Posted by
KsReaganite on Tuesday, March 15, 2011 5:18:22 PM
The upheaval in Wisconsin leaves one disappointed simply
because Gov. Walker seems to have settled on a course of action that is both
mealy mouthed and extreme at the same time. By leaving exempting cops and firemen out
of the collective bargaining reforms, he shirked a principled approach. Taking
a cleaver to the very basis of collective bargaining-as opposed to its abuse-he
comes across more as an authoritarian despot than a democratic reformer.
Collective bargaining abuses are nowhere more prominent and
the costs-in terms of money, safety, and liberty-nowhere more acute than law
enforcement. Cops who are incompetent or lazy or abusive or drunk with power
give good cops a very bad name and, thus, threaten both public safety and civil
liberties. Sadly, because of the outsized influence of police and corrections
unions, very little can be done about such rogue elements that most prosecutors
are too cowardly to prosecute anyway. Add to that the fact that, in stark
contrast to the highly educated and thoroughly professionalized ranks in the
federal agencies, most local and municipal police agencies recruit from the
proverbial bottom of the barrel.
The way forward for responsible reform is a package that,
for starters, excludes no sector of public employees. Such a package should put
a higher threshold on union certification and dues collection while preserving
the right to unionize of free will. Most important, the emphasis ought to be on
the overtly generous-and taxpayer funded-benefits provisions of any public union
contracts: legally capping such benefits to inflation or private sector
benchmarks is the way to go.