Posted on 06/06/2012 6:29:44 AM PDT by CaptainKrunch
The manufactured Madison, Wis., mob is not the movement the White House was hoping for. Both may find themselves at the wrong end of the populist pitchfork.
While I generally defend collective bargaining and private-sector unions (lots of airline pilots in my family), it is the abuse by public unions and their bosses that pushes centrists like me to the GOP.
It is the right and duty of citizens to petition their government. The Tea Party and Republicans seek to limit government growth to protect their pocketbooks. Public-union bosses want to increase the cost of government to protect their racket.
Public unions are big money. Paul Krugman is correct: we do need “some counterweight to the political power of big money.” But in the Alice in Wonderland world where what's up is down and what's down is up, Krugman believes public unions do not represent big money. Of the top 20 biggest givers in federal-level politics over the past 20 years, 10 are unions; just four are corporations. The three biggest public unions gave $171.5 million for the 2010 elections alone, according to the Wall Street Journal. That's big money.
Public unions redistribute wealth. Public employees contribute real value for the benefit of all citizens. Public-union bosses collect real money from all taxpayers for the benefit of a few. Unlike private-sector jobs, which are more than fully funded through revenues created in a voluntary exchange of money for goods or services, public-sector jobs are funded by taxpayer dollars, forcibly collected by the government (union dues are often deducted from public employees' paychecks). In 28 states, state and local employees must pay full union dues or be fired. A sizable portion of those dues is then donated by the public unions almost exclusively to Democratic candidates. Michael Barone sums it up: “Public-employee unions are a mechanism by which every taxpayer is forced to fund the Democratic Party.”
Public unions silence the voters' voice. Big money from public unions, collected through mandatory dues, and funded entirely by the taxpayer, is then redistributed as campaign cash to help elect the politicians who are then supposed to represent taxpayers in negotiations with those same unions. In effect, the unions sit on both sides of the table and collectively bargain to raise taxes while the voters' voice is silenced. But the noisy mob in Madison is amplified beyond its numbers. Wisconsin faces a $137 million deficit this year, and a $3.6 billion shortfall in the next two-year budget. The proposals offered by Gov. Scott Walker would avert 5,500 layoffs of public employees and save $300 million. The public unions, representing just 300,000 government employees in the Badger State, are trying to trump the will of the voters. Though voters don't get to sit at the bargaining table, they do speak collectively at the ballot box.
Public unions are unnecessary. The primary purpose of private-sector unions today is to get workers a larger share of the profits they helped create. But with a power greater than their numbers, these unions have destroyed the manufacturing sector, forcing jobs overseas by driving labor costs above the price consumers here will pay. The government is a monopoly and it earns no profits to be shared. Public employees are already protected by statutes that preclude arbitrary hiring and firing decisions. The primary purpose of public unions today, as ugly as it sounds, is to work against the financial interests of taxpayers: the more public employees are paid in wages and uncapped benefits, the less taxpayers keep of the money they earn.
It's time to call an end to the privileged class. And the White House makes a mistake if it thinks it can grow a manufactured and uncivil unrest into a popular movement. Voters will not follow those who flee.
Goodbye unions and crooked union bosses.
A far simpler solution is to let public employees have their union, but make it illegal for those unions to give political contributions to any elected officials who have decision making authority over their salaries or benefits. Also prohibit units of governments from making payroll deductions for union dues. This was done in Wisconsin and union membership plummeted.
"Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool." --Clinton presidential aide Paul Begala, July 1998
Public Service doesn't mean you're to be serviced by the public for life
President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10998, allowing Federal unions, is what opened the door for public sector unions at the state and local level, which is leading to bankruptcy from bloated public sector salaries, benefits, and retirement plans. Businesses that offered plans like many governments have would go bankrupt. Gov’t entities will, too, eventually, but it will be much more painful.
This is why unions should again be outlawed for public employees.
When collective bargaining was brought into American schools in the 1960s, it was a revenue stream and power base for Big Labor. Suddenly, union bosses became more interested in building political muscle than educating children.
At that point the battle between unions and school boards became more focused on salary, benefits, pensions and working conditions for adults, and less about students.
Kids are only pawns in the self-serving union game.
What is the purpose of teacher unions? To work for children? Establish new and better requirements? Push their members to better serve parents and children?
"Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees" ...National Education Association's just-retired General Counsel Bob Chanin. (The NEA is the County and State Association's parent body).
NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin Says Farewell:
As legendary New York teachers union leader Albert Shanker said, "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
All government unions should be banned. The idea that government workers need protection from guess who?? THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, is ridiculous. remember, teachers are government employees. Ban government unions.
.
"Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool." --Clinton presidential aide Paul Begala, July 1998
Public Service doesn't mean you're to be serviced by the public for life
President Kennedy’s Executive Order 10998, allowing Federal unions, is what opened the door for public sector unions at the state and local level, which is leading to bankruptcy from bloated public sector salaries, benefits, and retirement plans. Businesses that offered plans like many governments have would go bankrupt. Gov’t entities will, too, eventually, but it will be much more painful.
This is why unions should again be outlawed for public employees.
When collective bargaining was brought into American schools in the 1960s, it was a revenue stream and power base for Big Labor. Suddenly, union bosses became more interested in building political muscle than educating children.
At that point the battle between unions and school boards became more focused on salary, benefits, pensions and working conditions for adults, and less about students.
Kids are only pawns in the self-serving union game.
What is the purpose of teacher unions? To work for children? Establish new and better requirements? Push their members to better serve parents and children?
"Despite what some among us would like to believe, it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children. And it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year because they believe that we are the unions that can most effectively represent them, the unions that can protect their rights and advance their interests as education employees" ...National Education Association's just-retired General Counsel Bob Chanin. (The NEA is the County and State Association's parent body).
NEA General Counsel Bob Chanin Says Farewell:
As legendary New York teachers union leader Albert Shanker said, "When school children start paying union dues, that's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
All government unions should be banned. The idea that government workers need protection from guess who?? THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, is ridiculous. remember, teachers are government employees. Ban government unions."
Astounding information...and your opinion is well said and right on the money.
I'm with you all the way. BAN ALL PUBLIC UNIONS!! NOW!!
Spoken like a soviet-era commissar. Are you sure this is the right site for you?
Jobs have indeed been forced overseas. Massive corporate taxation, limitless legal vulnerability, crushing environmental regulation and pro-Union arbitrary Government: these are why industry chooses to locate away from the USA.
Capital and industry move to where they are treated best. It is breathtaking that you regard this free movement of capital as something to be banned.
On FR some time back we had the example of Ronnie Bryant: forced to shutter his coal mining project and lay off hundreds of workers and ancillary staff.
He had spent his life in the business, but was finally forced to quit - effectively by the EPA.
He is ground zero for what I'm talking about: a small businessmen crushed by the parasitic forces of Government.
At the bottom of that link are an amazing set of comments, where other businessmen share their stories of being forced out of business by Government. Not (for instance) by the Chinese - but by Government. It makes compelling reading.
Protectionism - tariffs - would be the final nail in the coffin. The last vestiges of American industry would be turned into feather-bedded welfare cases, and freeborn Americans would be forced to buy their stuff from the Government store.
Private Sector vs Public Sector Unions......GAME ON BABY!
What does" jobs going overseas" have to do with the topic of public unions ripping off the taxpayers? What does jobs going overseas have to do with the public unions acting as a money laundering operation for the Democrat party?
Your profile says you just registered on FR today. Your a liberal rat troll if I ever saw one. I think I see a zot in your future there Zippy.
Seriously, explain how your "concern" of jobs going overseas relates to the public union issues mentioned in the main article I posted?
Following up with the inane banter after your "jobs going overseas" red herring might have saved you from the powers that be this time, but don't count on it working everytime.
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