In one of his last public services to this city, Mike Bloomberg used his farewell mayoral address to underscore a grave threat to Gotham’s future.
He called it the labor-electoral complex. What he meant was the way public-sector unions dominate our urban elections, one reason why politicians refrain from doing anything to reform pension costs now gobbling up a greater and greater share of city budgets across America.
“Since 2010,” he said, “38 local governments have filed for bankruptcy, largely because of out-of-control pension costs. And more are now flirting with it.”
In theory, public-sector employees work for the city, which makes the politicians their bosses. In reality, the public-sector unions use their clout to elect many of these politicians. So the question becomes whom these pols are really representing when they make decisions about pensions and benefits: the citizens or the unions that elected them.
Though the labor-electoral complex exists in many places, there are few places where it enjoys more power than New York. Our mayor-elect, for example, is a product of this system. He was a co-founder of the Working Families Party, which acts as the cat’s-paw for organized labor in our electoral system.
So we find Bloomberg’s straight talk refreshing, as well as his announcement that he won’t ignore this when he leaves office. “In the years ahead,” he said, “I will stand with mayors and others who stand up for the next generation by tackling this issue.”
If Bill de Blasio is smart, he will recognize that budget-busting pension and health-care costs don’t leave much room for progressive spending either.