Nevada Bill Would Get Rid Of Goverment Paying For Union Activity

From the Las Vegas Sun: Relentless in his criticism of county firefighters over sick leave and overtime pay, Clark County Commissioner Steve Sisolak is again on the attack, this time seeking to curtail taxpayer spending that compensates firefighters for conducting union business.
A bill in the Legislature would advance that fight by banning the use of taxpayer money to support union activity on behalf of any local government worker in Nevada. But a top union official says that idea lacks merit because the private sector also compensates employees for union business.
Figures provided to Sisolak by county staff showed that taxpayers spent $974,967 from 2006 through 2010 to reimburse the base pay of county firefighters who took leaves of absence to attend arbitration sessions, meetings and other union functions. Factoring in the time-and-a-half in overtime paid to firefighters who replaced those on union leave, Sisolak said the cost to taxpayers is considerably higher. http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2011/mar/26/another-firefighter-perk-fans-flames/
One reason this is a good idea: That’s because the way it works now, Sisolak said, taxpayers are footing the bill for both sides of labor negotiations between the county and the union.
“The taxpayer is paying for the county to represent the county and is also paying for the union to represent the union,” he said. “That doesn’t seem fair. I’m in favor of collective bargaining, but I don’t think taxpayers should pay for it.”
County records furnished by Sisolak show that over the past five years, 80 firefighters took 22,672 hours of leave for union business. Sisolak said he was “quite honestly shocked” not only by the amount of taxpayer money spent on union leave but also by the number of firefighters who have been compensated. He said this is markedly different from unions that represent Metro Police and other county employees, where a much smaller number of workers is typically compensated by taxpayers for union leave.
I would have no problem if the union reimbursed the County for all union activity- pay for the salary of the union member/employee doing business and the cost of the subsitute worker, but that doesn't appear to be happening.
Further, the government should not be taking dues out of paychecks and giving a check to the union.
The idea of a union/government relationship is to be pretty adversiarial, like it is in most private sector jobs. but in the past several years or more, the role is more of a friendly good old boy relationship at the expense of taxpayer.
Now that we Republicans like Scott Walker of Wisconsin and Democrats like Steve Sisolak, this relationship is slowly coming back to they way it should be, more of an adversarial role and save the taxpayers some money.
So, I hope this law passes and bring some common sense to role of management/employee/union relationship.