Police Unions Protect Bad Cops, And Joe Biden Would Make It Worse

Despite the echoes of FDR’s warnings, today public-sector union officials in most states now dictate rules and employment conditions in government workplaces from police departments to hospitals, state-run liquor stores to public schools. In such settings, union officials are granted monopoly bargaining privileges, meaning control over the contracts of every employee in a public workplace—even over the objections of individual workers who oppose the union’s so-called “representation.”

The result is budget-busting profligate contracts and unfunded pension plans that have sent several states tumbling into fiscal disaster. To see the catastrophic results, look no further than Illinois’ near-junk bond rating and unfunded government-pension liabilities already exceeding $28,000 per state resident as of 2018, well before the coronavirus shutdowns’ impact.

Yet unchecked budgets and debt are hardly the only negative impact of granting special-interest union bosses this special ability to dictate public policy. Under monopoly bargaining, all employees in a workplace, from deadbeats to star performers, are treated alike under a one-size-fits-all contract.