Cartoon of the Day: Unions and Politicians

So the Republicans in Wisconsin eliminated collective bargaining for public unions except on wages. The Democratic Secretary of State, fully within the law, is delaying making the law official for 10 days. This 10 days is giving us a great picture of the problem with public unions.

Why? Because the 10 days was explicitly to allow cities and counties to cut new deals with unions, since all deals before the law is passed are grandfathered. The fact that many city and county governments are rushing to take advantage of this window just proves that public collective bargaining is broken — no one is looking after the taxpayers. I have argued that public unions are basically on the same side of the table with governments in bargaining sessions. What could be better proof? If government officials really cared about the taxpayer or their fiduciary responsibility, why in the world would they be rushing to cut above-market deals with government employees when they won’t have to do so in just 10 days? Government officials are colluding with unions to race to transfer more wealth from taxpayers to workers before the window for such subsidies shuts.

~ The Coyote