The Empire Page

Well it’s finally come down to this, the final showdown between the public employee unions and Governor Paterson, and the governor has played his trump card. The unions could have avoided it and everyone could have saved face, but the short-sightedness of the unions has landed their membership in a fine mess. Now instead of them temporarily forgoing a 4% pay raise, they are going to be enduring a 20% pay cut.

At this time I suggest you look back at two of my previous articles:

Public Employee Unions are No Longer Needed

Public Unions: Wake up and Look Around

I have one thing to say “I told you so”.

My household is going to feel this pain. My wife is a state employee. She would have preferred to give up the 4% raise in lieu of what is happening now. She is ticked off that her union, one that has never done a thing for her, didn’t bother to even ask her what she would preferred to happen. She doesn’t believe they are representing her interests or those of the membership. She sees no need for the union. I believe her sentiments are shared with the majority of its members.

In my humble opinion, I don’t think furloughs are fair nor legal, but when backed in a corner and after giving the unions some better options to which they refused to consider, the governor did what he had to do.

Douglas Boettner

doug.boettner@gmail.com