Negotiating decline is never an easy or palatable task. But that is the reality confronting the state’s public employee unions at this point, as the state faces a critical budget shortfall and must reduce expenditures. Unfortunately, a shocking lack of urgency about the job at hand has meant that discussions to require workers to take days of unpaid leave have stalled.
The result may be even more layoffs than the 1,000 (out of a work force of 15,000) being projected. Failing to hammer out the details of a bad labor package may well lead to an even worse outcome for the state’s employees. And if the unions have some realistic alternative, we would love to hear it. Their members certainly should not bear the brunt of the needed cutbacks, but the sad fact is, because payrolls account for a big chunk of state spending, they have to be part of any budget-cutting solution.
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Meanwhile, the legislature does what it always does – fills the time while waiting for the leadership to figure it all out. Thus it is that Sen. Marc A. Cote, D-Woonsocket, has introduced a measure to name Rhode Island Route 146 the Blackstone Valley Heritage Byway.
Nothing wrong with that – why not celebrate the key role the valley played not just in Rhode Island’s industrial development but in the growth of the entire country.
However, such gestures would be a lot easier to embrace if they came in addition to – rather than instead of – real progress on the budget front. To legislators, labor leaders and the governor: It’s well past time to make the hard choices and get the job done. •
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