Tag Archives: Organized Labor

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

Organized Labor

Left Doesn’t Get It

The KOSites are out there raising money for the Wisconsin Democrat Party. What, won’t those 14 runaway Democrat senators qualify for unemployment?

The Left thinks it is about union busting. They think they are fighting the Tea Party. But that’s the way they raise money. Always up for a fight. Especially when the bogeyman is those ‘fascist tea baggers.’ An excerpt from the DAILY KOS email . . .

By now, you’ve probably heard about the amazing protests in Wisconsin. Public sector unions are making an historic stand against both the Tea Party and the billionaire Koch brothers who finance that “grassroots” movement.

Even though you don’t live in Wisconsin, there’s a way you can help. The 14 Democratic state Senators who kept the fight alive are on Act Blue, and we’ve put their party committee on our Orange to Blue 2012 page.

Please, contribute $14 to the Wisconsin State Senate Democratic committee, $1 for each of the heroic Senators.

This is a fight for the solvency of Wisconsin. The government employed labor unions think they are exempt from having any skin in the game.

The average worker for a state or local government earns $39.83 an hour in wages and benefits. His counterpart in the private sector earns considerably less — $27.49 an hour. Over 80 percent of state and local workers have pensions; just 50 percent of private sector workers do. These differences remain, Sherk notes, even after controlling for education, skills, and demographics. The bottom line: Taxpayers now underwrite unionized government jobs that pay considerably more — over $430 per week more — than comparable jobs in the private sector.

They also believe that they have a right to earn more in salary and benefits than the people paying the tab. That’s all it is about.

Whether you are a private sector business or a government entity, you are paying someone to work. Why would you pay someone $39.83 when you don’t have to? And if you are a government entity, it is the taxpayers footing the bill. When faced with cutting a budget deficit, the answer is obvious. Or should be. Lowest bidder gets the job. This isn’t union busting. This is giving the union the opportunity to be competitive.

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Wisconsin Protests, Astroturf

Well it didn’t take very long to find out that President Obama himself, along with his Organizing for America PAC are the driving force behind the protests in Madison, WI. The big picture here is that Obama and his labor union rent-a-mob are the driving force against the voters in Wisconsin.

Dang, this is beginning to look and sound a lot like the ruler is not only ignoring the will of the people but is actively working against them. Shades of Hosni Mubarak, no? Forget that democratic process that Obama was preaching to Mubarak last week. Today, every Democrat legislator in Madison was taken out of town on a bus (probably a short yellow one) in order to avoid the democratic process of representing their constituents and voting Yes or No on the governor’s bill.

What the governor is trying to do is save his state. That’s what he was just elected to do.

The teachers union and union thugs in general are not at their jobs. The kids (gee, it’s not about the kids anymore is it?) are losing lesson time that they’ll have to make up in June and they are complaining.  And while they are complaining, they are also starving. While the schools are closed, the poor children aren’t getting fed. What? And from the ones that supposedly care about ‘the children.’

The governor’s plan is to make the labor union employees pay rates comparable to their private sector counterparts. That, and to take all but their wages out of the realm of collective bargaining. It’s not their wages that present the fiscal calamity for Wisconsin, but the Cadillac benefit and pension plans. The people, aka taxpayers, the ones paying for it, don’t have the money. The party is over. It’s time to get real. It’s time to strip away this mystical perception so long-held by public sector labor unions of being exempt from the real world.

Who is the greedy one here?

The average worker for a state or local government earns $39.83 an hour in wages and benefits. His counterpart in the private sector earns considerably less — $27.49 an hour. Over 80 percent of state and local workers have pensions; just 50 percent of private sector workers do. These differences remain, Sherk notes, even after controlling for education, skills, and demographics. The bottom line: Taxpayers now underwrite unionized government jobs that pay considerably more — over $430 per week more — than comparable jobs in the private sector.

What this all boils down to is this administration and the Democrat party are  and always have been tied at the hip to BIG LABOR. It is BIG LABOR that contributes to their re-election. Democrats know what side their bread is buttered on. That’s why they and President Obama are concerned to the point of making laws (Card Check) to help increase union membership. Fact is, what labor union membership is, is no business of the federal government. They are an industry and business just like any other industry and business, complete with its lobbyists in Washington.

The labor unions have a lot at stake, which is why they’ll bus in protestors, beat up opponents if necessary, demonstrate at private homes,  in order to not lose their grip on the public sector labor market. The kind of labor that taxpayers have to pay for. Or to put it another way. The labor unions don’t want to lose business. If Big Labor’s business cost taxpayers more, then that is a business that the government does not need to be involved in. Let alone trying to expand. Period.

The reason Democrats are so beholden to labor unions is evidenced by the breakdown of organized labor between the public and private sector.

  • In 1980, 23 percent of Americans belonged to labor unions. For 2009, it is down to 12.3 percent.
  • A majority of union members in America (52 percent) now work for the government. This is up sharply from 49 percent in 2008. A function of all those so-called stimulus spending packages which served to grow the size of government and the union’s payroll.
  • A full 37.4 percent of government employees now belong to unions in 2009, up 0.6 percentage points from 2008.
  • Union membership in the productive sector of our economy continued its long-term downward spiral, falling from 20.1 percent in 1980 to a mere 7.2 percent in 2009.

Link: The New Face of Organized Labor |  Wisconsin Democrats Get on Bus, Flee State

Economy, Florida, Media, Organized Labor, Pensacola, Politics

City Voting On Union Representation Today

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You won’t find this in the local paper. A search in the Pensacola News Journal (a trade union shop) comes up empty for an organizing attempt of city employees. The only place I saw it mentioned is in a local blog called Progressive Pensacola.

The literature from the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has a catchy phrase. ‘AFSCME – We make FLORIDA happen.’ I have another take on it. It’s more like ‘We help make FLORIDA broke!’

On Progressive Pensacola, City employees voting on union Thursday.

Now there’s a really bad idea. Unions, aside from being useless nowadays, only spell more costs for the city. And consequently, more costs for the taxpayers that currently pay their wages and benefits. As if we are flush with cash. If working for the city is so bad, why are applicants falling over themselves trying to get a job with the city? The high demand and desirability of getting a city job seems to belie the need, as far as employees are concerned, for a union. On the other hand, it’s not hard to understand why AFSCME would not want to get more dues paying members.  They are a business and an industry just like any other.

This move, like all union attempts to raid and then soak an employer, serve only to take your money, if you are one of the employees, and give some of it to the union. And increase the cost of whatever it is that is produced. Which is ultimately paid for by you, the consumer. But you are rich. You can pay it, right?

In general, labor unions had a useful purpose 50, 60, 70 years ago. But since then, employers got the message and don’t treat their employees like indentured servants. Instead, that’s what the unions intend to make of their members.

Consequently, they have contributed to their own demise. Because of their efforts and due diligence in improving working conditions and employee relations decades ago, employers nowadays got the message. Due to their successes decades ago, they have made themselves obsolete today.

But BIG LABOR does not care that unemployment is high. And that their collective bargaining, combined with their spending employee’s money on political campaigns, mostly to save their sorry underfunded benefit packages has caused states and cities all over the country to look at insolvency, if not another government bailout. Are you ready for another government bailout? Andy Stern and Barack Obama are.

Let’s be thankful that the city can employ as many people as they can right now. Raise the cost more and see if layoffs don’t occur.

So who benefits? Not the employees. Not the taxpayers. Just the labor union.

Economy, Egypt, Energy, Media, Middle East, Organized Labor, Politics, United Nations

Fed Policy, Govt. Policy, Egypt Burns

Here’s a little ditty that the mainstream media won’t touch with a ten foot pole. That’s because the Obama administration, environmentists, and the Federal Reserve are not insignificant players in the rioting and unrest we are seeing in the Middle East, and in the rise in prices of foodstuffs around the world. WHAT you say?

For years now, the United Nations has been complaining that they can’t continue to feed all they need to for a lack of money caused by the rising food cost. This is a direct consequence of bio-fuel nonsense where the United States is using food (corn) to put in our gas tank. This causes all kinds of food to be more expensive. Not just for foodstuffs made from corn, but meat and poultry products because it is also food for the livestock.

Compounding that is the enormous spending of the Federal Reserve. The effect of that has contributed to the increase in food prices not only here but everywhere else in the world.

Chriss W. Street at Big Government writes . . .

QE2 money quickly drove up commodity food prices around the world. This price rise is barely noticeable to Americans who only spend 10% of their personal income on food for three meals a day; but the impact of food inflation is devastating the over half the world that spends approximately 50% of personal income on food for two meals a day. The 15% QE2 induced commodity food price increase has reduced the amount of food poor people can purchase by almost 1/3.

The riots and revolutionary activity burning down Tunisia, Yemen, and Egypt are about gut-level economics. Do you think Americans would riot and throwing out our government if we were forced to cut back to eating 1 1/3 meals a day? Once riots start people in cities hoard food to survive and becomes dangerous for farmers to transport food. This is exacerbates food shortages and drives prices even higher.

When you consider how lucky we are to live in the United States, where 10% of our income goes for food for three meals a day,  a rise in food prices is not as much of an issue as it is in other parts of the world like Egypt, where food consumes 50% of their income for two meals a day. Couple that with outrageously high unemployment while the ruling class lives the high life, and you have a powder keg in the making.

UPDATE 06:50:

As if there isn’t enough evidence of how government policies were accomplices in Egypt’s revolution, new evidence points to the role of labor unions and the American Left in orchestrating it:

For all the lack of clarity on where the Obama administration stands, one thing is becoming more and more clear: Signs are beginning to point more toward the likelihood that President Obama’s State Department, unions, as well as Left-leaning media corporations are more directly involved in helping to ignite the Mid-East turmoil than they are publicly admitting.

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Government-Union Partnership?

And in the quid pro quo department comes this gem that garnered zero mention in the media. It apparently has been scrubbed from the Department of Labor’s website. If it’s not there, does that mean it never happened? Screenshot below tells the story. Thanks to Red State for their diligence in being the watchdog on this story. You won’t find it anywhere else.

Isn’t it amazing why too, no one has ever questioned what business it is or should be of the government to support labor unions? They are a business just like any other. But, instead of taking them over, the Obama administration is more concerned with helping them grow by advancing The Employee Free Choice Act, now commonly called ‘Card Check.’

And so it was that last week, President Obama met with union leaders and ‘[T]alked about creating good jobs for the American people, and how the partnership with labor unions is essential to growing our economy and continuing our recovery.’

President Obama is the last person on the planet who believes that labor unions create jobs or grow the economy. And that some partnership with them (aside from giving them controlling interest in Chrysler) is essential to growing the economy.  Considering that labor unions constitute only 12.3% of the workforce, down from 20.1% in 1983 when comparable records were first available, it is obvious that the president is looking for ways to pay them back for their huge campaign contributions and political activism in support of the Democrat party’s agenda. Labor unions won’t create jobs or continue a so-called recovery in the same way that the stimulus money has not created jobs or stimulated the private sector economy.

Looking at which side Obama’s bread is buttered on, it is revealing to see that union membership rate for public sector (government) workers is 37.4 percent, and only 7.2 percent in the private sector. Is it any wonder why Andy Stern is the most frequent visitor to The White House?

Check this, from Red State . . .

In light of the NLRB’s attacks on business this week, this little piece is striking, as it is the epitome of why the economy still sucks unemployment remains high.

The U.S. Department of Labor, which has become akin to the Ministry of Workers’ Councils, regularly issues a newsletter via e-mail and posts it on the Ministry’s website. This week, among other items touted, was this little gem on union bosses meeting with President Obama to discuss growing the economy and the government-union partnership.

[Screenshot below the fold just in case…well, you know.]

Obama, Solis and Labor Leaders

President Obama, Secretary Solis and key White House staff met last week with a dozen leaders from several national labor unions to discuss ways to work together to strengthen the economy. The group talked about creating good jobs for the American people, and how the partnership with labor unions is essential to growing our economy and continuing our recovery. The president and the labor secretary also highlighted critical steps that the administration has taken and pledged to continue to work closely with organized labor in the coming months on important economic issues.

It’s funny that the administration still refuses to admit that unions are the antithesis of private-sector job creation. In fact, it seems the only way unions create jobs is to buy politicians who steal other people’s money, then reward the union bosses with taxpayer dollars and government-approved discrimination.

Links:

2010 Election, Organized Labor, Politics

Sen. Harry Reid’s Last Left Hook, Filibuster ‘Reform’

Lame Duck and current Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has one last Left Hook to add to his former boxing career. He just may attempt to reverse himself, and those in this video, regarding the filibuster by changing the rules in the senate to make it a simple majority.

While echos of the Nuclear Option are still bouncing around the halls, Democrats are just fit to be tied that some of their pay-back legislation was blocked by the filibuster. They would like to ‘fix’ that for the next Congress in ways that they know best. Just change the rules before they get there. The non-passage of their union-support program called Card Check, a Public Option for ObamaCare and Climate Change legislation really ticked them off. And lets not forget the Mexican Dream Act.

Considering how much pride Vice President Joe (BFD) Biden took in legislating against the will of the American people, slipping a few more goodies in on the last day in power could only be a bonus.

Link: Returning Democratic Senators Unanimously Push For Filibuster Reform | Filibuster Reform – “The Quest for Absolute Power” | RedState.

Economy, Organized Labor, Politics

Is High Unemployment The ‘New Normal?’

The unemployment model in Europe is taking shape in the United States. When you look at historical unemployment rates across the pond you will understand why President Obama ‘fears’ the U.S. economy could enter a ‘new normal.’

The dirty little secret here is that this isn’t his fear. High unemployment is incidental to his goal. It is the community organizer’s way of moving forward with his agenda to ‘transform America.’

It is what happens when the government leans socialist and labor is pretty much owned by unions rather than a free market. It is no coincidence that Andy Stern, the president of the SEIU, is the most frequent guest at The White House. And they are nowhere near finished. The end-game where SEIU is concerned is to have taxpayers bail out the union’s underfunded retirement programs. Next up, Card Check. One step at a time.

Link: Obama says he fears economy could enter ‘new normal’ of low job growth.

2010 Election, Organized Labor, Politics

Redistricting Works Both Ways

Much to the chagrin of Big Labor and Big Law, and the ACLU, one of the responsibilities that goes with the majority party is keeping your districts properly represented in Congress. At least once every 10 years.

While most of the attention in next week’s midterm elections is focused on races for Congress and governor, results in scores of local, down-ticket races carry far-reaching implications, likely to dilute Democrats’ dominance in the once-every-10-years redrawing of political district boundaries for the U.S. House.

Link: GOP poised to win Congress redistricting edge, too