Posted on 03/28/2007 9:54:39 PM PDT by RightDemocrat
TALLAHASSEE - The issue was whether employees have the right to keep guns in their cars at work, and the National Rifle Association got help from an unexpected ally at a committee hearing Tuesday: the AFL-CIO labor union.
The business community strongly opposes the new NRA-supported legislation, but that's no surprise, said AFL-CIO spokesman Rich Templin, who said big business wants sweeping new property rights.
"They're seeking to put the rights of dirt over the rights of people," Templin said. "They're seeking to say that the rights of Floridians stop at the boundaries of our property. People should not have to lose their rights simply to keep a job."
Templin said the labor group was motivated by situations in other states in which workers were fired for having union material in cars.
The Florida Chamber of Commerce and other business groups said the bill attacks their right to regulate behavior on private property. The bill sponsor is Sen. Durell Peaden, R-Crestview, and an identical House bill is sponsored by Rep. Dennis Baxley, R-Ocala.
Peaden said the right to bear arms is the core issue in the bill.
Chamber Executive Director Mark Wilson said the bill is the biggest assault on private property rights the Legislature has been asked to consider.
Sen. Nancy Argenziano, R-Crystal River and Criminal Justice committee chairwoman, said businesses aren't the only ones with property rights.
"I think there's two property rights," Argenziano said, referring to the owner of a car and the owner of a parking lot. "I think it's a great bill."
(Excerpt) Read more at tbo.com ...
These are the type of heavily Democrat voters that Reagan got to vote for him and that a conservative Republican could again garner votes from. This, of course, would leave out Rudy.
Except the vast majority of union members vote dem so they support the very people who violate their Rights. There are too many Fudds who believe in guys like kerry who claim they support the Second Amendment.
The dem party is doing everything they can to abolish the Second Amendment.
Union-democrats are the most "conservative" of democrats.
They respect the second ammendment, hate abortion and hate gay marriage.
But they are socialists to the core.
It's not just dems!
This is the price of going along to get along.....or selling one's soul to the devil.....
Business is not on any side other than protecting itself. One worker shoots another in the parking lot after work, who do you think is going to get sued for millions?
The vast majority of union members strongly support gun rights.
Maybe 40 years ago when unions were mostly blue collar. Today, the majority of union members are paper pushing government employees or public school teachers.
The AFL-CIO isn't in this because they support gun rights. This is about what Union organizers can do in the parking lot.
As predictable as night following day.
gives companies immunity from lawsuits stemming from any criminal use of firearms stored in their lots. Like, say, shooting sprees.
[rolleyes]
I told him to tell whoever it was that if they see 'Goofy' they should kick his ass.
I don't know about how most businesses think about this, but I was so surprised about it when I started my current job that I specifically asked one of the heads of the company about it. (I was just stunned by how the employee handbook, which was almost entirely an off-the-shelf, fill-in-the-blanks piece of boredom about sick days and filing for business expense reimbursement, had a section shoved into it about "no guns on the property under any circumstances; if you're caught, you're fired.") He told me it's not political or ideological at all, but that they're terrified of a company-bankrupting lawsuit if anyone was ever to get shot on their property, even if it was to stop a violent assault.
He said flat out that if the government would pass a law protecting businesses from civil claims against gun use on private property, they'd allow guns tomorrow.
The way it usually works at newspapers is that the editorial board meets a couple of times a week, decides what line it's going to take on a few issues over the next few days, and then assigns someone from the board to write up the editorials arguing whatever POVs they collectively decided to take. (Usually, it's the editorial page editor that ends up writing it.) Of course, these meetings have preordained conclusions on every issue of actual import, but it allows them to claim, and/or believe in their own minds, that every editorial is the result of an actual, reasoned debate between human beings of differing viewpoints. And sure, there will often be one or two people on the board of a vaguely center-right persuasion (they'd never be allowed on the premises if they were hard right across the board), but that doesn't count for much if there's six or more people on the entire board.
So just look at the masthead on the editorial page and send your email to every one of them. They all had a hand in deciding what the editorial would be and what it would say, and one of them was almost certainly the final author.
Wow, the AFL-CIO actually taking issue with something the majority of its members care about. Cool.
I'm already quite familiar with most of the editorial staff of the SHT, and they're all hardened Marxists to the core. I know what they think, and they know what I think. Of course, they own the megaphone, so they forge ahead unabated. For now, that is.
Well, in Texas we have a similar bill (actually a couple of them) that are going to do the same thing...
And the Texas NRA affiliate, the TSRA, got a boost from the ACLU to advocate for the passage of these bills...
Strange bedfellows I have to say...
Looks like these and a few other "pro" bills will pass this session...
Actually this law would PROTECT the businesses from such suits. If a business is legally permitted to prohibit employees from having guns in their parked cars, and doesn't both impose the prohibition and make "reasonable" efforts to enforce it, then the business is at risk of losing a suit in a situation such as you described. If the business is not legally permitted to prohibit such gun possession, then that law is a virtually airtight defense.
Kudos to my old union (I'm now retired) on this issue.
Man I thought the one from the HT was bad. Read this.
http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/news/opinion/16999194.htm
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