When will the unions wake up?

Once again, New York state’s two biggest enemies — the ravenous unions and the legislators who are afraid to vote against them — have reared their ugly heads. Love him or hate him, let’s give our lame duck governor, David Paterson, credit for taking a stand.

His tough talk wasn’t working, and negotiations with the powerful labor unions were going nowhere. So he left lawmakers with a choice — mandate one-day-a-week furloughs for 100,000 state employees until the state budget disaster is settled, or face massive layoffs.

Legislators could no longer afford to avoid the truth, and, faced with the possibility of a shutdown of state government, were forced to vote “yes” or “no” on furloughing state employees. The proposal passed in both houses of the state Legislature.

As expected, union leaders and state employees united against furloughs, but they lost. Not surprisingly, the labor leaders and employees filed a complaint in U.S. District Court, seeking a restraining order to freeze the furlough measure. The following day, Judge Larry Khan granted the workers their restraining order and blocked the governor’s action.

Kahn explained that because the state has contracts with the unions stating that they can declare a fiscal emergency only in the event of bankruptcy, implementing furloughs would be a breach of contract. A hearing to determine whether the furloughs are constitutional is scheduled for May 26.

For the past 18 months, union leaders and elected officials have been living in la-la land. They could have avoided furloughs by accepting a wage freeze, but they turned it down, saying the state is not in a real emergency. What right do unions have to balk at wage freezes when 10 percent of New Yorkers remain unemployed?

They haven’t made any sacrifices. It’s time for them to face the consequences of the economic downturn like everyone else. You can’t conduct business as usual when our state is on the verge of bankruptcy.