjugated to the arbitrary and selfish demands of the most powerful union in the country.
And Vallejo needs all the good fiscal policy it can get, it’s no Pleasantville. There’s a reason there’s a backlog in applications for firefighters in the Bay Area…artificially inflate benefits and salaries and stuff like this happens.