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How Public Unions Exploit the Ruse of 'Official Time'
WSJ ^ | 10-3-12 | mallory factor

Posted on 10/03/2012 4:59:49 AM PDT by TurboZamboni

Imagine thousands of government employees reporting to work each morning at their government offices and then doing no government work. They use government workspace, government telephones and government computers, all while working on projects unknown and unidentified to their government employers. They receive hefty taxpayer-funded salaries, promotions, bonuses and benefits, plus generous government pensions when they retire—all without doing any work on behalf of the taxpayer. Instead, they work as paid political operatives for powerful government unions.

Welcome to the common practice of "official time." Sometimes called "release time," it's a mechanism by which the government pays union officials to work on union matters during their government workdays. This mechanism—enshrined in law and contracts—is an enormous subsidy to public-employee unions, who defend it fiercely.

The Office of Personnel Management reports that federal employees spent over three million hours on official time in 2010, costing the taxpayers about $137 million in salary and benefits costs.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: debt; fraud; obamaminions; public; ruse; scam; taxes; taxpayers; union; unions; waste
Another example why even union icons such as George Meany, the legendary former president of the AFL-CIO, dismissed the workability of public sector unions as “impossible.”

In Wisconsin, the socialist mayor of Milwaukee in the 1950s, Frank Zeidler, opposed public sector unions.

1 posted on 10/03/2012 4:59:54 AM PDT by TurboZamboni
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To: TurboZamboni

It isn’t just the unions. This type of THEFT goes on at EVERY government office and at every government contracting facility. I’ve worked as a contractor with the DOD for decades and the waste is immeasurable.

There is very little effort or reason for people working government jobs or contracts to keep costs down. It is not like in the normal business world where a company’s very survival is dependent upon being lean and working hard.

Government contractors are working with on open taxpayer checkbook and there is no incentive to be frugal or work hard like they must in the private sector.


2 posted on 10/03/2012 5:42:59 AM PDT by subterfuge (BUILD MORE NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS NOW!!!)
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To: TurboZamboni; TheSarce

If we as Freepers do not ride our House, Senate & President (if by a miracle we get all 3) to end these laws, then we are worthless as citizens. I have an entire list of things we should attack week by week until we get down to a Constitutional government.

Let’s start with no money to leftist organizations, let them pay for their ideas with their own money. Same for foreign aid, the UN, The ObamaPhones.

What are your areas to cut?


3 posted on 10/03/2012 6:04:10 AM PDT by The Bat Lady (Be an election worker to prevent voter fraud Nov 2012.)
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To: TurboZamboni

By any rational definition, labor unions are organized crime. Public service unions are a standing violation of RICO.


4 posted on 10/03/2012 6:26:51 AM PDT by muir_redwoods (Hopey changey Low emission unicorns and a crap sandwich)
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To: The Bat Lady
What are your areas to cut?

everything, across the board. then balance the budget and actually have one .

5 posted on 10/03/2012 8:04:13 AM PDT by TurboZamboni (Looting the future to bribe the present)
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