Posted on 09/03/2015 11:56:30 AM PDT by reaganaut1
This country has made a lot of terrible financial blunders. Easily among the top ten would be the decision to allow public employees to form unions and engage in collective bargaining. Only a little more than 50 years old, that mistake has done prodigious harm to us both economically and politically – and the worst is yet to come.
In the summer of 2015, the former mayor of San Jose, California, Chuck Reed, launched a ballot initiative. Several California cities have already gone bankrupt and more are teetering on the brink, causing Reed to take a step that’s meant to stop the fiscal bleeding that results from the state’s excessively generous pension system.
Key provisions in the measure would require local governments to obtain voter approval if they want to continue giving new employees defined-benefit pensions after 2019 and to require voter approval for increases in existing pensions. Further, the initiative is designed to prevent the state’s gigantic public employee pension system, CalPERS, from undermining its impact, something it has been known to do.
It’s important to note that Mr. Reed is a Democrat. As mayor, he struggled with the budgetary troubles caused by the tremendous and growing cost of public pensions.
And it’s also important that CalPERS is working behind the scenes to block Reed’s initiative. A union-friendly member of the State Assembly requested a legal opinion about the effects the initiative would have if it passed from CalPERS, which duly produced an alarmist “analysis.” The Wall Street Journal opined in August that this “appears to be a test-run for the political attacks unions are likely to wage should Mr. Reed’s initiative qualify for the ballot.”
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
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Most of us have been saying this for years. It only got worse when civil service/gov workers started getting paid 20% more rather than 20% less than their private sector counterparts.
There was a balance. Gov workers got paid less but had better benefits. Now they get paid more and still get better benefits.
“Now they get paid more and still get better benefits.”
Looted directly from the people getting paid less with worse benefits. This issue has destroyed NJ; since the teachers refused to budge and persisted in bankrupting the state, there has been a mass exodus of white English-speaking taxpayers from the state. They are being replaced by foreigners trafficked here to keep the classrooms full, but they contribute little to nothing...
Greece is NJ now; the masses of Syrians flooding the Balkans is the same as the fleeing New Jerseyans...
When the government battles public employee unions, taxpayers fund both sides.
It’s a terrible waste of taxpayer money.
Public employees and teachers should not be allowed to unionize. Both sectors have been ruined by union greed and protection of incompetent workers and teachers.
BRING BACK THE SPOILS SYSTEM!!!
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