Who Owns the California State Legislature?

By Edward Ring
09/21/2022
There is only one answer to this question: Public sector unions. Anyone who argues otherwise is either misinformed or has a personal or professional motivation to delude themselves and others. Before offering evidence of the financial power of public sector unions, consider the power these unions wield that is not explicitly financial. These unions operate...

TAGS: California government unions, California public sector unions, government unions, public unions, union political spending

Time for California’s Government Unions to Get Serious About Pension Reform

By Edward Ring
03/24/2020
It’s been a long time since California’s pension systems were responsibly managed. Back then, they made conservative investments, paid modest but fair benefits to retirees, and did not place an unreasonable financial burden on taxpayers. But a series of decisions and circumstances over the past thirty years put these pension systems on a collision course...

TAGS: CalPERS, City Journal, Edward Ring, government unions, Gray Davis, pensions, public unions

Gompers must choose what kind of future it wants

By Koppany Jordan
01/08/2020
In 2004, following decades of poor student performance and gang crime, parents at San Diego’s Gompers Middle School and the school’s principal used a little-known state law to convert their campus into a public charter school. The new school, called Gompers Preparatory Academy, thrived. Campus safety improved, test scores rose, and students and teachers lined...

TAGS: Charter schools, education, public unions, San Diego, Unions

Public Sector Unions – The Other Deep State

By Edward Ring
05/22/2019
When government fails, public-sector unions win. When society fragments, public-sector unions consolidate their power. When citizenship itself becomes less meaningful, and the benefits of American citizenship wither, government unions offer an exclusive solidarity. Government unions insulate their members from the challenges facing ordinary private citizens. On every major issue of our time; globalization, immigration, climate...

TAGS: California, Edward Ring, pensions, public unions

The Left’s infowar – over mailboxes

By Koppany Jordan
02/26/2019
California’s government union leaders love their monopoly — their control over government employees, public officials and the public. So by June 27, when the Supreme Court declared in Janus v AFSCME that a “state’s extraction of agency fees from nonconsenting public sector employees violates the First Amendment,” union leaders already controlled the information field. In...

TAGS: Janus, public unions, teachers

The Hypocrisy of Public Sector Unions

By Edward Ring
03/15/2016
During the industrial age, labor unions played a vital role in protecting the rights of workers. Skeptics may argue that enlightened management played an equally if not greater role, such as when Henry Ford famously raised the wages of his workers so they could afford to buy the cars they made, but few would argue...

TAGS: education reform, financialization, government unions, pension reform, Public sector pensions, public sector unions, public unions, Vergara case