Unions Protect Members at Expense of Open Records

The California First Amendment Coalition’s Peter Scheer writes that public employee unions, once defenders of open government, have reversed position in several communities in an effort to protect their members from embarrassing information in the public record. In once instance, the union wants to block a newspaper’s efforts to get records on firefighters use of fire vehicles for joyriding with girlfriends and to visit adult book stores. In another, the records show more than one third of police and firefighters earned more than $100,000 a year because of excessive overtime. (1/18/05)