{"id":429,"date":"2008-10-03T21:04:51","date_gmt":"2008-10-04T01:04:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/?p=429"},"modified":"2008-10-03T21:04:51","modified_gmt":"2008-10-04T01:04:51","slug":"police-unions-win-battle-while-losing-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/2008\/10\/police-unions-win-battle-while-losing-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Unions Win Battle While Losing War"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Massachusetts is the only state that doesn&#8217;t have civilian flaggers at road construction sites. \u00c2\u00a0It is the only state that has police for all street work. \u00c2\u00a0Many have tried to change the policy, only to be thwarted by the unions&#8217; clout in the legislature. \u00c2\u00a0Governor Patrick forced a policy change through a regulation, avoiding the legislature. \u00c2\u00a0The police union was furious and packed the hearing with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.masslive.com\/news\/index.ssf\/2008\/09\/police_crowd_hearing_to_protes.html?category=Statehouse\">hissing, jeering bullies<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Today, a work crew from the MWRA (a state agency funded by state and local tax dollars)\u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.bostonherald.com\/news\/regional\/general\/view.bg?articleid=1123254\">was blocked from doing work<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0by police officers (funded by state and local tax dollars). \u00c2\u00a0(link found via <a href=\"http:\/\/universalhub.com\">universalhub.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m sure those union members went home with a smile on their face. \u00c2\u00a0They won the battle! \u00c2\u00a0Those flaggers didn&#8217;t get anything done! \u00c2\u00a0They got in front of reporters and cameras, and they showed the governor who was boss!<\/p>\n<p>The thing is, the unions completely misjudged. \u00c2\u00a0Taxpayers and voters are smart enough to see that this is about greed, not public safety. \u00c2\u00a0Every one of us has driven by a cop on a detail, talking on the phone, sitting in his car, not paying attention to traffic. \u00c2\u00a0Most of us have seen a cop on a detail on a dead-end street. \u00c2\u00a0We all know that some road construction requires police presence, but many do not.<\/p>\n<p>Patrick is going to win this issue walking away. \u00c2\u00a0The unions don&#8217;t understand that.<\/p>\n<p>What they also don&#8217;t understand is the downstream affects of this very public effort. \u00c2\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.smallgovernmentact.org\/\">Question One<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0is on the ballot in November; it seeks to end the income tax in Massachusetts. \u00c2\u00a0How many voters will watch the news tonight, see the waste of taxpayer dollars, and just decide it&#8217;s not worth paying for? \u00c2\u00a0The public unions are lining up against Question One, and they won the battle on the North Shore today. \u00c2\u00a0But did they lose the war?\u00c2\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Massachusetts is the only state that doesn&#8217;t have civilian flaggers at road construction sites. \u00c2\u00a0It is the only state that has police for all street work. \u00c2\u00a0Many have tried to change the policy, only to be thwarted by the unions&#8217; clout in the legislature. \u00c2\u00a0Governor Patrick forced a policy change through a regulation, avoiding the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-429","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-massachusetts","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=429"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/429\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=429"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=429"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dandunn.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=429"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}