Outrage grows over tax-payer funded release time
All over the country, the controversy over police union leaders on full time release getting paid by the city to do union work, is escalating. Many police associations, like the Los Angeles Police Protective League, long ago decided to give up city paid salaries for officers working full time for the League. Instead the union paid them with funds acquired through dues collection. But others have held on to the practice despite the class to end it.
The most recent flare-up over tax-payers paying the bill for union leaders’ salaries is taking place in Arizona.
The state’s most powerful newspaper, The Arizona Republic, has made it clear where they stand. Here’s just a few of their comments from the editorial page of the newspaper:
Who put union release time under attack? Unions
Our View: Municipal unions used release time for lobbying, politicking, abusing taxpayer support
Phoenix pays employees to serve as union leaders
Union leaders used this time for lobbying and politicking, not just representing members
Efforts to ban release time were predictable reactions to union abuses
Here’s some excerpts from the article:
Municipal union release time is under attack. While the union’s supporters blame this on people who “hate” cops, the unions have only themselves to blame.
They abused a privilege. That always invites push back.
Release team allows city employees to work full-time for the union while remaining on the city payroll and accumulating a governmental pension. In return, they’re supposed to provide human-resource services such as representing employees during administrative investigations.
If they had limited themselves to that, there would be no credible argument to end the practice. But union leaders, especially at Phoenix’s police and firefighter unions, stretched far beyond those bounds. They lobbied. They electioneered. They became a political force.
Nothing is wrong or illegal about unions doing that. The U.S. Supreme Court has said as much. But not on the taxpayers’ dime. That crosses the line.
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