Unchastened by the fact that many of his fellow Big Labor Democrats in Congress went down to defeat on Nov. 2, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid from Nevada has just set the stage for a post-Thanksgiving, "lame duck" Senate showdown on legislation that will pour even more fuel on the fire of monopolistic unionism in state and local government. Reid is pushing passage of the Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act, which would require all states and localities to bargain with a single public-safety union for all front-line employees, including those who don't want to join.
For many years now, union-boss featherbedding and counterproductive work rules have sharply increased real taxpayer costs for compensation of state and local government employees. In fact, according to the U.S. Commerce Department, taxpayers' aggregate real cost for compensation of state and local employees soared by almost 30 percent between 1998 and 2008 -- an increase 50 percent greater than the total real growth of private-sector employee compensation.
Last year, even as the nation's economy endured a severe recession, state and local employee real compensation rose by nearly 3 percent. Meanwhile, businesses whose revenues were plummeting had no choice but to cut back real compensation for private-sector employees by 4 percent.
Incredibly, Reid and many likeminded senators and representatives now appear eager to put an even more onerous burden on private-sector employees and employers so that already bloated unionized government payrolls can keep expanding.
The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act would force countless policemen, firefighters and emergency medical technicians to accept as their monopoly-bargaining agent a union they never voted for, and want nothing to do with. All contrary state laws and local policies would be overridden.
Even in many states that already authorize public-safety union monopolies, the bill would widen their scope. That's why the vast majority of the 50 states will be forced either to rewrite their public-sector labor statutes, or hand over control of their public-safety officers to the federal government, if it becomes law.
Moreover, as former Service Employees International Union second-in-command Anna Burger has boasted, it would "create a national collective," i.e. monopoly, "bargaining standard for all [state and local] public workers."
Federalizing "exclusive" union bargaining over public-safety employees would be ill-advised under any circumstances, but at a time when taxes are already poised to skyrocket, and cities and towns across America are already struggling to get through the worst fiscal crisis in decades, Congress would have to be incredibly reckless to enact the bill.
By tipping the scales even further in favor of government employment growth over business job growth, this legislation could kill hopes of reviving America's private-sector economy for a long, long time.
Filing for cloture means that practically as soon as the "lame duck" Senate reconvenes after Thanksgiving, the chamber will be ready to vote to shut down a Right to Work-backed filibuster so the bill can be quickly adopted and sent to the lame-duck House.
Among those voting will be 14 defeated or retiring senators who won't be back in January.
But potentially vulnerable senators in both parties who may want to run for re-election in 2012, 2014 or even 2016 should pay heed to the clear message of opposition to Big Government and Big Labor special privileges voters sent on Nov. 2 and not help Reid get his union bill to President Obama's desk during the lame-duck Congress. Right to Work supporters in every state will be watching closely to see what their politicians do.
