Budget busting union bill

Organized labor has a nifty idea for increasing its membership: Force all state and local governments to recognize and bargain with police and fire public service unions. The bill's sponsors, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who needs union support in his re-election bid, blithely ignore mounting evidence that sweetheart union contracts are impoverishing governments all across the nation, forcing them to raise taxes or cut services.

The bill may be good for the unions. But it is bad for the economy, which has to bear the often excessive costs. That means slower job growth.

The Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act would require all states to give police and fire unions collective bargaining rights set by the Federal Labor Relations Authority or face a federal judge.

The bill takes away 214 years of state sovereignty over public sector labor relations on the argument that first responders deserve collective bargaining rights. There is little doubt that similar arguments will soon be made for teachers unions.

But The Washington Post points out that there is no clear correlation between public safety and collective bargaining. Sixteen states do not recognize collective bargaining for police and 12 do not for firefighters. South Carolina does not recognize either.

The bill's mandate could be disastrous for South Carolina finances. As Michael Barone, co-author of the Almanac of American Politics, recently observed, public service unions are not adversarial like private sector unions. Instead, they are "collusive." They use their funds and personnel to influence the election of politicians who will agree to their wage and benefit demands.

A recent article on our Commentary Page by Jay Ambrose of the Scripps Howard News Service summarized numerous articles documenting wasteful spending under public service union contracts in New York, California, Ohio and elsewhere.

In a comparison of deficit-ridden Montgomery County, Md., with similarly sized Fairfax County, Va., the Post found that the Maryland county, where public service unions are recognized, had splurged on police, fire and teachers' contracts. Meanwhile, the Virginia county, where collective bargaining by public service unions is banned, held pay increases in line with anticipated revenues.

Ballooning public payrolls come at the expense of private investment. One-third of the 2009 federal stimulus package -- as much as $260 billion -- consisted of aid to state and local governments to preserve jobs, and the administration is seeking a new stimulus bill for the same purpose. Meanwhile, the private sector lost millions of jobs. This legislation would accelerate the unsustainable trend of substituting public for private jobs.