Firefighters Lauded-Let’s Ding Their Benefits

Each year about this time, Southern California virtually explodes as wildfires scorch thousands of acres and try their best to incinerate homes, property, livestock, and everything else in its path. Simi Valley, where I live, just had its east and southern borders burned off in a 27,000 acre Topanga Canyon fire. Two years ago it was the northern and eastern borders. Result to Simi Valley, no homes nor lives lost in two major fires thanks to the efforts of firefighters from all over the state. The local media is full of laudatory comments about the efforts of the firefighters.

On November 8th California is having a special election including Proposition 75, which will drastically reduce the power of public employee unions. It does so be making it much harder for the unions to use the union members’ funds for political purposes. Proponents would have you believe that the proposition is on behalf of union members who might not want a portion of their union dues used for politics. What a bunch of nonsense. The reason for the ballot proposition is a blatant move by political powers that will benefit by the weakening of unions.

There are quite a number of public employee unions which will be damaged by this proposition. The end result will be a lessening of desirability in the eyes of the public for public employment. Two of those public employee unions are critical for the maintenance and improvement in public safety: fire; and police. In this era of world challenge by Islamo-fascism and the annual recurrent natural disasters, do you really want a less than optimal public safety system? If you don’t mind second rate at best or totally incompetent, you could always move to New Orleans. Or, you could vote yes on Proposition 75 and hand the power to Governor Schwarzenegger and corporate interests. This is not some benign proposition on behalf of dissenting union members. Public employee unions recognize the danger to their members and ultimately the safety of the public. The public employee unions are adamantly in opposition to this proposition. In short, there is no free lunch; Make your choice.