How unions are emptying the public treasury, episode 347

The People’s Republic of Massachusetts creates two holidays out of thin air. Unions demand holiday pay. Taxpayer gets ripped off.

Beacon Hill’s have-it-both-ways compromise on Suffolk County’s notorious hack holidays will this year force the cash-starved Hub to blow millions of taxpayer dollars on overtime for thousands of union staffers to work on Evacuation Day and Bunker Hill Day, the Herald has learned.

In a recent memorandum obtained by the Herald, Boston Human Resources director Vivian Leonard informed city department heads that “Many unionized personnel will also be required to work on these two days. These employees will be compensated in accordance with the Holiday Pay provision of their applicable collective bargaining agreement.”

Translation: The majority of the city’s 7,200 union staffers will be paid double-time to work the holidays, according to labor relations director John Dunlap.

These are not holidays like the Fourth of July or Christmas. They were holidays created in Taxachusetts’  last legislative session, days the unions and everyone else would be working anyway but will now get double time pay for. How did the “holidays” get created? Well, no one has owned up to answering that question yet.

Seth Gitell, spokesman for House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, was unable last night to explain how the measure ended up getting inserted in the final $27.6 billion state budget.

Just look for the union label.