EDITORIAL: Jara is right: Open up union negotiations to taxpayers

We’ve criticized many of Jesus Jara’s proposals in the past, but the Clark County School District superintendent is dead-on when he advocates opening the collective bargaining process to increased scrutiny.

The district and the Clark County Education Association last month agreed to a new contract after months of acrimonious negotiations. The nine-month dispute ultimately ended up in the hands of an arbiter, who approved a deal.

Mr. Jara said recently he was relieved that the drawn-out process was over. He also said reforms are necessary to improve the process. “I think there’s a lot of changes that need to happen,” Mr. Jara offered. “We need to update laws.”

The local teachers union now advocates for overturning the Nevada statute banning public employees from striking. But that would be a nightmare for residents. Most government workers have a monopoly (law enforcement) or quasi-monopoly (teachers) on the services they provide. This means public-sector job actions — unlike those in the private sector — are strikes against the people and can be uniquely harmful by encouraging government employees to hold taxpayers hostage by walking off the job.

A good case can be made that public-sector collective bargaining should also be abolished and contract terms left to the legislative process. In many instances, the government officials serving as agents of the taxpayers are more closely aligned with union bosses than with those they’re paid to represent.

But Nevada law allows government unions to bargain collectively. Absent reforms, the answer is to make the process more transparent — conducting negotiations “in the sunshine,” as Mr. Jara put it — by allowing the taxpayers to observe bargaining sessions involving contracts for which they will be financially responsible. This would encourage compromise by pressuring public-sector union officials to be more realistic in their demands while forcing taxpayer representatives to take fiscal responsibility seriously.

Unfortunately, Nevada’s open meetings law exempts contract negotiations between state and local agencies and government unions. A 2020 poll conducted by the Nevada Policy Research Institute, a free-market think tank, found that 73 percent of Nevadans surveyed favored opening public-sector contract talks to the taxpayers. At least nine states already impose such a requirement.

The Democrats running the Legislature in Carson City will be disinclined to upset their government union benefactors. But Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, should champion Mr. Jara’s suggestion and embrace legislation to expand the open meeting statute to include public-sector contract negotiations. Nevada taxpayers deserve transparency when it comes to oversight of the government contracts they are obligated to financially support.