Labor compensation is the largest component of busted local, state and federal budgets, and those costs are the horrific results of government employees’ “right” to bargain collectively and, in some cases, to strike. Government employees have had the upper hand for decades thanks to collective bargaining practices, rules and laws. For example, to resolve deadlocked talks, they can require binding arbitration, which takes the decision-making out of the hands of the taxpayers’ representatives and gives it to an outside arbitrator who often “splits the difference.”