Labor Unions are costing Florida municipalities like Miami, Tampa and Jacksonville, millions of dollars of tax-payer funded hourly wages.

This problem is not Florida-centric, rather an issue of seemingly pandemic proportions that exists throughout the United States.

The government penny-pinching and over watch group, the  James Madison Institute, recently scrutinized the time city union employees spent on union activities during the work day in these three Florida cities, finding that in the City of Miami alone, city employees spent a whopping 100,000 hours a year for the last three fiscal years doing union work on city time.  This double-dipping of time is costing city of Miami taxpayers about $3 million a year for each of the last three years.

Although the amount was far less in Jacksonville(between $300,000 and $400,000 a year for each of the last three years), which is on Florida’s First Coast, and Tampa (between $188,000 and $366,000 for each of the last years) — the problem and the principle are the same.

James Madison Institute:

Each working day, government employees report for work but do not perform governmental duties. Instead, they work for a private enterprise void of any direct public purpose—their public-employee union. Taxpayers, however, are directly responsible for these employees’ compensation – even when they are performing non-public work.

It’s all part of an expensive government subsidy to labor organizations known as union “release time.” Some examples of what public employees do while utilizing release time is astounding. In Austin, Texas, public employees have been paid to perform union activities that include attending retirement barbecues and fishing tournaments.[i] In Missouri, government employees have taken part in the National Education Association’s comprehensive lobbying strategy, specifically, against Right-to-Work and Paycheck Protection laws that advance worker freedom.[ii] So, taxpayer dollars are being used to engage in political advocacy the sole purpose of which is to increase the size and cost of taxpayer-funded government.

While it hasn’t been reported that Miami city employees are spending taxpayer dollars at union-backed barbeques or outdoors “gaming” events (yet), who is to say that instances of this taxpayer double-dipping will not occur at some union-supported quinceanera or Jai-Alai event?

In the era of President Donald Trump, labor unions have already been put on notice as to their union practices and how it affects ‘all’ Americans, not just those who are apparently ‘making the most’ out of the time working for their respective union.