Posted on 07/22/2014 5:53:29 AM PDT by MichCapCon
The economic effects of state right-to-work laws are important, but these laws are significant for other reasons, too, namely the fact that employees cannot be forced to contribute money to a union they disagree with as a condition of their employment.
This is especially significant because many labor unions, particularly in forced unionism states, are political organizations that spend money on issues that most people would consider partisan and contentious.
Allysia Finley of The Wall Street Journal recently covered the National Education Association’s annual convention and explains how that union chose to spend its membership dues. The Michigan Education Association, this state’s largest teachers’ union, is an affiliate of the NEA. MEA members pay the NEA about $180 annually.
Finley reports that the union passed resolutions taking an “anti-fracking” position and encouraging members to boycott the office-supply store Staples, because the U.S. Postal Service has contracted out nonunionized work to them.
Finley adds, “Delegates debated whether the union's president should write a letter to Washington Redskins owner Daniel Snyder denouncing the NFL team name's ‘institutional racism.’ They also discussed a resolution supporting reparations for ‘the lingering impact of slavery’ and ‘subtle Jim Crow policies and thinking’ including ‘unconscious bias.’ These items were referred to a private committee for further discussion.”
Many people would find such endeavors are worthwhile. But is it in the wheelhouse of a teachers’ union? Thanks to the state’s right-to-work law, Michigan educators can now decide for themselves.
I’ve got plenty of neighbors who are conservative union members. That’s what happens when you force people into an association they don’t want, the association becomes weaker. Its why some 40% of union members supported RTW in Michigan.
While there are rare exceptions, a man or woman does not become a government school teacher in or principal of a government school today without passing political, ideological muster with the largely socialist/liberal educrats above him/her.
I picked up my grandson at his high school several times before the 2008 election. Nearly EVERY car in the teachers’ parking lot sported an OBAMA bumper sticker! Some were PLASTERED with them.
On one occasion AFTER the election, I had to pick him up in the Principal’s office. As I waited for him, the Principal came out of her office and asked who I was. (At all of 4-5” tall, she looked just like Robert Reich’s sister and the liberal/socialist she was. Actually, she looked like a bleeping troll!) I told her who I was and remarked on the student created anti-drug posters decorating the walls in the hallway.
Yes, she said, drugs are a problem in the schools today. I agreed and, recognizing the truck-size opening she’d just afforded me and unable to hold back, I remarked that the American voters had sent a wonderful message to our kids by installing in the White House a guy who still smokes pot and used cocaine in college? To my delight, the nearby ARMED security guy piped in with “Yeah, he admitted it on the campaign trail.”
She paused then blurted “What do you want me to say to that?” I said there was nothing she COULD say but that I was blown away by the hypocrisy of those posters inasmuch as it appears that, if one uses the bumper stickers on the cars in the teachers’ lot as a gauge, every adult in that building voted for an admitted drug user to lead the nation.
We turned and walked out. My grandson glanced back and remarked quietly that she did not look happy.
We both smiled.
But I stopped smiling long ago when it struck me that unless this country does SOMETHING to halt this process, these places will continue to crank out sufficient newly minted mini-Marxists to cause us to some day -- soon -- look back on the corruption and destruction of obozo as the good old days!
Hello? Anybody out there? Anybody listening??
Brilliant story. I will use it. The point is simple and obvious (now that you’ve pointed it out). And it doesn’ depend on contentions like birth certif, marxism and the like which can be easily dismissed with well worn talking pts. Thank you.
Thanks. And thanks for helping get the word out!
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