Collective “Bargaining” “Rights”, Public Union Thugs, and Unfunded Liabilities

March 4, 2011 · Posted in General Economics · 3 Comments

FDR on Collective Bargaining

For what it’s worth, here is an actually semi-intelligent statement from Franklin Roosevelt :

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management.

The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations.

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees.

A strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

It’s about “Bargaining”? Really Guys … !? :)

Public Unionism Just Another Subset of Bigotry

Right up there with wars, patriotism, religion, racism, etc. you can find public sector unionism.

I found this unsurprising anecdote from a recent event very instructive, it’s from Mish’s blog:

President Obama is the Slave Master

Please consider the following quote heard recently at a tea party in Denver.

… They are trying to distract you to make you think that what they are all about is the right thing. In reality you’re just a pawn to them, a pawn that the Democratic Party and Barack Obama are using to keep them in power. This is a form of slavery. Liberals are enslaving themselves. Barack Obama is their slave master and they are doing his bidding for him. They don’t see it that way but that’s how it is.Was it a white racist who said that?

No it wasn’t. It is the man waving the Gadsden flag in the following image.

That is Leland Robinson, 51, a Denver native. He was hounded and harassed in Denver by an aggressive woman in a purple SEIU shirt who told him …

“You’re an entrepreneur, so you don’t work. You don’t know what work is until you get into an educational area. … You’re uneducated, unethical, immoral, and you don’t know what life is. That’s your problem. Why don’t you go behind that fence where you belong? Why don’t you go back with your own kind?”

Another woman in red made further racial comments “I asked you a question: Do you have any children? That you claim, that you claim.”

A bystander asked “What did you mean when you said does he have any children that he claims?”

To which the lady in red replied: “Because he’s such a free spirit and an entrepreneur, I would assume that he’s not supporting children.”

Those damn lazy, good for nothing entrepreneurs, all they do is get paid for by voluntary customers for voluntary services! How is that helping anybody?!

I think it might be instructive for public union boot licking liberals out there to look at so that they can understand how closely tied union thug mentality and other forms of bigotry are and will always be. Oh, and I know, this was of course an isolated incident and there will always be bad apples who … bla bla bla. Sure, suuuuuure =)

Public sector unions today are kicking and screaming. The day of reckoning has finally arrived and changes are bound to come that will put these thugs in their place, at least for a little while.

Their record in terms of service done to society is dismal to say the least.

All Public Sector Unions Have Accomplished over Decades is to Bankrupt States and Municipalities

This is an informative map from last year already about the level of underfunding in the different states …

By the way, I also wrote this about public pensions imploding over a year ago.

I’m sure it was fun, that is in a pathetic, parasitic, and superficial way. But the ride is over. Time to clean the slate and move on people …

Tags: public sector unions, unions

“Assault on Public Sector Unions” Long Overdue!

February 19, 2011 · Posted in Government · Comment

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

I love it how genius Barack Obama notices that this “seems like more of an assault on [public sector] unions”.

You bet it is! And it’s about friggin’ time!! =))

Tags: public sector unions, unions

What Happens to a Union Leader Who Openly Prays for Another Man’s Death? Nothing!

November 22, 2010 · Posted in Government · Comment

I like how he universalizes the principle of advocating someone’s death openly. He’s quite right: What if a governor were to openly pray for a teacher’s union leader’s death? What if a student dared to do such a thing to his teacher?? Oh, the rage and the protests that would ensue …

Governor Christie of NJ is probably the only governor in the country who actually dares to openly and uncompromisingly speak out about union corruption.

I hope he survives it …

Again, all I can say is: Unions Across the Nation – I Applaud You … for doing everything possible to turn the entire country against your double standards, greed, hypocrisies, and insolence.

Tags: public sector unions, unions

Unions Across the Nation – I Applaud You

April 22, 2010 · Posted in Government · Comment

It is high rabble season in the union camp. All over the nation, public sector union workers are putting on fashionable and loose fitting shirts of the bluish-pinkish hue, grabbing signs with some words on them, and taking to the public squares in order to blow us away with interesting philosophical arguments that are so rational and convincing that they need to be shouted out and repeated in unison.

The enlightening and convincing philosophy of a public sector union worker goes a little something this:

“I need to have armed agents threaten other people with kidnapping and prison, extort money from them that way, and then hand it over to me. And this year, I want more money to be extorted that way. Because I deserve it. And I want it. But mostly I really deserve it. And it’s always been that way anyway. Oh, and and of course you don’t want the XYZ to be left behind, now do you? Do you?? Ah, to hell with that, I want my money! Now cough it up already!!”

- replace XYZ with whichever government union one belongs to. The elderly, the children, the sick … whatever works.

There is something for everyone these days.

There is of course the lady with the wildly imaginative and inspiring line “Where’s the money? Where’s the Money? Give up the bucks!” :

… you can tell how much she wants to “save the children” as the rubs her fingers for that sweet cash.

Then there is of course this gripping speech which will forever resound in people’s ears as a heroic wakeup call:
“What do we want?
More money.
What do we want?
We want more money.
When do we want it?
Now!
When do we want it?
Now!
When do we want it?
Now!
When do we want it?
…”

For those who prefer courtroom type dramas, there’s the lady with the gripping and surprising argument that if lawmakers don’t back the union program, the union workers will vote against them:

In Illinois thousands of union workers took to the streets demanding “Raise My Taxes! Raise My Taxes!“:

An estimated 15,000 people rallied outside the Capitol today demanding a tax increase.(Tribune photo/Abel Uribe)

Posted by Michelle Manchir and Ray Long at 11:50 a.m.; last updated at 3:12 p.m.

SPRINGFIELD — Thousands of protesters bused down by labor unions and social service advocates rallied at the Capitol today in an attempt to pressure state lawmakers into raising the income tax to avoid more budget cuts.

A spokesman for Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White estimated the rally crowd at 15,000, with more than 12,000 marching around the building. That would appear to make it the largest Capitol protest since the Equal Rights Amendment crowds a quarter-century ago.

Bus after bus pulled up on streets surrounding the Capitol complex and dumped sign-waving protesters clad in purple, green, red and blue shirts that represented a show of strength from a variety of public employee unions and dozens of groups that formed what they named the “Responsible Budget Coalition.” (You can see a photo gallery by clicking here.)

“Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes! Raise my taxes!” they chanted, lined up shoulder to shoulder for a few hundred yards stretching a street in front of the Capitol.

I say: This is of course great. I can absolutely and 100% get behind this chant. I’m all for raising the taxes exclusively on Illinois public sector union workers so that Illinois public sector union workers can be paid more! Hooray … we have a solution!!

Public sector unions across the nation, I applaud you. I applaud you for being so honest about your cruelty, your mob culture, and your carelessness. I applaud you for turning the entire country against you and the government by extension. I applaud you for doing everything possible to bring about a more speedy collapse of today’s system. Your Greek brethren and comrades have already shown you how to bankrupt a nation, now it’s your turn to go full throttle. The union makes us strong!

I have no illusions over the public backlash against unions. So long as people reject voluntaryism and believe in the necessity of a government, they are knowingly or unknowingly, asking for this trouble and they need not be angry or surprised. The state governments will one way or another, sooner or later, publicly or privately bow down to these mobs. This is, in my opinion completely inevitable.

The sooner we can get this nonsense over with, the sooner we can turn things around. Out of the ruins of this world will arise a better, a freer, and a more voluntary system, but not until people wake up and reject the idea that governments will ever be any kind of solution.

Tags: public sector unions, unions

How Union Greed, Arrogance, and Viciousness are Breaking California’s Backbone

April 20, 2010 · Posted in Politics · Comment

Please consider this piece from city journal, The Beholden State:

The camera focuses on an official of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), California’s largest public-employee union, sitting in a legislative chamber and speaking into a microphone. “We helped to get you into office, and we got a good memory,” she says matter-of-factly to the elected officials outside the shot. “Come November, if you don’t back our program, we’ll get you out of office.’

The video has become a sensation among California taxpayer groups for its vivid depiction of the audacious power that public-sector unions wield in their state. The unions’ political triumphs have molded a California in which government workers thrive at the expense of a struggling private sector. The state’s public school teachers are the highest-paid in the nation. Its prison guards can easily earn six-figure salaries. State workers routinely retire at 55 with pensions higher than their base pay for most of their working life. Meanwhile, what was once the most prosperous state now suffers from an unemployment rate far steeper than the nation’s and a flood of firms and jobs escaping high taxes and stifling regulations. This toxic combination—high public-sector employee costs and sagging economic fortunes—has produced recurring budget crises in Sacramento and in virtually every municipality in the state.

This is the clip mentioned above:

This video is actually a rather mild and open form of union threat I would say. If anybody seriously thinks the legislature is not going to bow down to this vicious mob, they should ask themselves what they would do when faced with this choice:

“Hmmm, should I take the hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars in campaign contributions, honorary chairmanships, and kickbacks in backroom deals, or would I prefer to get myself and my family blown up in a car? Such a tough choice …”

This is what you get when you believe that anything good can ever come out of the government, a.k.a organized aggression.

Tags: california, seiu, Service Employees International Union, unions

Public Support for Unions Slides

September 6, 2009 · Posted in General Economics · Comment

According to a recent Gallup poll, public support for unions is declining rapidly, and has fallen to a record low:

Gallup finds organized labor taking a significant image hit in the past year. While 66% of Americans continue to believe unions are beneficial to their own members, a slight majority now say unions hurt the nation’s economy. More broadly, fewer than half of Americans — 48%, an all-time low — approve of labor unions, down from 59% a year ago.

These results are from the 2009 installment of Gallup’s annual Work and Education survey, conducted Aug. 6-9. The 48% of Americans now approving of unions represents the first sub-50% approval since Gallup first asked the question in the 1930s. The previous low was 55%, found in both 1979 and 1981.