• Nuclear War
• Total Surrender
• Recommended State Department policy

The understanding of the joke is that whatever policy or ideas elected officials want to enact, it is the government employees—the bureaucrats—who have to carry it out. Too often, the bureaucrats carry it out in a manner that benefits them, not the elected officials or the public. (I care more about the latter.)

The City of St. Louis is experiencing a problem like that right now, with its efforts to combine its three 911 systems into one. Consolidating 911 centers should be one of the low-hanging fruits for service sharing among local governments. There are numerous examples of it benefitting communities in Missouri. Unfortunately, while many efforts have succeeded, a few have been stalled due to resistance from local bureaucrats.

The problems in St. Louis are all the more confusing because this effort is entirely within the same city government. In theory, it should be easier to implement service sharing in one government rather than sharing 911 services across different governments (which isn’t really that hard, either.) But, shockingly, the various city employee unions have thus far been able to stall the reform efforts. The mayor’s plans to consolidate and improve the 911 system have been blocked, thus far, by the unions representing the dispatchers who are currently within different departments. From the article:

One union represents police dispatchers, and another represents EMS and fire dispatchers. The unions have demanded bargaining over any dispatcher cross-training. Uncertainty about which union would represent a combined dispatcher position slowed attempts by Mayor Tishaura Jones and her former public safety director, Dan Isom, to allow dispatchers to handle all types of emergency calls.

The unions complained Jones and Isom’s plans for consolidation were made without consulting them and that the changes in job duties were clearly something that should be covered in contract negotiations. [emphasis mine]

Missouri attempted major public-sector union reforms a few years ago. While some reforms were passed into law, a lawsuit unfortunately led to the reforms being overturned by the Missouri Supreme Court.

St. Louis has public sector unions delaying improvements to a system that would improve the city’s currently terrible 911 system and spend tax dollars more efficiently. But hey, fiefdoms have to be protected, right?

FDR was right about public sector unions. They shouldn’t exist.

The post Looking For Bureaucratic Efficiencies in All the Wrong Places appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A few decades back, the City of Hazelwood annexed some adjoining land into the city. That land was previously unincorporated and had been served by the Robertson Fire Department. Because of an arcane and misguided law applicable in St. Louis County (RSMO §72.418), Hazelwood was required to pay Robertson the property tax revenue in the annexed area for Robertson to continue providing service there, even though Hazelwood was entirely willing and able to provide fire services in that area via its own municipal fire department at lower cost. As part of the agreement reached after the annexation, the residents of the area pay a portion of the property tax (as is normal), but the city itself pays anything above the initial tax level. Since that agreement was reached a long time ago, voters in Robertson have approved extremely high property tax rates, which is easy to do because the city—not the property owners—is responsible for the increased property taxes for the portion of the fire district that lies in Hazelwood. Confusing? Yes, it is, and that’s the point. Fragmented government, low-turnout elections, obscure special taxing districts, politically active public-employee unions: taken together, they create the perfect environment for government mismanagement and abuse.

The situation has gotten so bad that Hazelwood is saying it may have to declare bankruptcy. Some residents of Hazelwood have put together a citizen’s group to demand change, and they have successfully placed a recall election for the Robertson board on the November ballot. Average citizens are now engaged in this issue, and that is what the Robertson board should fear the most.

What is the solution here? Well, there are several options. There is the political solution, which will be addressed in the upcoming recall vote. Then there is the direct policy solution, which is to repeal RSMO §72.418 and allow municipal fire departments to serve annexed areas. But there is a bigger issue here, and that is the political influence of the firefighters union and its ability to dominate independent fire districts (and some municipal fire departments, too, no doubt). From this Post-Dispatch story:

Also opposed is Local 2665 of the International Association of Fire Fighters. Only a handful of districts in St. Louis, St. Charles and Jefferson County—including the Northeast district—have fire boards controlled by directors whose campaigns weren’t backed by the union.

The Robertson issue is just one local example of this larger debate. I saw what happened when local politicians in University City tried to oppose the fire union, and it wasn’t pretty. I commend the Hazelwood elected officials for their stance here, but to stop the abuses of firefighters unions in our area many more voters and local officials will need to get involved.

The post Where Is Robertson Fire District, and Why Do They Take So Much of Hazelwood’s Tax Money? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But starting in paragraph four, a massive story—with greater implications than a simple story of institutional failure—begins to emerge. The reason the union is going “out of business” isn’t just because it’s short on money; it’s because over 95% of the employees were choosing not to pay the MCOA for its representation. (Emphasis mine)

In December, Parson’s Office of Administration announced it would end dues withholding for 5,500 employees who oversee some of the state’s most dangerous rapists, murderers and drug dealers.

The administration said it ended payroll deduction because the union’s contract had expired. It was not clear, however, why the decision came in December because the contract had expired in September.

But as of Friday, the effect of that decision was clear: Just 209 of those workers are paying dues to the union, despite attempts by the MCOA to convince guards to continue paying.

That’s an extraordinary figure. Months after it became clear the government wouldn’t be withholding dues for the union, fewer than 4 percent of the covered employees chose to continue funding the organization. That so many of these workers have decided not to renew their union memberships makes the implied, potentially decades-long wrong committed against these employees all the more extraordinary.

How much money was redirected to a union that apparently didn’t have the support of its members? How much money is being redirected to other unions right now that don’t have the support of their membership?

Whether it’s a statewide union or a local union, government workers should have a regular opportunity to opt into paying union dues—or to simply keep their money. It’s appalling that the MCOA was able to survive so long without the apparent support of its members, and it’s broadly concerning for all other public union members for whom the government remains a union dues collector.

The post The Appalling Lede Buried in Prison Guard Labor “Dispute” Story appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

But while the ruling is disappointing, it isn’t altogether unexpected, either. As I wrote in a paper on the subject of government union reform published earlier this year, “ongoing statutory tweaks and court interventions—driven by interests on both sides of the government–labor debate—seem likely to shape how, and whether, reforms are implemented for years to come.” Government unions weren’t going to give up their power easily even in the face of changes to the law, and it seemed reasonably clear after the lawsuit was filed that an adverse ruling was certainly on the table.

That doesn’t mean reform efforts will or should come to an end as litigation on such matters makes its way through the judicial system. In fact, there was plenty for the state still to do even before the Court’s decision on HB 1413, especially ensuring collective bargaining agreements are catalogued by state regulators, and we observed as much in the paper:

Whatever HB 1413’s eventual disposition, any oversight regime that cannot identify all the subjects of that oversight will fail to meaningfully execute its mission. Without effective oversight, the likelihood of patently illegal contract provisions rises. That’s bad for taxpayers and government workers, but it’s also bad for the rule of law.

Currently the legislature is hearing bills dealing with “paycheck protection” reforms, which we’ve talked about before and were part of HB 1413. But as the legislature takes stock of the government union landscape as it moves toward the completion of its legislative year in May, policymakers should also take a hard look at whether the state can effectively oversee any of the reforms that it’s contemplating and whether it has delegated sufficient power and resources to officials to ensure the will of the legislature is being carried out. Changing the law is fine, but a law that can’t be or isn’t enforced will be ignored.

The post On Government Union Reforms, Present and Future appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

In the aftermath of the decision, government unions were unable to convince many non-members to become full-fledged members and pay dues. As I discussed in a previous post, union financial reports submitted to the Department of Labor show the National Education Association lost the 88,000 non-member agency fee payers it had in 2017. And the Americans Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees union lost 110,000 agency fee payers. The financial reporting of another large public-sector union, the American Federation of Teachers, does not reflect the impact of Janus because its reporting period ended in the same month as the decision. However, a new report from the Freedom Foundation states that “union spokespeople indicate the union lost nearly all 85,000 agency fee-payers it had at the time of the decision.”

As Kovacs notes later in the piece, the Janus decision doesn’t only affect non-member fee payers, who in many states were the primary beneficiaries of the case, but also union members themselves. As the ruling notes, “Unless employees clearly and affirmatively consent before any money is taken from them, this standard [for waiving one’s First Amendment rights] cannot be met.”

But are union members aware of these rights? Kovacs persuasively suggest that the answer is no, and that state law can still act as a barrier to securing these rights.

Prior to the Janus decision, workers who wished to opt-out of union membership were restricted by what are known as window periods. For example, in Michigan, many public employees could only leave their union once a year during a short period of time in August. Other window periods only permitted members to leave the union for a brief time period around the anniversary of their hiring.

Despite the text of the decision that allows workers to resign union membership nearly at any time, labor unions are still blocking workers who want to leave by enforcing these invalid window periods. In a recent case, Hendrickson v. AFSCME, New Mexico public employee Brett Hendrickson, represented by the Liberty Justice Center, was prohibited from exercising his Janus rights to resign from union membership. Hendrickson, a quality control specialist for the New Mexico Human Services Department, attempted to leave AFSCME Council 18 and stop dues from being deducted from his paycheck, but was told he could only opt-out during a narrow window period. This is just one of many examples of unions coercing worker to continue paying dues and undermining their First amendment rights.

To what extent Missouri government workers are having their rights curtailed is the subject of rigorous debate. For instance, a court injunction against House Bill (HB) 1413, which reformed much of Missouri’s labor law framework, has created uncertainty as to what the law is on basic issues like union membership and representation. Also, collective bargaining agreements in the state were (to be generous) lightly overseen by the state even before HB 1413 became law, meaning that violations of workers’ rights could be ongoing—and hardly anyone would know about it. Fortunately, Missouri did not technically allow for “fair share fees” of the sort that Janus put an end to nationwide, so many Missouri workers had at least incidental knowledge of their labor rights in the Show-Me State. Unfortunately, that isn’t always the case.

The better educated workers are about their rights, the better off they will be. Especially in this post-Janus legal environment, that educational process is more important than ever.

The post Are Government Unions Adequately Informing Workers of Their Rights? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

A new paper from James N. Foster, Jr., Brian C. Hey, and Allison J. Hartnett provides context to the controversy over HB 1413 with a historical overview of public-sector union law in Missouri.

To read the entire essay, click on the link below.

The post New Public-Sector Labor Law in Missouri appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

I and others will have more analysis of this over the next few hours and days, but suffice it to say that this is a win for supporters of the First Amendement, for government employees, and for taxpayers.

2. The State’s extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting publicsector employees violates the First Amendment. Abood erred in concluding otherwise, and stare decisis cannot support it. Abood is therefore overruled. Pp. 7–47.

(a) Abood’s holding is inconsistent with standard First Amendment principles. Pp. 7–18.

(1) Forcing free and independent individuals to endorse ideas they find objectionable raises serious First Amendment concerns. E.g., West Virginia Bd. of Ed. v. Barnette, 319 U. S. 624, 633. That includes compelling a person to subsidize the speech of other private speakers. E.g., Knox v. Service Employees, 567 U. S. 298, 309. In Knox and Harris v. Quinn, 573 U. S. ___, the Court applied an “exacting” scrutiny standard in judging the constitutionality of agency fees rather than the more traditional strict scrutiny. Even under the more permissive standard, Illinois’ scheme cannot survive. Pp. 7–11.

The post Supreme Court Rules Against Agency Fees in Janus appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Government Union Reform Passes the Legislature appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

That isn’t to say the issue doesn’t crop up from time to time. In 2013 non-union officers in Kansas City had their employment threatened by the union when they refused to cough up money for the union’s activities. And while that incident is an exception to the Missouri rule, it’s an episode that supporters of good government in Missouri have to keep in mind as they survey the policy landscape post-Janus. 

Indeed, Janus brings with it the opportunity to reassess public policies that generally provide considerable latitude to government unions. Most states have a laws on the subject that are literally to the left of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, since Roosevelt himself was highly skeptical of collective bargaining and traditional unionization among government workers. Not only does the risk persist that a union could elect members into government to negotiate them sweetheart contracts, but the prospect of a company’s failure that faces private labor negotiations hardly ever truly attaches to a government agency—if economic conditions go sideways, taxes can be raised, services can be reduced, or some combination of the two could take place to protect the government union’s interests.

Point being, government unions have been given a wide berth to operate over the last half-century, and it is overdue that the latitude they’ve been granted was reviewed—in light not only of the law and the Constitution, as will happen in Janus, but of good policy as well. Government union members, non-union government employees, and taxpayers certainly deserve better than the status quo.

The post In Janus, A National Reexamination of Government Unions appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Brenda Talent Discusses Possible Reforms for 2018 on The Allman Report appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Opportunity beckons.  This is your chance to do something big. In breaking into your midnight slumbers, I hope only to point the way forward – with a few thoughts on how to accelerate growth and quicken prosperity in Missouri come the New Year.

One is to tell you plainly: Stop trying to pick winners and losers with taxpayer money. Let’s say (to use a real example) a group of businessmen tell you that they need $120 million in public support ($40 million from the state and another $80 million from the city) to build a new soccer stadium and bring a Major League Soccer franchise to downtown Saint Louis. While predicting that the project will create jobs and ancillary development, backers are asking for taxpayer money to pay for about two-thirds of the cost of building the stadium.

You must say “No” to all such proposals. If professional investors demand major subsidies for a profit-seeking venture, then you know (or should know) it’s a bad deal for taxpayers. Governor-elect Eric Greitens has already signaled his opposition to the $40 million in state tax credits for the proposed stadium. You can go further – much further – by reducing annual spending on state tax credits for targeted economic development from more than $350 million per year down to zero. That would free up money for better purposes (see next point).

Two is to leave more after-tax money in the pockets of wage earners and business owners alike. People and businesses vote with their feet. They move out of states where the “tax price” of living, working, or running a business is too high and into states where it is lower. If you include the 1 percent earnings tax in our two biggest cities, Missouri has a top income tax rate of 7 percent, which is more than all but 11 states. You should slash state income taxes 50 percent over the next three years.

Three is to end compulsory unionism as a condition of employment. Six out of eight neighboring states have already passed right-to-work legislation. Missouri should join them in embracing greater freedom and competition in the workplace.

Four is to promote public sector union democracy and transparency. Public sector employees should have the right to say “yea” or “nay” to continued union representation at intervals of every two or three years. At the same time, Missouri should close the loophole that allows public officials and government unions to conduct collective bargaining in closed sessions.

Five is to allow charter schools – now limited to the Kansas City and Saint Louis areas – to expand statewide without limitation. Missouri should adopt innovative programs, such as education savings accounts and tax credit-funded scholarships, enabling public school students trapped in underperforming school districts to attend private schools.

Six is encourage greater competition and choice in another area ripe for reform – health care. You can begin by converting much of Missouri’s Medicaid program into health savings accounts (HSAs).   After purchasing catastrophic health care plans, beneficiaries would be free to tailor their spending to their needs and roll over unspent money from one year to the next.

Seven is to eliminate a major disincentive that keeps many poor people from looking for jobs – the loss of public welfare benefits that too often results from finding gainful employment. Earned income tax credits (EITCs) are one practical solution to this problem.

Arise and shine, Missouri legislators.  This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make exceptional progress across a broad range of important public policy issues.

The post Listen Up, Missouri Lawmakers: Here Are Seven Resolutions for 2017 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The agreement between the city council and the fire fighters union awards the fire department over $8 million more than the amount outlined in the city’s five-year plan. Even Yael Abouhalkah of the Kansas City Star, normally sympathetic to Kansas City government, blasted the city council in a scathing opinion piece.

The fact that the union donated to the city’s pro-tax campaign the day after winning a favorable deal from the city illustrates a larger point about what can happen when government employees unionize. Government unions have the ability to work through both the political process and the collective bargaining process. By playing the processes off of each other, a government union can do quite well for itself.

When a union works the political process it influences, donates to, and campaigns for political officials. Then when it comes time to negotiate a union contract, the union may end up bargaining with a friendly party who owes his or her success, at least in part, to the union’s previous support. This is very different from a traditional labor negotiation where union leaders bargain with business managers in an attempt to capture a worker’s fair share of the profits. In government there is no profit. Revenues come from taxpayers.

Taxpayer advocates often liken politicians negotiating with unions to a fox guarding a henhouse.  And for good reason: Politicians get powerful and reliable support in the form of government unions; unions get better deals for their members, usually in the form of more tax money directed to government payrolls. Everybody wins but the taxpayer.

To some readers this may just be how government works. But why does it have to work this way? 

The post KC Fire Union Donates to Pro-Tax Campaign the Day after Winning Deal appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Kansas is taking a step in the right direction. The Kansas Senate just passed a bill that would give teachers the right to vote for their union on a regular basis. In most states, including Kansas and Missouri, once a union takes control of a group of public employees, such as teachers or firefighters, that union remains in power indefinitely. There is no election every two or four years whereby workers can hold their union accountable. If workers want to remove a union from power, they need to organize again and go through a difficult “decertification” process.

Some Missouri lawmakers have also explored the possibility of regular union elections for government workers. So far, these bills haven’t had a floor vote.

If individual employees of our public institutions are going to be forced to subsidize a union, we need to protect them from unaccountable union executives. Unions can force people to pay for their services on the theory that an individual’s rights can be curtailed for “workplace democracy.” So let’s ensure there’s democracy. Require unions to run for re-election every couple of years. This is how democracy works.

The post Supreme Court Decision Deals a Blow to Union Reform appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Several union contracts allow the union to demand fees from employees as a condition of employment. There’s also case law that allows unions to force employees to pay agency fees. (See Schaffer v. Board of Education of the City of St. Louis.) Perhaps there’s an argument this case should be overturned, but for now it’s law.

So then why the confusion?

The issue came up in a recent hearing on a bill that would increase the transparency of government unions. In the hearing, Clark Brown, an executive with SEIU, seemed to imply there were no forced dues clauses in state contracts. The Kansas City Star also repeated the misconception in a recent article.

It is true that some unions do not have a forced payment clause in their contract. Workers covered by these contracts can choose whether or not to pay for union membership. The fact that many state employees are not currently forced to join a union may be the reason why many people believe Missouri government workers have “right to work.”

I can understand why many, including the Kansas City Star, would be confused by this. But SEIU should know better. It’s a little complicated, but in essence, at least two of their state contracts (here and here) include a type of forced-pay clause. Make no mistake: Although there is variation among different contracts, some Missouri public-sector workers can be forced to pay for union representation.

The post Is There “Right to Work” for Missouri’s Government Union Members? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Tax increment financing abuse

20 for 2020: A pro-growth agenda for Missouri

School choice for special-needs students

The cost of "free college"

Collective bargaining agreements for public employee unions

Turmoil on the Mizzou campus

Bailout of the Saint Louis Loop Trolley

Newsletter December 2015.pdf

The post December 2015 Newsletter appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Last year’s paycheck protection bill would have required government unions (such as teachers unions and unions representing state employees) to obtain permission from employees before using dues or fees for political activity. The bill would have required unions to seek permission from employees only once each year; however, for that school teacher or social worker who opposes the politics of union bosses as a matter of conscience, such protection can make a big difference.

Consider the story of Terry Bowman, who started an organization dedicated to providing a voice to union members who feel silenced and marginalized by the union political establishment. Or Andrew Palmer, a public school teacher who started Conservative Teachers of America to provide an alternative perspective on public education. Both of these men bucked the mainstream opinion of their workplaces in order to make sure their voices were heard. This can be hard to do, but it’s a lot easier when the law protects people who swim against the current.

The post Missouri Paycheck Protection Is Back for 2016 appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

The post Show-Me Now! Government Unions: Let’s Put Taxpayers Back in Control appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

So how low cost are union elections? If the state contracts out with a company that specializes in providing elections, the price tag could be less than 1% of union dues.

When Wisconsin contracted with the American Arbitration Association (AAA) to provide union elections for its public employees, the cost was about $1.50 per voter per election. AAA is a well respected arbitration firm, but there are other options. For example, a service called “Election Buddy” by Event IQ, Inc., conducts elections for Harvard and Yale Universities and thousands of other companies internationally for approximately 9 cents per voter. $0.09 to $1.50 is a wide range, but even at the top end of that range, elections are inexpensive.

For comparison purposes, consider the dues charged to state employees by some of the major government unions. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) charges Missouri state employees $16.93 per pay period, or $406.32 per year. The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) charges patient care professional employees $22.50 per pay period, or $540 per year. Even if the state contracts with a more expensive arbitration firm, rather than a relatively less costly corporate election firm, and ends up charging each union around $1.50 per voter, with an election every two years that’s less than two dollars out of the $812.64 AFSMCE collects per person during that period or the $1,080.00 SEIU collects.

Contracting out for union election is just one way of saving money. By contracting out for elections, the state will not need to hire additional staff, pay for increased travel expenses for staff conducting elections, or purchase new voting equipment. The savings will allow the state to charge a much lower fee to unions for conducting these elections, saving public employees money.

The post Just How Low Cost Is Labor Reform? appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Ms. Friedrichs is a 27-year veteran teacher who currently works in Buena Park, California. According to an interview with the Daily Caller News Foundation, she first encountered the teachers union when she tried to get her school to deal with a colleague who had been abusive to students. As she said, “They couldn’t get rid of her because of teacher tenure. . . . There was absolutely nothing, from my perspective and what I was told, that I could do.”

Friedrichs tried to work with her union, volunteering within it and working to convince her colleagues to be more amenable to some education reforms (like school vouchers) that might give more opportunities to her students. And what, according to Friedrichs, was the union’s response? “They punished me for standing up. . . . For that whole year, for that whole fight, I was treated like dirt.”

Teachers are too important to be treated like that.

Ultimately, what is at issue in this case is very simple: the right of free association, a right protected by the First Amendment. Ms. Friedrichs and thousands of public servants like her do not want to be forced to support a union that does not represent their interests or values.

As James Sherk of the Heritage Foundation points out, for much of the history of the American labor movement, private unions supported that right for public employees. In 1959, the AFL-CIO’s Executive Council wrote “In terms of accepted collective bargaining procedures, government workers have no right beyond the authority to petition Congress—a right available to every citizen.” Why? “It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.” That was George Meany, President of the AFL-CIO, in 1955.

The issues associated with public unionism are clear. Institute researchers and scholars have written about the dangers of allowing government unions to elect their bosses and thus sit on both sides of the table during negotiations over salaries and benefits, pensions, hiring and firing procedures, and a variety of other policies (like school vouchers) that might only tangentially affect their membership. You can find a small sample of our work here, here, and here.

A victory in the Friedrichs case would strike a blow for individual freedom; it would recognize the millions of teachers and other government workers across the country not simply as interchangeable widgets who all think the same way, but as individuals with independent ideas and preferences.

This kind of fight is worth fighting. We’re happy to join it.

(Click on the link below if you would like to read the full text of the amicus brief.)

The post Why We Joined Rebecca Friedrichs’ Fight appeared first on Show-Me Institute.

Some have suggested fixing this system by requiring government unions to run for re-election periodically. A regular secret-ballot election sounds like a good check on the potential abuses that can occur when a representative body isn’t held accountable to its constituents. But aren’t elections expensive?

In fact, by following the example set by Wisconsin, our state can provide regular elections for its unionized employees at a low cost to incumbent unions and at no cost to taxpayers.

I’ve pointed out before that Wisconsin has revenue-neutral elections for its unionized public employees. In Wisconsin, teachers and state workers periodically decide whether or not to keep their unions. These elections do not cost the state money because they are paid for with a small filing fee—about $1.50 per voter—paid by each government union. The state also contracts with a private company that uses telephone voting to decrease the amount charged to unions, while increasing the convenience of elections.

Lawmakers should carefully consider the costs and benefits of union elections before enacting reforms. However, Wisconsin proves that fiscal cost should not be treated as a serious obstacle to more democratic union representation. By carefully crafting the law to encourage contracting for polling services and by requiring the unions to pay for these elections, Missourians can enjoy greater union accountability without increased cost.

The post Why Labor Reform Is a Low-cost Improvement to Missouri Government appeared first on Show-Me Institute.