Jack Dean is editor of PensionTsunami.org, formed to monitor developments in all three pension spheres nationwide — public employees, corporations and social security. PensionTsunami, like UnionWatch, is a project of the California Public Policy Center. Dean is a former newspaper editor and a past executive director of the Reason Foundation. He has been active in politics for more than three decades and currently serves as president of the Fullerton Association of Concerned Taxpayers.
Indiana’s Right to Work: Hoosiers debate voluntary union membership Editorial, January 10, 2012, Wall Street Journal The labor reform story of the year is unfolding in Indiana, which Republicans who dominate the legislature are trying to make the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state. Democrats are resorting to the old run-and-hide ploy, but this could be a...
By Jack Dean
A Gathering Storm Over ‘Right to Work’ in Indiana By Steven Greenhouse, January 3, 2011, New York Times Nearly a year after legislatures in Wisconsin and several other Republican-dominated states curbed the power of public sector unions, lawmakers are now turning their sights toward private sector unions, setting up what is sure to be another...
By Jack Dean
Detroit bankruptcy would be long, costly By Leonard N. Fleming, December 27, 2011, Detroit News The deepening financial crisis in Detroit has intensified hints that the city could opt for bankruptcy, but financial experts warn the move could cost taxpayers millions, stall economic development and take years to be resolved in the courts. Bankruptcy is...
By Jack Dean
International Association of Firefighters union resumes federal campaign contributions By Sam Hananel, December 19, 2011, Washington Post The International Association of Firefighters union said Monday it would resume making federal campaign contributions after seeing lawmakers commit new resources to public safety and speak out more forcefully against anti-union measures in Ohio, Wisconsin and other states....
By Jack Dean
Pensions Aren’t the Only Public Employee Costs Breaking the Bank in California By Brian Calle, December 7, 2011, City Journal Much of the debate surrounding public-employee compensation in California focuses on platinum pension plans, gold-plated health-care benefits, and salaries that often top private-sector pay. These salaries and benefits may be enviable, but perhaps more so...
By Jack Dean
Union Bosses Win, Ohio Workers Get Fired By Jason Hart, December 6, 2011, Big Government One month ago Ohio voted with its heart against reforms portrayed as an attack on public workers. Ohio, DC, and New York union bosses spent more than $30 million drenching the airwaves in images of sad firefighters, sad police officers,...
By Jack Dean
The Union Zee Bridge: Cuomo wants to raid state pension funds for political purposes Editorial, November 29, 2011, Wall Street Journal Andrew Cuomo has a bridge to sell you, and we wish that was the set-up to a punch line. The New York Governor and government unions are hatching a plan to use the state’s...
By Jack Dean
Labor unions try to have it both ways in San Jose pension crisis By Daniel Borenstein, November 20, 2011, Contra Costa Times Labor unions try to have it both ways. They fight statewide reform of public employee pension systems by insisting that change must be bargained at the local level. But, as we see in...
By Jack Dean
Does the Constitution Protect Public Employee Pensions? By George Skelton, November 14, 2011, Los Angeles Times In Philadelphia, 224 years ago, some men tucked these words into the nation’s new Constitution: “No state shall … pass any … law impairing the obligation of contracts…” Those words, squeezed into a very long sentence in Article 1,...
By Jack Dean
California unions oppose even modest pension reforms Editorial, November 7, 2011, Wall Street Journal Philosopher-Governor Jerry Brown finally unveiled a pension reform plan in late October, and it looks like he based it on his self-coined canoe school of politics. According to the theory, paddling a little to the right and then a little to...
By Jack Dean
Gov. Brown’s pension fixes have to get past California’s employee unions Editorial, October 30, 2011, Orange County Register We applaud Gov. Jerry Brown for his 12-point pension reform, but not too loudly. It features many obviously long-overdue fixes to the state’s broken public workers’ retirement system. But why have these blatantly obvious remedies taken so...
By Jack Dean
President Obama and VP Biden Ignore Public Sector Hiring Boom By Steve Malanga, October 24, 2011, Public Sector Inc. The rhetoric has been heating up in Washington over additional stimulus for state and local government ever since the President’s latest jobs bill failed. The President suggested last week that parents were going to have to...
By Jack Dean
Government Unions and Public Sector Compensation By Josh Rauh, October 16, 2011, Kellogg School of Finance Last week I attended an engrossing two-day conference hosted by the Searle Center at Northwestern Law School on Government Unions in the United States. Scholars from economics, finance, law, and political science presented their research on an number of...
By Jack Dean
Hilda Solis, Secretary of Unions By Charles W. Baird, October 10, 2011, The Freeman Lenin argued that communism is so obviously virtuous that any worker who resists it must be a victim of “false consciousness.” He cannot think straight because his oppressors have muddled his brain. Hilda Solis, Obama’s secretary of unions – oops, labor...
By Jack Dean
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