Ohio SB 5 The Result of Union Greed

Today’s unemployment in the United States is not an accidental disaster. It was created by the greed and selfishness of labor unions. It isn’t the politically correct thing to say, but it is time to face facts. The labor unions priced their jobs out to foreign countries by demanding wages which the world economy cannot support.

The auto industry is a prime example. In the ‘70s Detroit was a growing city with a booming economy. The population then was 1.8 million. The census data just released puts its population at 713,777, a drop of 25% since 2000. The jobs aren’t there any more because Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors can’t afford to compete with foreign automotive manufacturers. Detroit can’t even complete with auto workers in the South and Midwest.

A short time ago, the average auto worker in Detroit was making $140,000 a year, including all the perks and benefits, which figures out to be $69 an hour. In 2008 the average United Auto Worker’s wage was $73 an hour while foreign manufacturers in the United States were paying $42. Add to the United Auto Workers wages $2,000 per car manufactured by the union for medical insurance and retirement, and the cost of union versus non-union labor costs are mind boggling.

The job loss due to high labor costs has been devastating. The Center for Automotive Research estimated that for every job created by a foreign automotive manufacturer, 6.1 jobs were lost by the Big Three. Is it any wonder that Detroit is a dying city?

The 77 billion dollar government bailout of GM and Chrysler went to pay wages of UAW members. Had the 77 billion dollars been left in the economy where it belonged, there would have been 77 billion which could have bought consumer goods, increased manufacturing, which would have increased the economy. Detroit has been sliding down hill for a number of years.

Government support of a labor union which created the problem through greed at the expense of the rest of the country seems crazy. But United Auto Workers boss Bob King has the answer to this wage problem. Even as Detroit collapses, he promises to "pound" non-unionized automotive plants into submission and force them to join his union and share their current prosperity.

Detroit could have learned from the steel industry. What used to the be world’s best steel producer, both in quality and quantity, has become the fourth largest in world steel production following China, Japan and Russia. As far as steel exports, the United States now holds position 14 in the world. Why? Because the steel workers have, by their wage and benefit demands, raised the price of steel to a point where U.S. steel companies have been priced out of world competition. Why didn’t the leaders of the United Auto Workers take the lesson of the United Steel Workers to heart and learn from it?

Pay-greediness extends through most unions today. Senate Bill 5 in Ohio is an attempt to bring sanity back into wages and benefits in the area of public employees. Most of the vocal opposition to SB 5 comes from the teacher’s and safety force’s unions. It came as no surprise to hear the moaning and self pity from professionals in those fields, from public employees, who by their actions, have demonstrated a lack of responsibility. To use benefits, such as sick and vacation days, to protest a necessary restraint to irresponsible wage and benefit demands in Columbus, demonstrates the lack of commitment which they are so quick to profess, as in “We want to do it for the kids.”

Statements made by those who oppose passage of SB 5 lack the understanding of what its main issues really are. The public employee's unions fall into the same trap of ignorance as did the United Auto Workers and United Steelworkers. They cannot, or refuse to, see the long term effects of the current system of union “negotiations” now in play. The short term thinking of public employees has created a financial burden for governments which has played a major part in the current economic crisis.

The fact of the matter is that nobody, including the union employees who are so against SB 5, can sustain the financial burden forced onto government by a system which uses partisanship and bias to obtain their self-seeking goals. When fact finders and arbitrators are allowed to dictate working conditions and pay scales for municipalities, the end result can only be disaster.

Their basic logic is wrong. If an employee, government or private sector, does their job properly, they should be paid at their level of compliance. This, in short, means that if you do what is required by your job position, the reward is the ability keep your job. If you do not perform, the reward is you’re fired.

Pay increases should be awarded through promotion to a more responsible position, such a move being based on competence, availability of the position, and with the condition that future performance will continue to be of a high caliber. Overall pay increases dictated by union negotiations and imposed by union biased fact finding and arbitration, reward those workers who show incompetence in their positions while penalizing those workers who do excel. Government workers tend to confirm the concepts of the Peter Principle, rising to their level of incompetence and in may cases beyond.

Union selfishness and greed have been detrimental to the automotive and steel industries in the United States. Elected officials, through their fear of union retribution, although union voters make up less than 10% of the voting population, must accept responsibility for creating the conditions which have allowed labor unions to destroy the vibrant economy which the United States once enjoyed. SB 5 is the first step to economic recovery. Unfortunately it is only the first step.

Police Pay Increases Strain New Philadelphia Budget

Last night, Monday, March 14, the New Philadelphia City Council approved Police Department budget requests for the next two years. It made sense that they approve the pay increases for policemen, not that the pay increases were merited, needed, or justified, but because there was no way that voting against them would have made any difference. The citizenry of New Philadelphia were bested in another expensive fact-finding decision which the City can ill afford.

The Times-Reporter article of March 15, “Phila City Council approves report on police wage hikes”, states clearly how the police union won their case as heard by Fact-finder Thomas R. Skulina. What Mr. Skulina, in his opinion, mandated a 5.75 percent pay increase for the police department over the next two years. But it only makes sense if the facts are not taken into consideration and if the incompetence of the city administration is overlooked.

The Times-Reporter quotes Skulina as stating, “The evidence is clear that, even after the recession that plagued the city, it is still leaves the city with the ability, if it chooses, to increase the pay of its police officers.”

There are a number of questionable conclusions used by Skulina to make such a statement.

The depression, let’s call it what it is, is not over. The true unemployment rate in Ohio is hovering around the 20 percent level. Nationally foreclosures are predicted to increase this year to 1.2 million homes. Already in 2011 over five million homes are two months or more behind in mortgage payments. 2010 was bad enough with 1 in every 45 homes being foreclosed. 2011 has all the appearances of being worse.

The city is in financial trouble. The general fund, where the money comes from to operate the city, such things as paying the mayor, auditor, treasurer, law director, city council, pay the bills for city hall, run the parks, that sort of thing, starts the year off 430 thousand dollars in the red. Add to that the Street Department, 30 thousand dollars in the red, the Cemetery two thousand dollars, and the total budget deficit is $462,000.

With the police wage increases approved, the cost of operating the city will be increased by an additional $39,000 this year and $45,000 in 2012, for a total deficit increase of $84,000 for the two years. In 2011 alone, the budget will be in the red over half-a-million dollars.

Where will the money to pay for this deficit come from? Two choices. One is that the economy will pickup, which is highly doubtful. Second is to increase taxes, which the mayor indicated would be his choice when he ran for office two years ago. The third, which is not spoken of at this point, is to lay people off.

A deficit budget does not concern Skulina. After all, he argues, five other communities in Tuscarawas, Stark, and Guernsey counties pay their police officers more than does New Philadelphia. With thirty five cities having police departments in those counties, we can only wonder what those cities are. When 86 percent of the cities in those three counties have police with wage scales less then New Philadelphia, it doesn’t seem that New Philadelphia police wages are that far out of line.

Skulina also made an interesting statement, one which invariably comes up as a point of prejudice and bias, which is totally not supported by the facts. “As a fact-finder," he said, “I definitely find that safety-force employees that are exposed to serious physical danger are not the same as the things office clerks, secretaries and non-safety employees are exposed to. Hence, I am not constrained by the arguments that whatever I recommend for the police is necessarily a given increase for the large non-safety union’s positions.”

This is a biased, unsupportable statement. In supporting his argument for police wage increases, he debases other employees as inferior, both in position and in risk, to those of the police department. This is not only degrading to those other employees, but shows a lack factual basis for Skulina’s ruling.

A study done in Maryland in 2009 lists the top jobs for fatalities per 100,000 workers, as the following:

Timber cutting 117.8
Fishermen 71.1
Airplane Pilots & Navigators 69.8
Structural Metal Workers 58.2
Drivers Sales Workers 37.9
Roofers 37.0
Electrical Power Installers 32.5
Farmers 28.0
Construction laborers 27.7
Truck drivers 25.0
Sworn Police Officers 22.2
National average: 4.0

There is no doubt that a policeman’s job can have its moments, but a policeman’s job does not often relate to what is seen on today’s television series. He does not on a daily basis face life threatening situations. In this case, the question is not do New Philadelphia’s police officers deserve higher wages because of hazardous duty, but have they earned pay raises because of increased efficiency and public service.

Full blame does not fall on policemen of New Philadelphia for the inappropriate wage increases they have received. The fault lies with a system which leans on bias, favoritism, and selfishness on the one hand, and inability to properly administer the city’s finances on the other.

New Philadelphia administrations cannot compete with union lawyers on their own and refuse to engage competent legal help to negotiate for them. For the good of the city, both employees and citizens, the mayor should admit to his inability to negotiate effectively with professional union negotiators. He should hire competent legal council, one with experience, training, and the will to win to represent the city. Yet he does not and the result remains unchanged, the city loses negotiations, fact-finding, and arbitration with regularity.

The culprits of this most recent financial debacle are the same as in the past: a greedy union, an incompetent administration, and a biased fact-finder. The victims are the same as in the past: the citizens of New Philadelphia. How much longer will the citizenry accept an ineffective administration and legislature? It’s time to wake up New Philadelphia. It is your city. Get involved. Do something before the city disappears in a cloud of citizen apathy.

Ohio SB 5 and Municipal Unions

Public employees are getting a lot of publicity about how they will suffer if Senate Bill 5 becomes law. For them, SB5 is taking away their rights for the use of collective bargaining to establish working conditions, salaries, benefits, days off, work procedures, and who, incidentally, gets laid off if there is a cut back in employment because of financial problems. The unions call it collective bargaining. But is it fair to the tax payer?

Under current collective bargaining laws, the two sides, unions and cities, get together and discuss terms under which the union will work. It is basically a one way street. The union says this is the type of work we will do, this is how we will do it, these are the benefits, or freebies if you will, that you will give us, and this is what you will pay us. Should the city suggest it can’t afford to make the changes the unions want, the union says, we’re going to fact finding/arbitration, discussion closed.

Arbitration and fact finding work like this. An arbitrator is chosen from a list of people approved by the union, and agreed to by the city. His job is to decide which side, union or city, presents the best argument for increases, or keeping the status quo, of wages, working conditions, and all other matters connected with government funded, paid for by taxpayers, jobs. He hears both sides then makes his decision based on his wisdom, experience, and the amount of money the municipality has available which can be taken to make wage and benefit payments to the union members. One problem with the system. Most arbitrators are ex-union members who invariably lean toward the union point of view. When you go to arbitration or fact finding, the city is going to pay up, period.

The end result of the current system is unbelievable. Public employees consider dictating their working conditions their “rights.” They consider their benefits “rights.” They consider their jobs as “rights”. Nowhere is it written that being on a public payroll is a right. Where in the constitution is it written that public employees have a “right” to work for any level of government.

Disagree with the unions and you are immediately branded as being against teaching of students, fire prevention, police patrols, garbage collection, equal rights for workers, women, men, and dog catchers.

Suggesting municipal workers pay a fair share of their health insurance, life insurance, or retirement, is considered by unions to be a crisis because it will “take food from the mouths of children” who are dependent upon a parent who works for some form of government. No matter that health insurance, vacations, retirement, overtime, and benefits not available to non-public employees result in increased costs to municipalities and are direct causes of the municipality's financial distress. No matter that these benefits are far greater than paid by non-government workers. Government workers want them, the arbitrators provide them, and the public be damned.

Wages should be based on productivity and competence, not length of employment. Most people want to be recognized for doing a good job and well they should. It is degrading that the inept, lazy, irresponsible worker is paid the same as the conscientious, responsible worker. For that matter, within a pay scale, those efficient, responsible workers, should not be paid more for their work within that scale, those who do not measure up should be paid less or fired. The unions do not see it that way, and the loafer earns what the producer does because the union has protected their jobs for a number of years.

The money that pays public worker salaries comes from the taxes of people who don’t work for public employee unions. A public employee produces no income for the municipality for which he works. He provides a service without which the municipality could not exist. But income to the city comes from taxation. Money which is taken by taxation reduces the available money used by the taxpayer to subsist, to pay the bills, to live. Government employees do not always seem to be aware of that.

A new Philadelphia school teacher was quoted by the Times-Reporter as stating, “I’m opposed to the bill – I’m really frightened about my family’s future….It’s a slap in the face. I feel like they just don’t think teachers are important, and that’s really hard to swallow.” Those people who are out of work because the cost of doing business in Ohio has driven hundreds of businesses out of Ohio find their lack of any income hard to swallow. Thousands of workers lost their jobs, their livelihoods, because companies could not afford to stay in business in Ohio because of a tax structure which is oppressive. The highest cost of government is, like private enterprise, the high cost of personnel. But there is a difference.

Nongovernmental businesses have to make a profit to stay in operation. Governments don’t as they have the power to tax those who provide the jobs, who produce the goods, who keep the economy going. Governments raise taxes to pay their bills. So if government employees want more wages and benefits, their unions provide the means to increase them regardless of the effects such increases produce.

Increased taxes always result in decreased taxpayer spending, which decreases manufacturing, which decreases jobs, which results in a failure of the economy. SB5 recognizes this. The government unions do not. Regardless of how they try to explain it away, government employee union greed is the major cause of the financial mess Ohio is in today.

Of course government employees are opposed to SB5. It’s passage will force responsibility onto them which they have not had to accept for years. It will without doubt cause some readjustments in their living standards. It is not right that government employment should provide wages and benefits which are oppressive to the taxpayer, have hurt the economy of the state. A government job is just that, a job, a privilege.

One thing is abundantly clear. As shown by union reaction to SB5 government workers are not dedicated to public service. Their dedication is to money. Their dedication is to getting whatever they can from the taxpayer. Their dedication is to self, not to the public good. The concept of public service is dead.