Free Republic

A Message from AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka All of us will remember the horror and anguish we experienced 10 years ago. Whether we lost loved ones ourselves—family members, union brothers and sisters—or felt the shock of a society that lost nearly 3,000 people and was forever changed, we need no reminding. Instead, I would like to reflect on doors that were opened on Sept. 11, 2001, and what has come of them in the 10 years since. Working men and women rushed through doors to danger and became America’s everyday heroes. Firefighters, construction workers, nurses and EMTs—all kinds of professionals...

After skirmishes in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana, the next big union battle is brewing at your local post office. The U.S. Postal Service’s two largest unions blasted the financially strapped agency’s proposal to cut as many as 120,000 jobs and pull its workers out of the retirement and health benefits plans covering federal workers for a new benefit systems. The Postal Service, which is facing a second year of losses totaling $8 billion or more, would need congressional approval for its plan and cooperation from the postal unions, which have contracts that ban layoffs unless Congress intervenes. But the American...

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...

School district cancels spelling bee RONALD R. BLAIS, Staff Reporter01/27/2005 LINCOLN -- Karen Adams always enjoyed receiving her invitation. The WPRI-TV news anchorwoman and Lincoln resident looked forward to penciling in the school district’s spelling bee in her appointment calendar. But there’s no note in her calendar this year. The Lincoln district has decided to eliminate this year’s spelling bee -- a competition involving pupils in grades 4 through 8, with each school district winner advancing to the state competition and a chance to proceed to the national spelling bee in Washington, D.C. Advertisement Through the years, it had become...