I believe we start buy firing the bosses, the Department heads, the supervisors, and group leaders. The fact that the bureaucracy is blown out is due to the worst group of do nothing managers that have existed in the history of man. They way to become a public sector manager is to be the least ambitious, the least competent, the least motivated employee in the unit. This is done by higher level managers who want to avoid accountability at all cost. It is not caused by the public sector worker who can be fired at any time even if they do belong to a union if management simply did their job.

I’m not a big fan of public employees but I do realize who the real do nothing people are, public sector managers.

I think you could extend your argument to most employees working for the state. We should lay them all off and make them interview for their positions again, or simply contract the work out. Illinois payroll is far too high compared to other states, and we get worse services. I stung with a unpaid final wage. Our only satisfaction was beating the guy senseless (he stuck the entire staff). I did not bother with the state of Illinois. Our taxes are far too high for what little the state does. We need to have mass layoffs. It would certainly help with the pension crisis.

To be clear, the Federal Government’s Department of Labor has refused to prosecute a single criminal employers who has engage in wage theft on a Federal project under the Copeland Act that makes such activity a felony. We have seen the governmental agencies settle with employers for a percentage of what was owed, loose complete claim files, refuse to issue funds to employees after settlement, etc. The DoL has told us they do not care about the workers but view wage theft as a contract issue between the employer and the Government and they can settle as they see fit with no regard to how it effects employees and honest employers who compete on public construction projects.

Two years ago Clark Construction, a large anti-union contractor who performs millions of dollars of Federal construction projects, was found to have stolen over a million dollars in wages on a single project in Nevada. The US DoL settled for a small percentage of wages owed, asked the employer to post a advertisement in an obscure trade magazine speaking to wage theft, and for doing so no criminal charges were brought forward, the contractor was allowed to continue to awarded Federal contracts, and a determination was made that the US DoL would absolve the employer of all wrong doing.

Labor organizations and workers would find it more beneficial to redirect monies and efforts that now go to get politicians elected and to use those resources to establish teams of private legal professionals to privately litigate these issues. Governmental agencies simply refuse to advocate on behalf of workers.