The COVID-19 pandemic is over. It has been over for quite some time, and now we are beginning to see what kind of damage some of our bad government decisions have done to our economy, to our society, and to our workforce. The government shutdowns that occurred during the days of the pandemic have done more to harm the United States of America than any other emergency situation since 9/11 some 22 years ago. Historians will likely remember the COVID-19 pandemic as the most important and significant catastrophic economic event of the first half of the 21st Century.
Gov. Jim Pillen has now been placed in the very awkward position of having to deal with the aftermath of these poor government policies of which he never played a part. Gov. Pillen now has to put the pieces of a puzzle back together that he never took apart. So, on November 11 Gov. Pillen began the process by making the hard decision to issue an executive order calling all state employees back to the office by January 2. So, no more working from home.
Without skipping a heart beat the state employee’s union rode in like the cavalry to save the day for all of the state employees and made an immediate demand for negotiations. Soon after Gov. Pillen made his executive order, a press release went out by the Nebraska Association of Public Employees (NAPE), appealing to their contract with the State. NAPE demanded that any “changes in working terms and conditions are mandatory subjects for bargaining and cannot be imposed without first negotiating with the union.” Unions always know what’s best, right?
