Tag Archives: Unions

Ann Coulter: Uncivil Unions

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From Human Events:

Uncivil Unions
By Ann Coulter

As Obama rakes in historic campaign contributions from Wall Street money, liberals claim Republicans are beholden to “the rich.” However that may be, it is far more true, and far less remarked upon, that the Democratic Party is the party of public sector unions.

And now, the nation watches helplessly as public sector unions and their Democratic allies say to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker: Nice state you got there, governor. Be a shame if something bad happened to it.

For Democrats, the purpose of government is to generously provide jobs for people who otherwise couldn’t be hired — because their skills, attitude or sense of entitlement are considered undesirable in the private sector. And no, I’m not just talking about Barack Obama.

Democrats use taxpayer money to fund a government jobs program, impoverishing the middle class and harming the people allegedly helped by the programs — but creating a vast class of voters who owe their jobs to the Democrats.

This is a system designed to ratchet up costs. Look at the history of every entity where public employees have unionized, and you will find that not only are government workers paid more, but there are also a lot more of them doing a lot less useful work.

There could be two students per class, and the Democrats would still be campaigning for “smaller class size,” so that the government would be required to hire more public school teachers to staff classes with one student. For Democrats, the purpose of public education in this country is not to teach children; it’s to create jobs for “educators.”

Forget the nonsense about working men with dirt under their fingernails, slugging it out at dangerous jobs with a heartless management riding them to get more production at lower wages –- those guys are what liberal journalist Harold Meyerson calls “dead weight.”

We’re talking about government employees, most of whom — when they show up to work at all — sit in comfortable, air-conditioned offices, kick off at 3 p.m., are entitled to endless sick days, personal days and holidays, whose performance can never be evaluated and who retire at age 50. (Again, I’m not focusing just on Barack Obama here.)

Government employees are even worse than welfare layabouts. In a triple-whammy for the taxpayer, they are: (1) hideously expensive, (2) impossible to fire, and (3) doing things you don’t want done at any price.

Hey, guess what? I’m from the government, and I can burn down your garage for $300!

NO! I’M NOT INTERESTED!

OK, fine, I’ll do it for you for $20.

BUT I DON’T WANT MY GARAGE BURNED DOWN AT ANY PRICE!

OK, the guys with the matches and gasoline will be by sometime between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. one day next week.

As with so many other things, such as vegan restaurants and the crack epidemic, California leads the country in destruction by government unions.

California’s civil service unions have employed all the usual thug techniques –- regular strikes (illegal until the California Supreme Court approved them in 1985), rolling strikes, the “blue flu” (cops and other public-safety workers calling in “sick”) — all of which are almost as harmful to the state as when they actually show up for work.

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Strictly Right Radio with Michelle Malkin

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Ari returns to this episode of Strictly Right to chat about the latest horror of judicial activism, an update on the Wisconsin teachers unions, a story giving hope to Canada, and a great discussion with Michelle Malkin.

Subscribe to the podcast on iTunes.

Follow @AndrewLawton and @AriMFine on Twitter for the latest updates.

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Unions vs. the Right to Work

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From the WSJ:

Unions vs. the Right to Work
Collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

By ROBERT BARRO

How ironic that Wisconsin has become ground zero for the battle between taxpayers and public- employee labor unions. Wisconsin was the first state to allow collective bargaining for government workers (in 1959), following a tradition where it was the first to introduce a personal income tax (in 1911, before the introduction of the current form of individual income tax in 1913 by the federal government).

Labor unions like to portray collective bargaining as a basic civil liberty, akin to the freedoms of speech, press, assembly and religion. For a teachers union, collective bargaining means that suppliers of teacher services to all public school systems in a state—or even across states—can collude with regard to acceptable wages, benefits and working conditions. An analogy for business would be for all providers of airline transportation to assemble to fix ticket prices, capacity and so on. From this perspective, collective bargaining on a broad scale is more similar to an antitrust violation than to a civil liberty.

In fact, labor unions were subject to U.S. antitrust laws in the Sherman Antitrust Act of 1890, which was first applied in 1894 to the American Railway Union. However, organized labor managed to obtain exemption from federal antitrust laws in subsequent legislation, notably the Clayton Antitrust Act of 1914 and the National Labor Relations Act of 1935.

Remarkably, labor unions are not only immune from antitrust laws but can also negotiate a “union shop,” which requires nonunion employees to join the union or pay nearly equivalent dues. Somehow, despite many attempts, organized labor has lacked the political power to repeal the key portion of the 1947 Taft Hartley Act that allowed states to pass right-to-work laws, which now prohibit the union shop in 22 states. From the standpoint of civil liberties, the individual right to work—without being forced to join a union or pay dues—has a much better claim than collective bargaining. (Not to mention that “right to work” has a much more pleasant, liberal sound than “collective bargaining.”) The push for right-to-work laws, which haven’t been enacted anywhere but Oklahoma over the last 20 years, seems about to take off.

The current pushback against labor-union power stems from the collision between overly generous benefits for public employees— notably for pensions and health care—and the fiscal crises of state and local governments. Teachers and other public-employee unions went too far in convincing weak or complicit state and local governments to agree to obligations, particularly defined-benefit pension plans, that created excessive burdens on taxpayers.

In recognition of this fiscal reality, even the unions and their Democratic allies in Wisconsin have agreed to Gov. Scott Walker’s proposed cutbacks of benefits, as long as he drops the restrictions on collective bargaining. The problem is that this “compromise” leaves intact the structure of strong public-employee unions that helped to create the unsustainable fiscal situation; after all, the next governor may have less fiscal discipline. A long-run solution requires a change in structure, for example, by restricting collective bargaining for public employees and, to go further, by introducing a right-to-work law.

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Out of Wisconsin, a lesson in leadership for Obama

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From the Washington Post:

By George F. Will

Hitherto, when this university town and seat of state government applauded itself as “the Athens of the Midwest,” the sobriquet suggested kinship with the cultural glories of ancient Greece. Now, however, Madison resembles contemporary Athens.

This capital has been convulsed by government employees sowing disorder in order to repeal an election. A minority of the minority of Wisconsin residents who work for government (300,000 of them) are resisting changes to benefits that most of Wisconsin’s 5.6 million residents resent financing.

Serene at the center of this storm sits Republican Scott Walker, 43, in the governor’s mansion library, beneath a portrait of Ronald Reagan. Walker has seen this movie before.

As Milwaukee County executive, he had similar dust-ups with government workers’ unions, and when the dust settled, he was resoundingly reelected, twice. If his desire to limit collective bargaining by such unions to salary issues makes him the “Midwest Mussolini” – some protesters did not get the memo about the new civility – other supposed offenses include wanting state employees to contribute 5.8 percent of their pay to their pension plans (most pay less than 1 percent), which would still be less than the average in the private sector. He also wants them to pay 12.6 percent of the cost of their health care premiums – up from about 6 percent but still much less than the private-sector average.

He campaigned on this. Union fliers distributed during the campaign attacked his “5 and 12″ plan. He says his brother, a hotel banquet manager, and his sister-in-law, who works at Sears, “would love to have” what he is offering the unions.

For some of Madison’s graying baby boomers, these protests are a jolly stroll down memory lane. Tune up the guitars! “This is,” Walker says, “very much a ’60s mentality.”

He does, however, think there is sincerity unleavened by information: Many protesters do not realize that most worker protections – merit hiring; just cause for discipline and termination – are the result not of collective bargaining but of Wisconsin’s uniquely strong and century-old civil service law.

“I am convinced,” he says, “this is about money – but not the employees’ money.” It concerns union dues, which he wants the state to stop collecting for the unions, just as he wants annual votes by state employees on re-certifying the unions. He says many employees pay $500 to $600 annually in union dues – teachers pay up to $1,000. Given a choice, many might prefer to apply this money to health care premiums or retirement plans. And he thinks “eventually” most will say about the dues collectors, “What do we need this for?”

Such unions are government organized as an interest group to lobby itself to do what it always wants to do anyway – grow. These unions use dues extracted from members to elect their members’ employers. And governments, not disciplined by the need to make a profit, extract government employees’ salaries from taxpayers. Government sits on both sides of the table in cozy “negotiations” with unions.

A few days after President Obama submitted a budget that would increase the federal deficit, he tried to sabotage Wisconsin’s progress toward solvency. The Washington Post: “The president’s political machine worked in close coordination . . . with state and national union officials to mobilize thousands of protesters to gather in Madison and to plan similar demonstrations in other state capitals.” Walker notes that in the 1990s, Wisconsin was a trendsetter regarding school choice and welfare reform. Obama, he thinks, may be worried that Wisconsin might again be a harbinger.

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WSJ: The Showdown Over Public Union Power

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From today’s Wall Street Journal:


By STEVEN MALANGAGovernment workers have taken to the streets in Madison, Wis., to battle a series of reforms proposed by Gov. Scott Walker that include allowing workers to opt out of paying dues to unions. Everywhere that this “opt out” idea has been proposed, unions have battled it vigorously because the money they collect from dues is at the heart of their power.

Unions use that money not only to run their daily operations but to wage political campaigns in state capitals and city halls. Indeed, public-sector unions especially have become the nation’s most aggressive advocates for higher taxes and spending. They sponsor tax-raising ballot initiatives and pay for advertising and lobbying campaigns to pressure politicians into voting for them. And they mount multimillion dollar campaigns to defeat efforts by governors and taxpayer groups to roll back taxes.

Early last year, for example, Oregon’s unions spearheaded a successful battle to pass ballot measures 66 and 67, which collectively raised business and income taxes in the state by an estimated $727 million annually. Led by $2 million from the Oregon Education Association and $1.8 million from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), unions contributed an estimated 75% of the nearly $7 million raised to promote the tax increases, according to the National Institute on Money in State Politics.

Also in 2010, teachers unions and public-safety unions in Arizona were influential players in the successful ballot campaign to increase the state’s sales tax to 6.6% from 5.6% to raise an additional $1 billion. Some state business groups also supported the tax increase in the vain hope that the legislature would roll back business and investment taxes. The public unions, by contrast, wanted the tax hike precisely to avoid government spending cuts.

In Washington state there was a ballot measure last November that would have raised $2 billion by imposing an income tax on those earning more than $200,000. The media portrayed the political fight as a battle among the rich. That’s because William H. Gates Sr, father of Microsoft founder Bill Gates, supported the tax, while Microsoft’s current chief executive, Steve Ballmer and Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos opposed it.

But unions were the real power behind the scenes. According to Ballotpedia.com, state and national SEIU locals gave $2.5 million, while the National Education Association and Washington teachers union locals contributed $900,000 to the $6 million campaign for the new income tax. In the end, Washingtonians voted down the tax, in part because they feared it would eventually be expanded to everyone.

This was not the first time that government unions targeted upper-income earners. In 2004, California labor groups—including the California Teachers Association, the SEIU, and health interests such as the California Council of Community Health Agencies—led a successful $4.7 million campaign to raise the state income tax on those making more than $1 million and devote the money to health-care funding. In all, public unions gave $1 million to the Proposition 63 effort, while public health groups donated another $1.3 million, according to HealthVote.org.

In New York in 2008-09, then-Gov. David Paterson balked at tax increases and proposed budget cuts in an attempt to come to grips with the state’s growing fiscal crisis. In response, unions launched a barrage of attack ads. The New York State United Teachers union spent $750,000 advocating against a cap on property taxes. The state’s health-care unions (and hospitals) mounted a $1 million radio campaign against Medicaid cuts. In the end, the legislature raised a host of taxes, including higher levies on the incomes of those earning more than $200,000.

Across the Hudson, New Jersey’s powerful teachers union has led the fight against Gov. Chris Christie’s efforts to cut spending. The New Jersey Education Association collects about $100 million a year in dues from its 203,000 members; last spring the union spent $300,000 a week, according to the head of the union, for radio ads urging tax increases on the rich instead of budget cuts. But Mr. Christie held firm and his budget was passed largely as he proposed it.

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Help Fund Democrats

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Have you noticed how well Obama’s stimulus package has worked? People are working again, the economy is booming and the near meltdown of 2008 is all in the past. At least that’s what President Obama would have you believe. In fact, Obama’s position is that the stimulus was so effective, it’s time to spend even more money the country doesn’t have on a new and improved stimulus bill for 2010. The Washington Post reports “President Obama urged reluctant lawmakers Saturday to quickly approve nearly $50 billion in emergency aid to state and local governments.”

Remember all those crazy Republican governors that tried to turn down stimulus money in 2009, saying that the money would artificially inflate their state’s revenue, and create an unsustainable single year increase in spending? Funny thing – they were right. States cannot depend on the federal government to fill their budget shortfalls. The bottom line is there is no money – spendthrift states have to cut back (although, not having any money doesn’t seem to stop the federal government).

Since it is a well known fact that Democrats do not let economic realities get in the way of their agenda, it should be apparent that there is a more insidious plan at play here. The Democrats want to use tax dollars to keep local bureaucrats employed. While Obama may say he is concerned about “police and firefighters,” he is really concerned about teachers and unionized workers. Bailing out the states would ensure that unionized government workers would not lose their jobs, and still be able to pay their union dues. Their dues to unions like the NEA and the purple-shirt mafia known as the SEIU. Care to guess which political party reaps the benefits of politically active and financially sound unions? In a 2006 article entitled “Teachers’ Pets,” the Wall Street Journal reported that the NEA, the largest teacher’s union in the United States, gave away $65 million in political contributions to liberal causes. Included among the recipients of NEA donations were: “Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow PUSH Coalition, the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Amnesty International, AIDS Walk Washington and dozens of other such advocacy groups.” While any person, or organization, should be free to chose where they spend THEIR money, it is an entirely different issue when an organization receives government – taxpayer – dollars. The Democrats are bailing out their constituencies leading up to an election. Moreover, and here is the greatest sin in the entire scheme, the Democrats are funding organizations, with taxpayer dollars, that will surely contribute to Democratic Party efforts in 2010 and 2012. Essentially, through circular financial dealings, the Democrats are funneling tax dollars into their reelection campaigns. This from the “most ethical congress ever.” You could knock me over with a feather.

Thank God for Unions

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It would seem that the peace-loving, sodomy-promoting, global warming-quelling, vomit-inducing neo-Marxist teachers union (I thought of a whole bunch of really good adjectives tonight and didn’t know where else to use them) has stooped to a new low — praying for the death of the new Republican Governor, Chris Christie. An internal memo from the president of the New Jersey Education Association had an interesting request for God:

“Dear Lord, this year you have taken away my favorite actor, Patrick Swayze, my favorite actress, Farrah Fawcett, my favorite singer, Michael Jackson, and my favorite salesman, Billy Mays. I just wanted to let you know that Chris Christie is my favorite governor.”

Amusing? Kind of. But, in the nagging words of my mother from my youth, “there’s a time and a place for everything.” And truth be told, I still haven’t figured out the appropriate place for leftism…I’ll get back to you on that one.

So, once again we see that the Right uses debate and intellect for discussion, and the Godless Left resorts to emotional death threats. But yet, at least they’ve learned how to pray now.