Now, the Union Pushback

[Valin]

City Journal: Following big victories for public-pension reform in California, the union empire takes to the courts.

Steven Greenhut

6/12/12

 

The nation’s public-sector unions have become so emboldened by years of political victories, and so insulated from voter concerns, that they apparently never considered the possibility that voters, given a clear choice, would turn against them. Last Tuesday was as close as the nation gets to a clarifying election, the result of union overreach in Wisconsin and union intransigence in California. “Election results in California and Wisconsin this week are being viewed as a turning point for organized labor—to its detriment,” reported the Los Angeles Times, echoing a story line repeated nationwide.

 

(Snip)

 

The unions essentially gave up on San Diego’s Proposition B and San Jose’s Measure B long before the election, offering little more than token opposition. They knew they would lose, so they concentrated on a legal and regulatory approach to derail reform. In San Diego, the unions appealed to the Public Employment Relations Board—a state board of appointed union sympathizers—to invalidate the pension-reform measure preemptively. The unions asked the board to evaluate whether even asking voters about reforming the system constituted an “unfair labor practice.” When that failed, and the voters rendered their verdict, the unions shifted to litigation. In San Diego, city attorneys “asked the state’s 4th District Court of Appeal Thursday to hear all five pending court cases involving Proposition B, the pension-system-overhaul measure overwhelmingly passed by voters this week,” according to San Diego News Room. The city wants to resolve quickly the many ongoing and expected legal challenges to a measure written specifically to conform to existing legal precedent.

 

Given the state supreme court’s recent decision declaring that some “non-vested rights,” such as medical care, may actually be “vested rights” if a county board of supervisors or a city council “implies” as much in an ordinance of resolution, it’s easy to be pessimistic. But this much is certain: the unions can no longer count on winning in the court of public opinion.

 

 

 

 

 

Even if the unions win...it makes no difference, change is coming....and sooner rather than later.