Public Employee Unions & Benefits (Part 1)

It appears that for the past few months it has been fashionable to “lump” all unions into the same category, then criticize and verbally attack. They are all “painted with the same brush.” Not all unions are alike, just like democrats, republicans, liberals, and conservatives aren’t the same. With President Obama’s election unions became an easy target because they endorsed and supported President Obama.

However, not all unions or employee organizations endorsed or supported then Senator Obama’s candidacy. Some actually had a Political Screening process that included questionnaires and/ or interviews. At the conclusion, despite then Senator Obama’s charisma and public speaking abilities, some disagreed with his stated policies and legislative goals. They did not believe that these would be in the best interests of their membership and community.

Then the U.S. automakers went to Congress asking for billions in order to remain solvent and avoid bankruptcy. They came back and then the latest Stimulus Package was passed. At this point the attacks started again on unions, citing the United Auto Workers (UAW) refusal to make concessions. They were blamed for the imminent demise of the U.S. auto industry. I’m sure that if the Stimulus Plan fails, or is not as successful as President Obama has presented, the UAW will receive some blame/ credit. Did the UAW refuse to make concessions, or did they refuse to make anymore? I was not in the meetings trying to negotiate modifications to the contracts so I can’t say for certain what happened.

What I can tell you is that public employee unions have stepped up in the past to help government in times of fiscal crisis, case in point that I am intimately familiar with is the City of Miami, Florida. Politicians that weren’t even in an elected office at the time have taken credit, however, the police, fire, general employees and sanitation workers unions played a major part in the city’s survival and its bond ratings being raised from junk status. The majority of people that choose public service as a career do so because they want to make a difference in the community, and truly believe in public service. They carry that over into their union/ organization leadership.

For those that aren’t familiar with what happened (in Miami), there was a federal corruption investigation. The Budget Manager was caught by the fed’s and turned informant in order to get a reduced sentence. Long story made short, a commissioner and the City Manager were arrested. Another part of the problem was that the department that was supposed to be an independent reviewer of the Finance Department was moved under the control of the Budget Director during consolidation of city functions. They reported to the very person that they were supposed to be a “watch dog” over. Additionally, the city would under estimate their liabilities and over estimate their assets, including counting one time funding sources as recurring revenue. Then at the end of the budget year, in order to comply with the law requiring a balanced budget, monies would be transferred from projects or grants to the general revenue fund so that it would appear that the budget was balanced (and there was no deficit). Then on the first day of the new budget the monies would be transferred from the general fund back to the trust or grant fund, thereby causing an immediate deficit to the new fiscal year’s budget.

After the arrests the new City Manager scheduled a weekend of budget meetings in order to try and figure out exactly what the city’s status was. Initially the manager refused to allow the unions to attend the meetings, apparently forgetting about Florida’s Government in the Sunshine laws. After we went to court and were granted an emergency injunction the city agreed to let us attend, but we were not allowed to contribute. This lasted half a day, until the manager realized that we had been looking and were able to uncover information that he was not provided (the unions had been questioning the budget figures for some time).

After that first day the city administration sought to work with us (the unions) to try and save the City of Miami. We worked with the administration to reduce costs, ease the burden on the tax payers, and generate revenues. We, the unions, made concessions and postponed benefits until the financial stability of the city was attained. We were also instrumental in the governor appointing an oversight committee to approve any expenditure the city wanted to make in the mean time. Obviously if a major municipality were to fail the state would be severely impacted.

We worked at finding a resolution for more than two months and this was an abbreviated account of what occurred. The point is that once the city decided not to take an adversarial position with the unions, and chose to work together as partners to try and find solutions, solutions were found. The unions recommended concessions that the city’s management hadn’t “put on the table”. It was hard, but we all came through it.

The point is that everyone, government officials, union leadership, need to stop pointing the finger and try to assess blame for the financial mess. Instead of being advisories they need to work together as partners to fix the problem. Once the problem is fixed, then you can worry about placing blame if you feel the need, I think it would be more constructive to make sure this didn’t happen again. After all if you’re not careful history will repeat itself. THAT’S MY OPINION, WHAT’S YOURS

In the second part I will talk about employee benefits