Free Republic

Juan Martinez can barely pay the bills, even with the income from his second job as a security guard. Now he hardly sees his family. Juan Carlos Martinez sits in a lonely Miami office tower late on a Sunday night, fighting back yawns as the rumble of passing trucks shake the empty building. He's miles from home, where he'd rather be, helping his children get ready for bed. But he needs this job as a weekend security guard. Martinez is a Miami-Dade teacher with a master's degree in education and ten years of experience. For that, he earns $38,050 a...

Even now, as federal agents pore over the financial records they seized from his union headquarters in Miami, Pat Tornillo remains a legend among Florida teachers. He led the nation's first statewide teachers' strike, a bitter walkout that kept 1-million Florida children out of school but gave public employees the right to bargain collectively. He built the largest labor union in the South, securing higher pay for teachers who paid him millions of dollars in dues - money he used to help elect dozens of Democrats to public office. But the 77-year-old Tornillo now faces the biggest battle of his...