Posted on 06/08/2010 4:06:48 AM PDT by Scanian
We have reached a potential turning point in the relationship of public employee unions and the electorate they ostensibly serve. Over the past year there has been a steady drumbeat of criticism focused on public unions and the havoc they have wrought on our public finances. Governments -- city, country, state and federal -- are drowning in red ink. Our taxes are flowing to ever voracious government workers (whose own ranks are growing steadily while the private payrolls shrink); they are better compensated than private workers in comparable positions.
What is to be done?
We -- taxpayers, tea partiers and sympathizers, independents, Republicans, and Democrats -- need to come together and forge a blueprint to take back our nation. The inclusion of Democrats was deliberate -- despite the fact that many Democrat politicians are in the pockets of public unions. AFSCME, the government employee union, has a political action committee that is the second largest in the nation and virtually all of its donations are to Democrats; ditto the teachers' unions or, as they like to call themselves, "federations" and "associations" -- teachers know how to use thesauruses for political purposes. But when liberal newspapers such as the New York Times now report on subway conductors earning hundreds of thousands of dollars a year and the Boston Globe takes editorial swipes at public employee unions and their greedy and self-centered leadership, the timing may be ripe for Democrats to come out of the closet and transform themselves from donkeys into fiscal hawks (see Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa's efforts in Los Angeles).
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
NOW that is reform that I can support.
LLS
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Just one more example of how Team Zero says yes but does no. I got so tired of his mantra throughout the campaign that he would bring a new tone to government, that he would have the most transparent administration in history. Sadly, it's transparency reveals just how devious he is and how determined he is to perform a low-level reformat on the hard drive of American life.
Thankfully, a lot of Americans are starting to be impacted by the spending habits, dare we say addiction, of public servants. As long as those habits were perceived as giving them something for nothing they were quite happy to elect and support the crooks. But when there was no longer enough for both the public employees AND the electors, and those in charge began giving their own personal interests the nod over that of the electorate things started changing.
It might be too late.
PING PING PING
Another terrific article from American Thinker.
What’s the logic behind government unions? What purpose do they serve?
Actually, first amendment jurisprudence is rock solid on the proposition that you have a first amendment right to lie in order to convince the government to give you special favors. Similarly, you have a first amendment right to lobby the government to give you concessions that would otherwise violate a host of laws.
Easy answer. Go Galt! Starve the Beast.
They did it to corporations.....for a long, long time.
Some judge decided that... it can be reversed... think Dred Scott.
LLS
Upon being hired, she had signed a statement stating that she would not join a union - and she didn't (although later she was "joined" against her will).
She always warned us kids about the dangers of public sector unions.
“It might be too late.”
Not really. Any legislature can nullify the acts of a previous legislature, including union contracts, by passing new legislation. We hold elections and vote in new people to change the direction of previous office holders. Not a thing the union can do if their pensions and salaries are cut in half or more. If judges try to interfere, impeach and remove them.
Think ‘Air Traffic Controllers.’
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Public employee unions are going to the cause of their own downfall. In several states, SEIU and AFSCME are supporting liberal primary challengers to moderate Democrat incumbents - Halter against Lincoln in AR, e.g. A candidate like Halter cannot win in AR.
Unions are seeing the success the Tea Party is having in promoting real conservative primary candidates and more and more, as their jobs and benefits are curtailed because budget deficits, they are going to back far left progressives who cannot get elected in any states except CA, NY and VT.
For some odd reason, just about nobody pays dues if they don't have to. Starve the beast, because it is all about the money. Unions still have the right to form, and you can still join if you want to, but you don't have to.
This needs to be nationwide. Failing that, we need to encourage more states to man up and pass these laws, maybe put them on citizens initiaves ballots in as many states as we can.
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