How Not to Deal with Labor

Kathleen Miller's account of the budget argument between County Executive Ike Leggett, County Council Member Duchy Trachtenberg and MCGEO President Gino Renne reveals just how bad the county's financial situation is. But even worse is the state of its relations with its labor unions.

As someone who has been in the labor movement for more than 14 years, it is difficult to imagine any poorer handling of public sector labor relations than I am witnessing now. The school unions just gave up $89 million in COLAs, most of which is now being used to finance $50 million of meaningless giveaways to business. And now MCGEO is being threatened with further cutbacks. For what? More giveaways to other groups in the county?

The building trades unions have occasionally engaged in concessionary bargaining over the years, notably during the recession of the early 1980s. We did it so that our employers could preserve jobs and protect their competitiveness. It would have been unthinkable for our employers to use those concessions to give discounts to suppliers or freebies to their favorite business partners. In fact, we were all squeezed by the recession together. And we survived by concentrating on the bottom line: solvency and a return to profitability.

So long as the county is handing out benefits to some groups while eliminating compensation and jobs for its employees, it will have no credibility with its workforce. The entire process of bargaining will be more painful, more difficult and more personal. And those involved, from the union leaders down to the rank-and-file, will never forget it.

If deficit reduction is the goal, then the last thing the county should do is delay revenues. The county should apply the savings from the unions directly to the deficit. But if the county's real goal is to practice hardball and play favorites, then all it has to do is keep doing what it is doing. This could very well be a long, hard, bitter budget season with big-time consequences in 2010.