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Columbus Dispatch Editorial...
Bipartisan effort
Democrats, too, are reining in the costs of public-employee benefits
 
On Tuesday night, the Massachusetts House of Representatives followed the lead of legislatures in Ohio and Wisconsin in voting to limit the collective-bargaining rights of public-employee unions.

The measure would reduce the ability of police officers, teachers and city employees to bargain for health-care benefits. The aim, as in Ohio, is to save millions of dollars for hard-pressed local governments.

States don’t come bluer than the home state of the late Sen. Edward M. Kennedy. Democrats hold supermajorities in both chambers of the state legislature. This sticks a fork in the idea that the cost of public employees’ benefits is of concern only to Republicans.

States are in deep financial trouble. Unlike the federal government, the majority of states are required to balance their budgets. The burgeoning cost of providing health benefits to public workers and the enormous unfunded public-pension obligations are genuine and significant fiscal problems.

In order to rein in those costs, lawmakers in states where unions have gained the upper hand in negotiations needed to regain management rights.

If these efforts constitute a “war on the middle class,” as public-employee unions like to claim, then the war enjoys bipartisan support. Democrats around the country are joining in:

• California Gov. Jerry Brown has introduced a 12-point plan to reduce the state’s enormous unfunded public-pension liability. California’s teachers’ retirement fund alone has a $56 billion gap between assets and future payouts to retirees.

His proposals include capping future pensions, raising the retirement age and switching retirement benefits to a hybrid of pensions and 401(k)-style investments.

• North Carolina Gov. Beverly Perdue proposed in her budget a couple of months ago to eliminate 10,000 state-employee jobs, 3,000 of them currently occupied.

In 2009, she also signed a law that dramatically changed the health-care benefits of public employees, increasing their deductibles, co-pays and premiums without asking the unions’ permission.

But then, Perdue doesn’t have to worry about public-employee collective bargaining because North Carolina doesn’t allow it.

• In mid-April, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo won a battle with the state’s law-enforcement union to impose higher health-care contributions, a three-year pay freeze and no automatic step increases.

This isn’t exclusively a blue or a red approach to the problem. State lawmakers and governors of both parties are beginning to recognize that they must bring labor costs in line with revenues.

Read it at the Columbus Dispatch


 
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