Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Differences Between Right to Work and Non-Right to Work States

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Contrary to what the labor union leaders, activists, and fleebaggers say about how good labor unions are for ‘the middle class,’ the statistics tell an entirely different story. You have to excuse them for using class warfare though. They can’t help it. They were born that way.

Right to work states create more private sector jobs, enjoy lower poverty rates, experience more technology development, realize more personal income growth, and increase the number of people covered by employment-based private health insurance.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, right-to-work states added 1.5 million private-sector jobs from 1999 to 2009 for a 3.7% increase; states that are not right-to-work lost 1.8 million jobs over the same decade, a decline of 2.3%.

The numbers really isolate where labor unions and President Obama stand when it comes to the American taxpayer. It’s all about them, and Democrats’ re-election. It’s not about ‘the workers,’ the middle class, jobs, or the economy.

Links: Differences Between Right to Work and Non-Right to Work States |   Right to Work Statistics |  Unions And The Right To Work

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

How The Wisconsin Education Association Gouges Taxpayers

Digging a little deeper into just one of the reasons that Wisconsin needs to reform their collective bargaining posture with the public labor union, has to do with the labor union’s monopoly as the health insurance provider. Costing the taxpayers thousands more per year per employee than they have to pay.

[T]he big stake that the Wisconsin Education Association has in forcing individual school districts to negotiate benefits — because they can demand that their own WEA Trust have a monopoly on health insurance.

Link: One reason why Wisconsin needed union reform: captive benefits

Media, Organized Labor, Politics

The Lawless Regime Has A Partner

You may have heard that President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder have decided not to enforce the Defense Of Marriage Act, DOMA.

Jeff Lord at American Spectator has a funny piece today. Sarah Palin’s new attorney general, Mark Levin, has just decided that Roe v. Wade is unconstitutional. They’re just gonna decide not to defend abortion anymore, it’s silly, they’re just gonna effectively pretend it doesn’t exist. Can you imagine the outcry?

Very extraordinary, and particularly from a liberty point of view. There’s a pattern of abuse here. Obama is encouraging lawlessness in Arizona. In fact, he is suing Arizona for defending their own sovereignty against the illegal alien invasion. He is encouraging lawlessness in Wisconsin. He is undermining state governments everywhere he can, particularly if they’re battleground states, which Wisconsin is. He’s ordering his Justice Department not to defend a federal law. Nobody has said the law is unconstitutional other than Obama and Holder, and they don’t have the power to do that. Obama is ignoring court orders he doesn’t like, such as drilling moratorium laws in the Gulf of Mexico, and, of course, DOMA. He is ignoring judge Vinson’s ruling that the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare) is unconstitutional.

Let’s not forget Obama’s Environmental Protection Agency. Which is in effect legislating now when it comes to carbon dioxide, imposing rules on citizens that Congress has not passed. In fact, rules that Congress has refused to pass.  Then there is Obama’s use of Czars simply to bypass cabinet offices, accountable to no one, and they’ve never been confirmed to anything by anyone.

Alexis de Tocqueville referred to this as soft tyranny. What is soft tyranny? Obama using executive orders, regulations, and now withholding the defense of laws he doesn’t like to run the government out of his office.

The only comments in the media are whether this will hurt Obama’s poll numbers. If there were an R behind his name instead of a D, the media would be talking impeachment.  What we are witnessing here is a deterioration of our society, our norms, our systems. Ignoring the oath he was sworn to uphold is no trivial matter. And by not calling the president out on it, the media is playing the part of the enabler. The willing accomplice.

 

Egypt, Organized Labor, Politics

Mr. President, Where Was The Support?

Egypt’s young people, fresh off of toppling a 30-year dictatorship through the help of social media, used that technology to grill Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday, asking her why the U.S. didn’t express support for the revolution sooner.

Americans in Wisconsin are wondering the same thing. Problem in the United States is, we elected a Community Organizer and hoped that he could be a President. Instead, what we got was a community organizer and a President In Name Only. Same disconnect, different countries.

Florida, Pensacola

What’s In Carpenter’s Creek Is In Bayou Texar

Maybe this sounds like something new to you and City Councilman Diane Mack, but it is old news to City Councilman Johnson (a board member of Emerald Coastkeepers) and DEP representative Sherri Myers, the Health Department and the ECUA.

Carpenter’s Creek empties into Bayou Texar. And for decades now, Bayou Texar has been periodically closed by the Health Department as unsafe for use by humans due to fecal contamination. ‘Chronically’ is a more accurate description than periodically. And the reason is because of what is coming out of Carpenter’s Creek.

To bring you up to date with this severe yet overlooked water quality issue, this post recaps it all. Cleaning up Bayou Texar became my interest in November 2007. Four years later and we’re still kicking the can down the road.

That is why I read with amusement this Viewpoint by Chasidy Fisher Hobbs, executive director for Emerald Coastkeepers of Northwest Florida, rehashing the drinking water issue from 2009.

The Dept. of Environmental Protection knew about Bayou Texar’s condition. It was Sherri Myers that pulled the money out of the study that could have led to fixing the problem. Who knows if this effort to examine Carpenter’s Creek will have positive results or, just make for some good press for a while before being set aside for another decade?

Links:

Middle East, War On Terror

Wussification Of U.S. Navy

For days now we’ve head the story about Somali outlaws that pirated a boat with 4 Americans on board. The Americans were trying to live out their retirement sailing off of the East coast of Africa, and passing out bibles along the way as missionaries. As an aside, merely having bibles can get you killed in Islamic extremist circles.

While being shadowed and finally approached by the U.S. Navy, the Somalis shot and killed all of their hostages several hundred miles south of Oman.

Here’s where the plot thickens. According to The White House . . .

President Barack Obama was awakened to news of the deaths at 4:42 a.m. Washington time Tuesday. He had authorized the military on Saturday to use force in case of an imminent threat to the hostages, said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

And the headlines are US condemns pirate killings, Navy holding suspects. And Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement that the killings were “deplorable” and that they underscored the need for international cooperation on fighting the scourge of piracy in waters off the Horn of Africa. Like that’s going to have any consequence.

The remains of the four were taken aboard the USS Enterprise, as were 15 suspected pirates now facing charges in the deaths.

What’s wrong with this picture? If the Navy was authorized by the Commander In Chief to use force, why would there be 15 ‘suspects’ in custody? After all the history of these pirates, using our military to be constables is an abuse of the military. Forget the ‘suspected pirates’ angle, they are confirmed murderers on the high seas.

Just another case where President Obama cares less about protecting and defending Americans than the Islamic goons who murdered them. The Navy should let those prisoners go immediately. And I don’t mean in a boat. Take no prisoners. For their crimes, letting them go 600 miles out at sea is the best place for them.

Organized Labor

It’s Not Union Busting, It’s The Budget And The Market

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The line from the labor unions and their supporters over Wisconsin’s attempt to get rid of their over 3 billion dollar deficit is that it is ‘union busting.’ Not really. More correctly the unions are busting themselves. Here’s why.

The labor unions are an industry and in business just like any other business. Like all businesses, they have a product of some sort. In this case, it is labor. In a free market, customers have choices. The State of Wisconsin is a customer. They can buy from supplier A or B, or hundreds more.

Currently, Wisconsin is running a deficit and needs to make cuts somewhere. Their constitution demands it. They have a balanced budget requirement. Obviously, they need to cut costs wherever they can do it safely.

The Wisconsin labor unions excluding public safety (police & fire) have a choice to make. They can choose to suffer the firing of however many of their members it will take to reach a manageable point. OR, they can renegotiate their medical and pension plans, with a guarantee of no firings, and accept collective bargaining on wages and salaries only. That is what Gov. Walker’s bill would do.

Currently, these Wisconsin labor union members affected pay 9 percent of their health care costs. Private sector employees in Wisconsin pay 23 percent. Walker’s bill asks for 12.6 percent. The labor union employees currently contribute nothing toward their pension plans. A good private sector plan is a matching, 50/50 plan. That’s what the reform bill asks for. No more than the average benefit package in the private sector.

Democrats can cry union busting all they want. And they are. Why should they care you ask? Because BIG LABOR’s money supports Democrats. Also in Gov. Walker’s reform bill is giving union members the option to opt out of paying dues. Obviously, if the union members liked belonging to the union and believed it is truly representing them, and did not feel that they have to be members in order to work, there would be no hesitation in having such a clause. Their objection to the ‘opt out’ option tells a different story as to their motivation. So it’s not hard to figure out why President Obama and Democrats are on the side of the unions instead of the people of Wisconsin. It’s not because union workers work better than non-union workers. It’s because the labor unions contribute to their re-election, whether their members want them to or not.

Bottom line, the taxpayers in Wisconsin are the buyers. They are the one’s paying the salaries and benefits. When push comes to shove, and that’s where we are right now, and not only in Wisconsin but everywhere, there is simply no justification why the taxpayers should pay more than they have to for government labor. If the labor unions refuse to compete in the labor market, then they will be busting themselves.

Organized Labor

SEIU’s Purple Army Is Coming

Attention, taxpayers and Tea Party activists. The Purple Army is coming to your town. Don’t let these Big Labor goons monopolize the protest square like they monopolize government workers.

H/T Michelle Malkin

UPDATE 2/23/2011: Some news from the Panhandle Patriots

Rally In TallyPatriotWoman

SEIU is coming to Tally on March 8 to protest – as they are doing in Wisconsin.

Time: March 8, 2011 all day
Location: Florida State Capitol
Organized By: Florida Alliance (a consortium of tea party-type groups in Florida)

Event Description:

STATEWIDE TEA PARTY ….

Save Our State On March 8th

Belly up to the counter. Politics are on the menu and Ross is on the grill.