HOLDEN'S 'BOLD' MOVE ERODED BY WIMPY WORDS

Gov. Bob Holden's efforts to cut $400 million from the current Missouri budget and his hopes of coming up with a new prescription plan for the elderly during next month's special session continue to be overshadowed by statewide reaction, both positive and negative, to his executive order permitting collective bargaining for some state employees.

For the most part, the hullabaloo is of the governor's own making. Seasoned politicians in Jefferson City are expressing befuddlement and some dismay over Holden's ineptitude in handling what has become a public-relations nightmare. While labor leaders are praising the governor for his "bold" action in doing, with the stroke of a pen, what legislators have chosen not to do for decades, many state employees are concerned about the likelihood of being forced to pay union service fees.

First, some explanation about the effect of Holden's order.

As the president of the Missouri AFL-CIO explains in a letter elsewhere on this page, no state employee has yet been forced to pay union dues as a result of Holden's executive order. And state employees have had the right to join unions for a long time. What the order permits is collective bargaining, a process that is just one step short of a strike -- which is still illegal for Missouri's public employees.

Under the executive order, state workers still must decide if they want union representation. Without collective bargaining, there hasn't been much incentive for groups of state employees to join unions. But if they do join, they also will have the option of deciding whether or not to pay the union service fees. If a collective-bargaining group chooses to pay the fees, everyone in the group must pay, even if some workers prefer not to be part of a union.

Meanwhile, the governor has been struggling to make sizable cuts in the state budget to maintain some sense of fiscal responsibility should the latest estimates of revenue prove to be true. Nearly two months into the new fiscal year, many state agencies are still unclear about their budgets.

And lawmakers are headed for Jefferson City next month with no clear sense of what to do about prescriptions for senior citizens. Unless they act, the state will continue to spend millions of dollars more for refunds to elderly taxpayers than was originally intended.

All of this is against a backdrop of secrecy and slyly vague answers to reporters' questions earlier this year when the governor and some of his staff members were quizzed about the possibility of an executive order dealing with collective bargaining.

Even though it's quite clear Holden struck a deal with Big Labor before the election, he continued to deny any plans for such an executive order.

As it turns out, the governor who is seen by union leaders as taking a "bold" step for Missouri workers is the same governor who hid behind wimpy answers to straightforward questions about his intentions.