Vallejo
Voters, not leaders, confront Vallejo's mess
June 15, 2010 Filed in: Budget & Finance
| Unions
Column: Chip Johnson, San Francisco Chronicle
Two years after Vallejo
made history as the first city in the Golden State to file for
bankruptcy, voters have grasped the city's dire financial situation
even if some members of local government haven't. Residents
appeared to have approved Measure A by a slim margin last week. The
vote count is close and provisional ballots are still being
counted, so results haven't been made official. The ballot measure
would remove binding arbitration from the City Charter, effectively
ending the public employee unions' grip on labor contract
negotiation….
Municipal bankruptcy bill slogs forward
Column: Dan Walters, The Orange County
Register To
appease unions looking to make it tougher for cities to go
bankrupt, the bill was laden with amendments that could still leave
cities exposed to creditors ... So far, just one California city,
Vallejo, has declared bankruptcy, but nearby Antioch is considering
it. If the recession persists and revenues continue to stagnate,
others may follow. That's why municipal employee unions are making
a big-time push for legislation that would make bankruptcy more
difficult. The unions' underlying motives are crystal clear. They
fear a bankruptcy judge might rule that a city's labor contracts,
or even pension obligations, could be abrogated. They want to make
municipal bankruptcy more difficult to discourage troubled local
governments from resorting to it…
The Beholden State
March 21, 2010 Filed in: Unions
Column: Steven Malanga, City Journal How public employees became members of
the elite class in a declining California offers a cautionary tale
to the rest of the country, where the same process is happening in
slower motion. The story starts half a century ago, when California
public workers won bargaining rights and quickly learned how to
elect their own bosses—that is, sympathetic politicians who would
grant them outsize pay and benefits in exchange for their support.
Over time, the unions have turned the state’s politics completely
in their favor. The result: unaffordable benefits for civil
servants; fiscal chaos in Sacramento and in cities and towns across
the state; and angry taxpayers finally confronting the unionized
masters of California’s unsustainable government…
Public-sector employees are the new fat cats
May 10, 2010 Filed in: Unions
Column: Fred Barnes, WashingtomExaminer.com
John Edwards was right.
There are two Americas, just not his two (the rich and powerful
versus everyone else). The real divide today is, on one side, the
20 million people who work for state and local governments and the
additional 3 million who've retired with fat pensions. On the
other, the rest of us, about 280 million Americans. In short,
there's a gulf between the bureaucrats and the people…