Time to rethink dominance of Washington's public employee unions

IN 1995, when I was president of what is now the Washington Policy Center, I sounded an alarm in a widely distributed op-ed piece about the potential budget havoc our public-sector unions could cause. Fast-forward to 2010 and our state's ability to function is completely out of balance. With a $2.8 billion budget shortfall this year and another projected $2 billion deficit next year, 60 percent of the state budget is untouchable.

Why?

That 60 percent represents wages and benefits for public-sector workers who are protected by union contracts and are off-limits to lawmakers faced with balancing the budget. Gov. Chris Gregoire renegotiated new two-year union contracts last year. She and the Legislature refused to open collective bargaining during this year's legislative session — despite the severe budget gap.

Why — especially during a time of budget crisis — do state citizens allow four unions to dominate and dictate public policy? These unions — the Service Employees International Union, Washington Public Employees Association, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and the Washington Education Association — have more control over our state budget than we the people have. Don't blame hardworking union members, who can't even choose whether to pay union dues. I blame union leaders who refuse to negotiate and who use members' dues to line the coffers of elected officials to buy "Tammany Hall" loyalty during contract negotiations.

Unlike private-sector unions, whose natural adversaries are the company managers they negotiate with, public-sector unions have no such natural counterweight. Public-sector unions achieve influence on both sides of the bargaining table by contributing to campaigns and organizing get-out-the-vote drives to elect politicians who control negotiations over their pay, benefits and work rules. It's a never-ending — and toxic — unsustainable cycle, and our state is paying the price.

But so are public-sector employees whose leaders are bargaining away their futures for sheer political power. Not only are the generous wage and benefit packages contributing to the current budget deficit, they're impacting the state's pension fund and worker's health fund. Both are woefully short on cash and face future default if not shored up.

The ironic part of an overbloated, overcompensated public sector is that the dollars it takes to support their rich benefits packages come from the private sector through taxation. So instead of being able to keep the money to create new jobs, the private businesses have to send it to Olympia and lay off their union and nonunion employees. This irresponsible money grab by the public-sector unions has cost many private-sector union jobs.

But it's worse than that. Washington citizens are fed up with out-of-control state spending, and are increasingly aware that the problem lies with that 60 percent "untouchable" spending.

If the public-sector union leaders don't step up to help solve our state's budget crisis, they face future lost jobs for their members, or potential decertification.

What can be done? There's no lack of solutions to this problem. Here are just a few:

• Reopen state employee union contracts so workers pay more of their medical premiums, in line with the private sector.

• Restore the Legislature's authority over state collective-bargaining agreements.

• Adopt collective-bargaining transparency so state employment contracts are not negotiated in secret.

Our system is out of balance and the Legislature so far has failed to fix it.

Now it's up to us all to accept responsibility and work to solve this problem.

Union leaders must work with legislators to restore fiscal responsibility, which in turn will protect members' jobs, not just their own. Union members must hold their leaders accountable.

Most important, citizens — to return sanity to the salaries, benefits and pensions of public-union contracts — need lawmakers who understand fiscal sanity. Attend town hall meetings. Ask candidates the tough questions. Then vote for candidates who will bring our system back into balance.

If we don't do it now, the warning I'll issue a few years from now won't be a warning. It will be a fiscal post mortem on our children's future.