You have read my warnings of the impending push to eliminate the Right to Work in Virginia. First, you saw, Will Virginians Allow a Socialist to Take Away Their Right to Work? Then, you read that After VA Democrats Take Your Gun, They’ll Take Your Job.
Now, Democrats are preparing to do just that. A bill has been passed in the House and is awaiting the Senate’s approval that would adopt rules similar to New York’s Taylor Law. Ken Girardin explains at The Wall Street Journal:
Virginia Democrats are poised to legalize collective bargaining for government employees. In November Democrats brought Richmond under their total control for the first time in more than a quarter-century. The new legislative majorities seem intent on ignoring the painful lessons of New York state’s half-century experiment with government unions.
In 1967 Albany adopted a public-sector collective-bargaining law, ostensibly to end a wave of destructive strikes and “promote harmonious and cooperative relationships between government and its employees.” Named for the professor who helped craft it, the Taylor Law gave unions special privileges like the power to draw dues from an employee’s paycheck, and set strict rules requiring public employers to sit down at the negotiating table.
Virginia’s House of Delegates approved a similar framework earlier this month. But while New York in the late 1960s was struggling with idled subways, closed schools and uncollected trash, Virginia lawmakers face no such crisis now. The move appears to be little more than payback for labor’s political support of the Democrats. The ruling class in Richmond looks ready to subject taxpayers to higher employee costs in return for a permanent stream of union dues nourishing their re-election campaigns.
The Old Dominion, one of a handful of states where public-sector bargaining is forbidden, benefited during the 2007-09 recession from the ability of state and local officials to control costs as tax revenue dipped. Democratic Gov. Tim Kaine saved $198 million in fiscal 2010 alone by postponing scheduled pay raises for state employees. Meanwhile in New York, officials had no choice but to pay 3% raises to the state’s largest public union in spring 2009, even as income-tax receipts dipped almost 6%. The contract forced the state to shell out 4% raises to the same union only a year later.
Virginia’s experience during the financial crisis also compares favorably with that of neighboring Maryland, where local officials struggled to address fiscal realities because of union opposition. The Washington Post editorial page noted Virginia’s advantage and floated the possibility of abolishing public-sector collective bargaining in Maryland as a solution: “Fairfax County [Va.] has managed well without it.”
Despite the success Virginia has had with its current system, Democrats who now control the state for the first time in decades are prepared to enact a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist.
All this despite the many examples of Right to Work success:
- BMW Breaks Records in Right to Work South Carolina
- Right to Work States Preserving the American Dream
- Another Win for the Right to Work
- Right to Work South Carolina is Flooded in Jobs
- Thankful Missouri Citizens Now Have the Right to Work
- The Clear Value of the Right-to-Work
- Corporations Shower Right-to-Work Kentucky with Investment
