Posted on 08/25/2005 6:03:09 AM PDT by OESY
It is a mistake to think that America's unions are in decline. Yes, the AFL-CIO is having its troubles....
Public sector unions, then, are not in decline at all. Indeed, they are extraordinarily powerful. They have many millions of members, they are loaded with money for campaigns and lobbying, and they have activists in virtually every political district in the country. No other interest groups can match their potent combination of money, manpower, and geographic dispersion. Ask Arnold Schwarzenegger. He has proposed reforms (of public employee pensions, of teacher tenure) that California's public sector unions fiercely oppose. And they have responded with onslaughts of negative ads, combined with noisy demonstrations at his public appearances, that have caused his popularity to plummet from stratospheric highs to abysmal lows....
The consequences are truly profound, because serious efforts to bring about better government are eviscerated for reasons that have nothing to do with what is best for the American public. Why has education reform proven so difficult over the last 20 years? A big reason: teacher unions have used their power to resist it every step of the way. Why is it so difficult to root out corruption and mismanagement of state prison systems? A big reason: prison guards have their own interests in how these systems are run, and their unions are very powerful.
We are faced with a true democratic dilemma. When any government hires employees, it gives birth to special interest groups that seek to exercise power over the government itself on behalf of employee interests. As governments grow over time, moreover, employee unions will get larger, better funded, and potentially more powerful. The problem is likely to get worse unless something is done about it.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Public sector unions are morally indistinguishable from any other criminal conspiracy.
NO public employee unions should be allowed. Period.
but when you look at what they are doing to this country, it's not hard to argue that they are doing more harm than good....
auto and airline industries are tanking..pressing for ever higher wages and perks, then complaining when the jobs go overseas.....
educational unions covering up for lousy workers, as if the welfare of kids should not be the focus of their jobs....shameless shilling for the left, but squeezing every last involuntary dime out of every member...
ugh.
A substantial source of funding for Liberals was cut off when the Teamsters and SEIU broke away. Now, the AFL-CIO cannot use their dues as a source of funds for Hillary and the DNC. This is a big win.
Secondly, separating the private unions from the public unions gives the latter noone behind whom they can hide. The AFL-CIO is now essentially a union of government employees only. It is comparatively easy to impeach their credibility on any public policy issue; they're just trying to re-fill their public trough with slop.
So instead of an 800 pound gorilla, we have a 600 pound pink gorilla. That one is much easier to shoot down.
If private business ran like the government, it would be out of business.
Why,in God's name,are government employees allowed to
unionize,anyway?
There is no legitimate reason to have unions for government workers.
Until government employees give our immigration laws the same respect they give our tax laws, America's private sector workers should give our tax laws the same respect government employees give our immigration laws.
I live a few miles from US Forest Service land. The fraud and corruption is staggering. Every day is a new and more disgusting episode of grab hold of the cash register and bleed the taxpayer for every penny they can get. And the mainstream media claims all the money these greedy crooks stuff in their pockets is welfare for local residents. Every local government in the US should be able to set up local federal grand juries so we can use the RICO act to shut down these criminal conspiracies to defraud taxpayers.
Public sector unions should be ILLEGAL, they work for us, not some "evil" corporation making "profit".
Interesting article. A government union will eventually swallow the whole of the government. It will become the government itself and it will set policy and make the laws. Very scary.
Answer: Chapter 71 of Title 5 of the U.S. Code.
Oddly enough dated Oct 13 1978 - you might recall who was president at that time and who was in the majority in Congress then.
"5 USC 7101 -The congress finds that experience in both the private and public employment indicates that the statutory protection of the right of employees to organize, bargain collectively, and participate through labor unions of their own choosing in decisions which affect them:
A. safeguards the public interest
B. contributes to the effective conduct of public business
and
facilitates and encourages the amicable settlements of disputes between employees and their employers ....."
There's more but I'm feeling nauseous right now.
RICO violations?
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