“Right now we are in a pivotal moment,” Pittsburgh Mayor Corey O’Connor said during his first budget address this week.
“As mayor, [City] Council and the controller, we have the opportunity to save and strengthen this city. … We must bring back strong financial responsibility. It is going to take decisive leadership, putting the future of our city ahead of politics and making tough decisions,” he added.
Then pivot, Mr. Mayor. Seize the opportunity. Promote strong financial responsibility. And, indeed, do put the future of the city ahead of politics and organized labor.
A great place to start would be to seek bids from the private sector for snow removal and garbage collection. Then, taking the lowest respective bids, give those city workers doing those jobs now – and their union – the opportunity to match or beat the private-sector bids.
If unionized city workers can do so, they can continue to do the jobs. And just to keep the process honest (that is, to avoid union low-ball bidding and only temporary cost and operational efficiencies), seek new bids every two years.
We can already hear the union bosses snapping their braces and protesting in their best Foghorn Leghorn bellowing that the private sector’s “profit motive” will jack up costs and cost union jobs.
Never mind that the proverbial “union label” carries with it, in general, lots of baggage – from union contracts that can raise labor costs by about 10 percent (per a University of California study), to higher health and pension benefit costs (per a Hoover Institution review); from onerous staffing levels and work rules, to blocking technology and other structural reforms (both per the Cato Institute); from political and electoral interference (per the Heritage Foundation), to, in some cases, tax dollars being used to subsidize union activities (per Americans for Prosperity).
And never mind that it is that very same profit motive and the private sector’s responsibility to its customers that promote greater efficiencies and keep costs in check.
But as Mr. Leghorn would be quick to assert, “As senior rooster ’round here, it’s my duty, and my pleasure, to instruct junior roosters in the ancient art of roostery,” with “roostery” being analogous to ripping off taxpayers.
“We are Pittsburgh. We are hardworking; we are resilient; we honor our roots while growing and reinventing ourselves; and we face our challenges head-on,” O’Connor asserted in his budget address.
You can start proving all this, Mr. Mayor, by, among many other things, tackling snow removal and refuse collection reform.
Colin McNickle is communications and marketing director at the Allegheny Institute for Public Policy (cmcnickle@alleghenyinstitute.org).
