Quoted Text

State union leaders have to get with times

    It’s becoming painfully apparent to me that [Civil Service Employees Association president] Danny Donohue and [Public Employees Federation president] Ken Brynien either don’t buy newspapers or don’t have the ability and common sense to read them.
    The economy is in shambles. Mortgage foreclosures are at epidemic proportions. Major corporations, including mega-banks and major car manufacturers, are failing. Unemployment is high and going higher. Yet, both of the major public employment unions are unwilling to renegotiate the terms of their respective contracts.
    Now if all of the above were not happening, or was happening but not to the degree that it is happening, I could better understand. Unions do not like to give up what they have won at a bargaining table. But, Ken and Danny, open your eyes; this is getting to the point where either you agree to some concessions or you lose members to layoffs.
    Maybe they would like to canvass their membership to ask the question “What would you rather do, insist on no concessions and have the governor lay off 8,700 people; or, give back your 3 percent raise and have nobody laid off?”
    This is one of the reasons I have argued that the usefulness of public employee unions has passed with the times The old-school, hard-line dinosaurs like Danny Donohue are a thing of the past Once they were needed to fight against employers who had the upper hand and treated employees unfairly. But, come on do they really believe state employees in the last 30 years have been treated unfairly?

    DOUGLAS BOETTNER
    North Bethlehem