Joe Soucheray: Dayton rewards unions, at our expense

pioneer press ^ | 11-23-11 | joe soucheray

[WOBBLY BOB]

We have been given expensive ringside seats to quite a public backscratching. Unions - AFSCME, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and SEIU, Service Employees International Union - have been patting their old pal, Governor Dayton, on the back and saying, "You can do it" and "Atta boy, go get 'em." And lo, Dayton, who is beholden to unions, looked out his window one day and decided he saw some people he could bring into the collective fold.

Now, how the governor has the constitutional authority to order anybody to take a vote on joining a union will, most assuredly, become a matter for the courts, but he did. Dayton ordered in-home child care providers to vote on joining either AFSCME or SEIU, depending on where they live.

For those of you who just opened your property-tax statements and are wondering just how big government can get, unionized child care providers offer a hint. Unionizing them makes them tantamount to thousands of new state workers, with all the benefits and wages and 15-minute cigarette breaks that affords them.

[WOBBLY BOB]

right on, Joe.

[Eric in the Ozarks]

‘swhy we took our Yankee money and went south.

[The Great RJ]

If the unions win, even those day care providers who do not wish to join the union will be compelled to join as a condition of receiving state aid, because Minnesota does not have a right to work statute.