Union-Only Port Terminal Suspends Operations
Committee President Mark Mix: “If I were a Leatherman dockworker, I certainly wouldn’t count on Longshore Union bosses to show any flexibility” to get the terminal reopened and “save my job.”
As California Goes….
It’s a common refrain — As California goes, so goes the nation. Unfortunately, in the case of cities like Stockton, it may be true.
Stockton is the California city that has declared bankruptcy because of over-spending and over-generous benefits to their allies in the labor movement. The New York Post views Stockton as a valuable lesson in the consequences of “the consequences of free rides for labor” for cities like New York:
New York should send a huge thank-you card to Stockton, Calif.: In becoming the largest US locale to file for bankruptcy, the West Coast city last week provided a valuable lesson on the consequences of free rides for labor.
The folks who should pay the most attention: New York’s unions.
Now, all of Stockton will suffer — and the filing won’t even cure the city’s problems. But among the biggest losers, ironically, will be those to whom the grand promises were made in the first place — union members.
And yet, when Gov. Cuomo this year proposed modest pension tweaks — meant only for employees not yet hired — the unions went ballistic.
New York labor bosses may think they’re doing members a service by standing firm against even minor reforms.
But if they drive towns and counties to bankruptcy, it may be their own members who suffer most.
By illustrating — painfully — how that works, Stockton may have just done New York a big favor.
