Nevada Taxpayers Are ‘Getting Ripped Off’

State Politicians Face Backlash Over Monopoly-Bargaining Schemes

In 2018, a first-aid safety assistant at the Clark County School District in Nevada was fired for repeatedly failing to furnish proper treatments to schoolchildren who were exhibiting low blood sugar.

The district found that the assistant had “miscalculated the amount of carbohydrates the students needed to take by rounding up instead of down, ‘which is not allowed and dangerous,’” according to a December 2021 Las Vegas Review Journal investigative report.

But soon the apparently error-prone employee was back on the job, thanks to government union bosses who filed a grievance on her behalf and a Big Labor-“friendly” arbitrator who ruled that firing was too severe a punishment for her “insubordination” and negligence.

He ordered her reinstatement even though, by his own admission, her actions had potentially jeopardized the health of diabetic children!

Reckless Government Employees Benefit ‘at the Expense of Those Who Pay the Bills’

“If your goal is to provide taxpayers good public services at a reasonable cost, it makes no sense to give unelected, unaccountable arbitrators the final say on government personnel matters,” commented National Right to Work Committee Vice President Matthew Leen.

“But that’s exactly what state laws handing Big Labor monopoly-bargaining power over civil servants’ pay, benefits, and work rules frequently do.

“The abuses documented by reporter Arthur Kane in his December 9 expose for the Review Journal were greatly facilitated by a decades-old Nevada statute that authorizes and promotes union monopoly bargaining at the local level.

“In addition to the case of the derelict first-aid safety assistant, these abuses include the arbitrator-ordered reinstatement of a Clark County police sergeant who was fired after a DUI crash during which he punched and pulled his gun on the people in the vehicle he struck!

“And as a consequence of a special-interest scheme rammed through the Nevada General Assembly and signed by union-label Gov. Steve Sisolak (D) in 2019, it’s now rapidly getting more difficult to discipline unionized Nevada state employees for failure to do their jobs adequately and/or misconduct.

“As a December 18 Review Journal editorial bluntly stated, the monopoly-bargaining provisions in Nevada labor law generally and the arbitration system in particular benefit ‘irresponsible and reckless employees at the expense of those who pay the bills.’”

A ‘Fundamentally Flawed Proposition That Runs Counter To the Public Interest’

Despite the monopoly-bargaining regime’s manifest flaws, continued the Review Journal editorial, it is difficult to topple because “Democrat politicians — and even some Republicans — often have a vested interest in preserving the status quo because they’re rewarded with hefty campaign contributions.”

Meanwhile, “taxpayers” are “getting ripped off.” But the National Right to Work Committee and its nearly 18,000 Nevada members will be fighting back in 2022.

This November 8, the Nevada governorship and three other statewide offices, as well as half the seats in the state Senate and all the seats in the state Assembly, will be potentially up for grabs.

“It’s absolutely critical that Steve Sisolak and other union lackeys who are running to hold on to their offices this year be held accountable by their constituents for their 2019 expansion of government union bosses’ special privileges,” said Mr. Leen.

“Unless they feel the heat now for supporting union monopoly bargaining, their first move in 2023 will surely be to destroy the seven-decade-old Right to Work law in Nevada, which bans compulsory union dues and fees as a job condition.”

To ensure that as many freedom-loving Nevadans as possible are alerted to the fact that their Right to Work law is at risk and mobilized to defend it this year, the Committee is making the Silver State an important part of its nationwide state Survey 2022 program.

Before Survey 2022 is over, tens of thousands of Committee members and supporters in Nevada will have been notified about where their state executive and legislative candidates stand on compulsory unionism and union monopoly bargaining, and urged to contact them.

“This year, Steve Sisolak and other union-label candidates will have a choice,” said Mr. Leen.

“They can choose to renounce Big Labor bosses’ support and pledge to oppose union monopoly bargaining and support Right to Work in the future.

“Or they can ignore Right to Work supporters’ pleas, and face the potential political consequences.”

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