It’s happening all across the country: Politicians and their union enablers skirt the law—and keep the public in the dark—to provide taxpayer-funded handouts and other favored treatment to public-sector labor unions.
The winners? Big government and its chosen special interests.
The losers? The taxpaying American public.
When the city of Phoenix began its most recent round of union contract negotiations, it allowed government unions to ignore a law requiring the unions to submit their proposals for public comment. The Goldwater Institute, where I work, stepped in and requested public records regarding the proposals so the public could learn how these important public policy issues were being discussed behind closed doors. But the city denied our request, claiming that its interest in secret negotiations outweighed the public’s right to know. As we explained in suing the city over its lack of transparency, the government illegally shut the public out of labor negotiations, even though taxpayers fund both the union contracts and the negotiations themselves.
Why is that such a blatant infringement of the public’s right to know what their government is up to? Americans have a direct financial stake in public-sector union contracts because those agreements provide funding for critical government functions, such as law enforcement salaries, on the taxpayers’ dime. All too often, though, unions across the country use the negotiation process to foist wasteful, corrupt, and unconstitutional practices on taxpayers.
A 2020 Goldwater Institute policy report, for instance, detailed the pervasive nature of so-called “release time” provisions in union contracts. Under release time, the government pays union representatives taxpayer-funded salaries to work full-time for the union rather than do the government jobs for which they were originally hired. This practice costs taxpayers millions of dollars annually and forces them to fund private union activities—often including political activities. And that’s only what we know about; as the 2020 report revealed, many governments don’t even bother tracking release time, meaning this corrupt practice is often carried out in secret.
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Or consider the widespread use of dues deduction revocation restrictions, where government employers prohibit public employees from leaving a union and stopping their dues payments except in narrow circumstances. These restrictions violate the First Amendment—and many state constitutions—by forcing employees to associate with and subsidize a private organization they no longer wish to support.
When politicians cave to the unlawful demands of their union enablers, the consequences are disastrous: higher taxes, bigger government, and less respect for constitutional rights and the rule of law. (Indeed, the collusive nature of public-sector unions have led some to question whether they are even constitutional at all.)
That’s why it’s imperative that government officials interact transparently with unions, and that taxpayers demand accountability for lawmakers who collude with union bosses to skirt the law.
In recent years, transparency has provided valuable insight into the agendas of public-sector teachers unions. During the COVID pandemic, teachers unions around the nation pushed the envelope by threatening widespread strikes unless their outrageous demands were satisfied. They sought unconstitutional tax hikes, put their own personal and political interests ahead of students, and even sued parents like Nicole Solas, a Rhode Island mom who dared to ask what her daughter would be learning in kindergarten.
But the teachers unions went too far.
As parents got a closer look at the teachers unions’ activities during the pandemic, they began demanding greater accountability. Parents started re-taking control of their children’s education and shining a light on the bad behavior of the union officials. As a result, teachers union membership plummeted, parents unseated scores of union-backed school board members, and states began passing—and defending—universal school choice measures, a trend that continues nationwide.
It’s time for taxpayers to also demand greater transparency and accountability when it comes to the activities of government unions in areas beyond public education. They can do it by filing public records requests, engaging with lawmakers, and, when necessary, taking legal action.
Government unions and the politicians they elect will always seek to grow government and expand their reach into public coffers, often beyond legal boundaries. The public must be able to recognize when lines are crossed and then hold bad actors accountable.
Whether it’s the city of Phoenix and public records or your local school board and public education, transparency and accountability will go a long way toward dissuading government entities from enabling public-sector unions to ignore the law, enrich themselves, and undermine our constitutional system.
Parker Jackson is a Staff Attorney at the Goldwater Institute’s Scharf-Norton Center for Constitutional Litigation, and the lead attorney in Goldwater’s lawsuit against the city of Phoenix to uncover public records regarding its union negotiations.
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