Union Negotiations

February 18, 2011 by Scott.

I have been reading with interest all the interesting things that are happening through out the land.  The States are trying to get the the Public employees to pay (relatively) minuscule amounts for things like Pensions and Health Care.  Imagine that the Public Employees in places like Columbus do not like this?  Well you would not like it either it is like taking a pay cut. But the real problem, the one that not one State seems to want to talk about is how these crazy Union contracts got signed in the first place. I have written in these pages that I think we should prosecute the politicians that negotiated and agreed to these ridiculous contracts under breach of fiduciary responsibility.  I still believe that.  But sour grapes is not getting me anywhere so I thought I would offer up a solution and it goes something like this. Since the politicians clearly can not be trusted to negotiate the Taxpayers interest in good faith due to the conflicts of interest inherent in the relationship between the Unions and the elected, I am suggesting that we take the negotiating responsibility away from them.  I am advocating for the creation of Citizen boards to be responsible for directly negotiating with the Unions.  These boards would be filled with Business leaders from around the State and would be unpaid positions.  Expenses could be reimbursed but no ther form of renumeration would be allowed.  These leaders from Business must be respected in there fields and be beyond reproach.  How would we choose these Board members?  I think the best way is to create an application process and have the Governor make selections based on a criteria agreed in an open forum and debate within the respective States Legislative bodies.  Under no circumstance would political lobyists or operatives be allowed.  I am talking about CEO’s, CFO’s and other Business executives of Private companies who make there homes in the respective State.These Boards should bring the taxpayers interest with them to the negotiating table and a fairer contract negotiation should ensue as there could be no tit for tat involved between the two sides. What do you think? 

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