A solution to the Boston firefighter raise problem
If you live in or near Boston, you’ve probably heard of the whole dispute between Mayor Menino and the Boston firefighters’ union over how large of a raise the firefighters should get in exchange for submitting to random drug and alcohol testing. An independent arbitrator decided to give the firefighters a 19% raise (to make up for several years without a raise), which Menino opposes, and the firefighters’ union has volunteered to delay the raise for a year.
I have a better idea: What if the firefighters didn’t have to submit to drug and alcohol testing and didn’t get a raise?
My rationale behind this is that first of all, getting rid of drug and alcohol testing is a pro-liberty thing to do, at least according to my rather unorthodox brand of libertarianism. The only thing that an employer should care about is how well employees do their job. People’s use of drugs and/or alcohol outside of work, although it might be statistically correlated with how well they do their jobs, is not itself a part of the job, and as such, employers have no right to know about or judge it. Furthermore, urine testing, the most common although not only method of drug testing, is degrading and offensive. I actually think it should be banned as a condition of employment – a radical idea, I know. Boston would be a better place if firefighters did not have to go through this.
Second of all, it would save the taxpayers money!
The firefighters ought to be happy about this idea because they wouldn’t have to undergo drug testing. If they didn’t have to do that, then they wouldn’t mind not getting a raise, right? And Menino ought to be happy about this because the city would save money.
Photo by Brett Gustafson C.C. Attribution 2.5