Add The California Post on Google California’s governing class, and the state’s public unions, should take a page from the comic book that introduced Spider-Man in 1962:
“With great power there must also come — great responsibility!”
In California, the unions in essence run state government, as The California Post reported this week. The power they wield is nothing short of enormous.
Not just for their own interests — they’ve got that covered.
But for the broader interest of the state that supports them, for the communities they purport to serve, and for the taxpayers who foot the bill for the lavish compensation packages unions have coaxed out of their handpicked allies in government for decades.
It’s time to call out California’s public unions for their gluttony. For their radicalization. And for their disregard of anything beyond their own narrow interests — even as the state falls apart around them.
With great power, comes the responsibility to think of others.
They need to consider the current and long-term health of the state. They need to consider communities that struggle, children who will bear future burdens, and residents who can barely afford rent.
This includes the California Teachers Association and the Service Employees International Union — arguably the two most powerful unions in Sacramento — along with associations of nurses, prison guards and a range of other public employees.
Our quibble is not with the workers themselves, as a great many do admirable jobs.
But as entities, their unions are a big problem for California.
They need to be better, more mindful stewards of the state that supports them — and not simply take, ad infinitum.
Yes, we get that unions exist to serve their members. And at one point, they did that in a respectable, reasonable, measured way.
There was a time when public pay trailed that of comparable jobs in the private sector, and unions fought to correct that.
Problem is, they overcorrected by orders of magnitude — and grew into bullies and behemoths.
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Taxpayers are now on the hook for extravagant packages of pay, benefits, pensions, lax work schedules and all kinds of others perks tucked quietly into contracts that unions negotiate with those they helped elect.
It’s become a racket, as public employees collect perks those in the private sector pay for (but don’t come close to receiving themselves), including pensions that let some public workers retire yet still collect up to 90% of their salary for life.
Not only ever-more perks and pay, but also, increasingly, political concessions that have scant connection to working conditions. Recall how LA teachers refused to return to post-COVID classrooms in part based on issues like defunding the police.
It’s a path of decline: declining affordability, declining public services, declining education, declining livability — and declining future prospects for everyday Californians.
Each dollar state or local government directs to concessions to unions is a dollar that can’t be spent providing tax stability, or genuinely improving public services, or meaningfully addressing a long list of crises that plague the state.
Among the worst offenders is Dave Regan, president of SEIU-United Healthcare Workers West and architect of the “billionaire tax” on the November ballot.
To serve a narrow interest — more cash for his union — he would have the state slap a 5% tax on those with net worth over $1 billion.
The mere prospect of the tax caused an exodus of some of California’s leading innovators, who took their wealth, jobs, talent, ingenuity and tax receipts to other states.
That’s a huge loss for the public. But Regan doesn’t care. He just wants more for himself and his union.
Meanwhile, Gov. Gavin Newsom claims he’s against the state billionaire tax, but for a national billionaire tax.
Californians would do well to soundly reject the billionaire tax on Nov. 3, and think long and hard about who they want for their next governor.
Do they want more of the same government-by-union? More of the same overtaxing and overspending? More of the same policy failures?
We need elected officials who put daylight between themselves and the union bosses, rather than acting as puppets or patsies.
We also realize that’s tough when the unions spend hundreds of millions of dollars each election cycle — plus walk neighborhoods, knock on doors and help with voter turnout — to elect union-appeasing candidates.
The costs are extraordinary, crises fester, the state’s crumbling, crime and homelessness are rampant, the governance is abysmal, education’s a mess and millions of people have already fled for sanely-run states.
Talk about squandering the inheritance of what was once truly a beacon, a leader, a Golden State.
One way or another, the most powerful forces in California — unions and the political class that defers to them — must show responsibility.
