Matt Blunt Balances Budget on Backs of State Employees Who Cannot Rise On Their Own Merits

Three Republican Governors Hit Unions:

Several Republican governors are trying to weaken organized labor in the one place it has remained strong: representing public employees.

First-term Missouri Gov. Matt Blunt rescinded collective-bargaining rights for state employees this year, undoing an executive order issued by a Democratic predecessor, and has eliminated a state board overseeing union elections for public employees.

Matt Blunt says:

"Missouri taxpayers ought to determine how state employees are compensated, not some arbitrary arrangement between a government bureaucrat and a labor union," Mr. Blunt told the Associated Press shortly after his decision. Public-employee union leaders are "just concerned with their own welfare," says Spence Jackson, spokesman for Gov. Blunt. "The governor believes that state employees have the best employer in the world -- the taxpayers of this state."

Opponents say that the best cure for underachieving and undermotivated hired-for-life employees are the underachieving and undermotivated hired-for-life employees themselves:

"That's bull," says Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "We have reached out in almost every state to address [efficiency issues]. Who better knows the problems in the states besides public employees?"

Undoubtedly, the union representative who serves his union members and the union in pursuit of ever-greater offers a better, more impartial view than someone elected by a majority to act in the interest of all citizens of the state, not just citizens taking salaries from other citizens to "serve" them.

As expected, Missourians Fired Up!, where I saw this story, doesn't like it. But we hope they are right in this regard:

The Blunt administration's anti-union bias is well established, but now it is getting national attention.

Raising Matt Blunt's visibility on the national stage will only further our interests in drafting him as the Republican candidate in 2008 and the next Republican president in 2009!