That would have been the honest way for the governor to approach bargaining rights, instead of pandering to the police who typically vote Republican.
Saying all unions (except these ones that give me votes) must be busted is hypocrisy plain and simple.
If state workers having wage bargaining rights is bad for teachers then it's bad for firefighters too. If firefighters need the rights, why don't teachers?
I tend to agree with zsdersw that all unions should be included, but if you honestly can't think of any reason besides politics that people who run into burning buildings or confront armed felons might conceivably be treated differently from teachers or transit workers, it's time to admit that thinking is not your forte, dude. Besides which, as PCGeek pointed out, their right to collectively bargain
for wages is not being threatened.
I think that as a rule benefits for public workers should not exceed the average of those taxpayers who pay their salaries. I would be against a hard salary cap though. I think wages for public workers, like benefits, should be in line with the state average adjusted for location and job function. A small town near here advertised a few years back for a city engineer; the position required a license and a minimum of five years' experience and paid $25K annually. That almost guarantees that their city engineer is completely incompetent, and while a salary cap can be set high enough to avoid that, any single salary cap high enough to prevent accumulation of dead wood would likely be too high to do any good whatsoever. Capping teachers in Madison at $50K for instance would guarantee that most people capable of earning more than that for nine months' work (which is Madison is probably a lot of people) would never become teachers there. Of course, it's also apparent that paying all teachers in Madison $150K would NOT guarantee that all or most teachers would be superior; accountability is generally opposed by unions (trade unions being notable exceptions) and there are few to no structures in place to evaluate teachers and purge the dead wood.
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