Government Union Bosses Challenged in Arizona
But Big Labor-Appeasing GOP Legislators May Block Reform Measures (source: National Right To Work Committee April 2012 Newsletter) Arizona has had a Right to Work law on the books for over six decades. And it has no statewide statute handing union officials monopoly-bargaining privileges over state and local government employees. Nevertheless, today many government union bosses in Arizona enjoy special privileges you might expect to find only in notorious Big Labor stronghold states like neighboring California. For example, in Phoenix, as columnist George Will pointed out last month, taxpayers fork over $900,000 annually to pay for the compensation of police union officials as they "work exclusively performing undefined union business, including lobbying . . . ." Mr. Will, citing the Phoenix-based Goldwater Institute, added that all six of the top officers of the union "derive full pay and benefits from the city, although each is assigned full time to the union -- and each is also entitled to 160 hours of annual extra-pay overtime." So-Called 'Meet-and-Confer' Schemes: Monopoly Bargaining in Disguise