A bill introduced in Carson City by a Las Vegas assemblyman would wipe out much of the progress made in 2015 in public employee collective bargaining reforms.
Assembly Bill 121, sponsored by Assemblyman Steve Yeager, who also happens to be a Clark County public employee, would wipe out a provision in law that prohibits paying union officials from public coffers for time spent doing union business. It also negates a provision blocking pay increases after a union contract has expired and before a new one is inked. It further makes provisions of any new contract retroactive the time of expiration of the previous one — lessening incentives for union members to accept a lesser offer.
The bill is pure redistributionism. Taking from the taxpayers to line the pockets of public employee unions.
Assemblyman Yeager
Yeager is employed by the Clark County Public Defenders Office, whose union contract expires in June.
As Las Vegas newspaper columnist Victor Joecks pointed out in a recent column, Yeager’s wearing of two hats — lawmaker and public employee — is not just a conflict of interest, but a blatant violation of the state Constitution.
Article 3 of that Constitution states: “The powers of the Government of the State of Nevada shall be divided into three separate departments, — the Legislative, — the Executive and the Judicial; and no persons charged with the exercise of powers properly belonging to one of these departments shall exercise any functions, appertaining to either of the others, except in the cases expressly directed or permitted in this constitution.”
Since local governments exist at the behest of the state government, Yeager could be considered an employee of the executive branch, and since he works in the court system he might also by seen as an employee of the judicial branch — a triple play!
The reforms this bill attempts to undo actually don’t go nearly far enough.
Even liberal icon and labor supporter Franklin D. Roosevelt said:
“All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress.”
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