Last week, at 3:00 on Friday, Governor Bill Ritter signed an executive order essentially unionizing state government employees. Government employees comprise an ever-growing percentage of union employees nationwide, since absent slashed tires and sniper rifles, nobody else seems to want to join.
The right to strike as an individual is virtually meaningless. The right to strike as a part of a union, in order to gain benefits under collective bargaining, is significantly more powerful. If such a right exists by Colorado Supreme Court decisions, then it cannot be overturned or even limited by note in an executive order. Such a note amounts to little more than a plea for AFSCME not to strike, at least not now, when it would be embarassing. Especially if you can't confine it to the Friday evening news cycle.
The union would be able to negotiate with the state government as a whole, or with individual agency heads. The incentive here is to pick the agency head deemed most congenial (or potentially most hostage) to their interests, and negotiate a deal to be used as a "model" for deals with other agencies. This is the pattern that the UAW has used in Detroit, with an auto industry that is obviously thriving under the arrangement.
The results of such negotiations would then make their way into the state budget proposals. With the Democrats owing their majority to carefully extorted bundled union money, how likely do you think it is they'll turn down their friends? And when control of the state legislature reverts to Republican control, very likely the first thing they'll face is the threat of a strike. That is, assuming that the legislature hasn't agreed to binding arbitration by then.
Make no mistake, this is a payoff to the union interests which increasingly dictate Democratic politics in this state and across the country. And they're being paid off with your money.
Progressively More Poor. Progressively Less Free.
