Advice to Public Sector Unions

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My National Post column for the week discusses how to leverage what voters like in order to get them to pay more for what they don't like.

Guys, as far as we are concerned, you are worth every dime. If anything, you’re underpaid! Like it or not, though, we face a challenging perception environment. A lot of people out there think you are overpaid and over-indulged.

We know! Ignorant! Ungrateful!

But here’s the mountain we must climb. Over the past five years, the city budget swelled by 25% at a time when the population grew by a hair over 5%. Half of the budget increase was driven by wage and benefit increases, up from $3.88-billion in 2006 to $4.82-billion in 2010. Out there in the private sector, they were facing a pretty tough recession through that same time, so you can see the sensitivities here.

We have to tell you, the garbage strike did not help. In fact, it would be hard to think of a worse optic: public sector workers, already much better paid than private-sector counterparts, striking in order to preserve their right to be paid for not working. “I’m entitled to my entitlements” is not a good message.

Which brings us to our alternative. We need to pivot, reframe the debate. We need to identify a municipal function with a totally positive public image — and change the discussion to focus on that.

We propose: libraries. Everybody loves them. Even people who never read a book still think they should read books.

We need to find some way to persuade the public that the debate over union contracts is really a debate over children’s literacy. And we think we have found that way.

The city recently hired a consulting firm to suggest efficiencies. (We hate the term “efficiencies,” too. You guys are already doing an awesome job.) Among the many dozens of suggestions: closing some library branches and reducing branch hours of operation.

Here is the opportunity.

Instead of defending the big line items in the city budget, we focus on something comparatively small but fraught with symbolism. True, the symbolism is verging on the obsolete. The physical book is passing from the scene, raising powerful questions about the continuing need for physical libraries.

Click here to read the entire column.