Issue 2 fails; the layoffs begin

  As predicted, Mayor Bell is now looking for concessions from City of Toledo workers now that there is NO MONEY to pay the bills.  Of course, if Issue 2 had passed, some negotiations would have taken place. Now, the last hired will be first fired; at the least, paychecks will be diminished.
  Toledo Blade:

Mayor Mike Bell turned up the heat on Toledo’s unions Tuesday, unveiling a 2012 budget plan that hinges on major concessions from city workers, while requiring reduced spending on road repairs, criminal justice, and recreation programs.

  The unions are squawking and suspicious, as usual, because, you know, who would have suspected cutbacks when there's NO MONEY.

Meanwhile, Toledo Police Patrolman’s Association President Dan Wagner said his union will be looking closely at the mayor’s budget plan. To him, the mayor’s emphasis on union concessions smelled like a tactical move.
“We’re in the midst of bargaining and every year we go into bargaining, we see a large deficit and a demand for concessions,” Mr. Wagner said. “As police officers we’re always very skeptical and we don’t take things on a first-time basis. We want to research things.” 

  Mayor Bell, who supported Issue 2 for this reason, isn't playing twinkles with the unions. Let's get it over with, he says, because there's NO MONEY and y'all knew it was comin.'

Although the budget in its current form avoids layoffs, it relies heavily on as-yet unsecured concessions from the city’s safety forces. Mayor Bell stressed again Thursday the concessions must be realized to avoid triggering loss of personnel.
“We are in very, very, very lean times. The budget was balanced based on the ability to provide services and maintain everything working. We met that mission,” the mayor said. “Anything that is increased in this budget actually gives a higher potential that we may have to lay employees off.” 

  Walter Russell Mead explains why the failure of this traditional management/union control of the workplace causes such panic in the middle class: it is a last vestige of a traditional work model, in which the worker produced something, is part of a large collective and has bargaining rights when things are out of kilter for legitimate or illegitimate reasons. 
  All that has changed; work is increasingly being outsourced to machines or other countries. Previously negotiated pensions are no longer sustainable. And Mayor Bell is looking to privatize services because of that.

The point is that our society today, with many better educated people than in past generations, does not need the same kind of archaic, expensive, top heavy layers of management and administrators that past generations felt compelled to introduce.  We can cut costs and improve performance at the same time by reconstituting more of our institutions as internally managed organizations.  It is likely that many functions of city and state government could be cooperatized in this way, with employees liberated to become the directors of their own enterprises and the architects of their own working lives.

  Mead sees this as a positive development in our society, something to be accepted rather than feared. 
  As we watch the collapse of socialist governments around the world and see conservatives elected to replace the previous, we can anticipate more change in years to come in this country.