Biting the hand that bites unions back

Frances Gallo, superintendent in Central Falls, Rhode Island, haggled for months with the local teachers union to fix the town’s failing high school. Union representatives objected to a plan requiring teachers, who earn up to $80,000, to work 25 extra minutes a day and eat lunch with students once a week. Dr. Gallo offered $30 extra an hour. When the union demanded $90, she fired the entire staff. Supporters rented a billboard in the middle of town hailing Dr. Gallo, and U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan applauded her for “doing the right thing for kids.”

Labor unions’ alternative to reform is raising taxes. But that won’t fix budgets or fund education, and it could backfire on labor unions. Shortfalls in states’ public-sector retiree pension and benefits plans, which reached $1 trillion in 2008 according to the Pew Charitable Trusts Center on the States, could bankrupt states absent reform. California’s long-term education-related retirement liabilities, for instance, stand at $100 to $135 billion. Meanwhile, more that 3,000 retired teachers and administrators receive annual pensions in excess of $100,000 according to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility. Another 6,100 retired California government workers also receive six-figure pensions.

Private-sector taxpayers struggling to preserve their own retirement cannot bankroll such lavish deals—even as teachers unions try to distract public attention with pleas about “the children” and pink slips. Letting labor-union extravagances bankrupt state coffers is a luxury private-sector taxpayers cannot afford. As long as unions block common-sense budget and education reforms, they will become increasingly irrelevant.

Vicki E. Murray, Ph.D., is Senior Fellow and Women for School Choice Project Director at the Independent Women’s Forum in Washington, D.C.