Collective Bargaining Strengthens Public Services
First, as City Manager, I need employees who will share their ideas and speak up about how to improve the services we provide for the public. I want well-trained, educated, and innovative employees who are not afraid to bring forward ideas about our work processes, and who are not afraid to offer an opinion that may differ from mine. I want employees who feel they have a voice in their workplace. Eliminate collective bargaining rights and the accompanying confidence of the individual employee that they do not stand alone, and I- we– will lose the insights and perspectives of the workers in the trenches about how best to improve the work they do.
The political freedom essential for a functioning democracy in the US cannot be sustained without a prevailing sense of economic freedom and justice, and a strong, economically stable middle class. The economic engine that drives the US economy cannot be sustained if there are too few US consumers to purchase what the US economy can produce. The political compact that binds the governed to their government cannot be sustained if the economic gains of the wealthiest 2% continue to be matched by flat or negative income growth for the poorest 70%. The underlying belief that democracy works cannot be sustained if the call for âshared sacrificeâ means only sacrifice by the middle and working class to increase the wealth shared by the richest 2%.