Act 111 provides for binding arbitration in police and fire labor contracts after an impasse is reached.
The 37-year-old law has union appeasement written all over it. Arbiters have no obligation to take into account any criteria, including the ability to pay.
Unless, that is, police and fire contracts land a city such as Pittsburgh in Act 47 distressed status. In this condition, and with a tacit admission that Act 111 is a cause, the city may insist that ability to pay be considered.
Until, that is, Act 47 status is lifted. Then, with some rubble cleared, the unions regain the upper hand.
Typically, binding arbitration exists in states where the right to work is not guaranteed and public employees are most unionized. But even in Ohio and New York, taxpayer protections are built in.
So, the Allegheny Institute in Pittsburgh offers these reforms:
Arbiters are appointed from a state pool of professionals. Members of the panel do not live in the county where the dispute exists. Their decisions are approved or rejected by senior arbiters.
The panel considers compensation in similar cities, staffing levels, changes in productivity, hours worked, inflation, community-income growth and ability to pay.
The shrinking of Pittsburgh's population has shown that taxpayers are not impervious to reality, even if the unions and pols are.
Act 111 deserves a quick death.
