Save Taxpayers Tens of Billions of Dollars: End Government-Sector Collective Bargaining

"The advent of legalized government-sector unionization and collective bargaining in state and local government triggered an explosion of legal and illegal strikes. From 1958 through 1968, illegal work stoppages or strikes at all levels of government increased 1,593 percent, resulting in a 33,790 percent increase in the loss of workdays. In 1967, New York City sanitation workers struck and buried city streets under 10,000 tons of garbage per day. In 1978, striking firefighters in Indiana refused to respond to a fire that burned through a downtown city block. “Blue flues” have repeatedly struck law enforcement officers in California since 1985, when the state’s supreme court ruled that public safety employees had the right to strike. And in December 2005, New York transit workers went on strike, costing the city $400 million per day in lost business and revenue."