Union workers should share burden

The rising cost of health insurance premiums is crippling not only our business community, but also the budgets of our municipalities and our state.

Look no further than Cranston, where the public school system is in crisis. High school students – justifiably angry – walked out of class last week in a show of protest over the impending cancellation of their sports programs and other extracurricular activities.

Such cuts are becoming all too common in cities and towns throughout the state and they are due in large part to the rising expense of health care provisions in union contracts.

In Providence, Mayor David N. Cicilline was forced to raise property taxes by 8 percent this year after he failed to persuade unionized city workers to break an existing contract and agree not only to a restructuring of their health plans, but a one-year wage freeze.

It was a lot to ask, but it was a reasonable request.

Cicilline did a smart thing before he sought union concessions. The mayor made sure management was sacrificing first. So a wage freeze, a 10 percent co-share and redesign of their health insurance package was put in place.

“My managers are making less this year than they made last year,” said Cicilline.

It certainly comes as no surprise that union leaders would be unwilling to break an existing contract. But those contracts expire within the next year and now would be a good time for union leaders to demonstrate a willingness to bend.

“We just can’t be responsible for 100 percent of health care costs for all of our employees,” said Cicilline. “Providence already has the highest taxes in the state … I will not go back to the taxpayers year after year.”

The danger in relying too heavily on taxpayers is that ultimately they will respond by moving away. They will flee to the suburbs. And when residents flee, businesses will follow.

“We won’t have a growth of our economic base,” said Cicilline. “We won’t realize our economic potential.”

The roots of Providence’s fiscal dilemma can be traced to politics. The Cianci administration long enjoyed the support of municipal unions. The unions, in turn, enjoyed generous contracts.

But now the bill is coming due.

If Cicilline is to solve the fiscal crisis faced by the capital city, he is going to need help. He is going to need more reasonable union contracts that share in the costs of health insurance.

At the state level, Gov. Don Carcieri is wrestling with the same dilemma. His initial proposals to have state employees contribute in part to their health insurance premiums have been summarily dismissed. Union leaders may not want to hear the governor’s pitch. But that doesn’t mean the issue will go away.

Rhode Island taxpayers can no longer bear the burden of paying the total bill on health insurance for 15,000 state workers. Currently, that bill comes to $152.9 million annually for Blue Cross with vision and dental coverage. For fiscal 2004, the state is projecting an increase of $23.7 million for health care benefits. That’s a 18.3 percent increase in one year. The average state worker’s health plan costs taxpayers $9,167 annually.

The governor accurately described the foreboding situation in his budget address to the General Assembly in March.

“Although we truly value the dedicated service of our talented state employees, we can no longer afford to pay all of those costs,” he said. “It is out of step with the private sector. It is out of step with Massachusetts and Connecticut. It is out of step with what federal employees are asked to do. We have clear choices to make about our future. We must be smarter in the way we run our government in order to free up money to invest in such pivotal areas as education and job development.”

This isn’t about disrespect for the work of public sector employees. It isn’t about big business looking to break unions. This is simply about equity and fairness and a responsibility to spend carefully and wisely the hard-earned money of our taxpayers.