The American Spectator ^ | June 7, 2012 | Peter Hannaford, "Reagan's Roots"
.........In California, signatures have been gathered for a voter initiative, "Stop Special Interests," on the November ballot that, if passed, would break the umbilical cord between the state treasury and union treasuries. In California, among others, the state deducts union dues from public employee paychecks and sends these directly to the unions, thus saving them the need to persuade public employees to sign up to let the union bosses use their money in elections. This is the umbilical cord and the California unions have used it to become the most powerful special interest in Sacramento, having great influence over the Democrat-controlled state legislature.
What happens when the umbilical cord is broken? It happened in Wisconsin last year as part of Governor Walker's reform legislation. Dues stopped flowing from the state treasury to the unions. They had to sell their services to the workers.
Result: dues paying is down to 28 percent of the Wisconsin public work force.
Across the country, voter discontent has been building against overly-generous public employee benefits. Declining revenues in the recession sharpened public focus, along with the realization that, in many cases, these benefits had become far greater than they are in the private sector. In short, it began to look as if the taxpayers were working for their own employees.
What will the public employee unions do? Reeling from this loss, it is unlikely they will try another vengeance move such as the Walker recall. They also face a daunting task if many legislatures, county boards, and city councils propose reform measures, especially ones on the ballot for voters who are in no mood to continue "business as usual."
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
