“The American people will never knowingly adopt Socialism. But under the name of ‘liberalism’ they will adopt every fragment of the Socialist program, until one day America will be a Socialist nation, without knowing how it happened.”

Socialist Party presidential candidate Norman Thomas


Wednesday, February 23, 2011

Public-sector unions are bad for America


Public-sector unions are not the same as private sector unions. Most people think that all unions are the same...all bad. That may be true, but public-sector unions are worse because they negotiate, and by negotiate I mean dictate, their own wages to politicians who they own, having donated heavily to their elections. In the private sector, labor is in direct conflict with management because unlike government, private companies have to make a profit at the end of the day.

Government bureaucrats, directed by politicians above them, negotiate lavish union contracts with taxpayers' money and are entirely unaccountable for any of it. Private company managers are directly responsible to their board of directors and stockholders if they pay union employees too much.

In 1962 union membership was dwindling because workplace safety issues had been addressed legislatively. Still, thug union bosses weren't able to extort as many dues because private workers were more or less happy at their workplaces and weren't forming unions. So Pres. Kennedy stupidly lifted the ban on government-worker unions and over night, union rolls exploded and the pillaging of taxpayers by public-sector workers began on a huge scale. Nobody foresaw that it would be the fat, greedy, public-sector unions that would threaten to bankrupt virtually every state in the union.

It's time for government employees to be subject to the same laws of supply and demand in the labor market with which the rest of us wrestle. After all, it's our wallets they are plundering to fund their lavish lifestyles.

2 comments:

David said...

Do you know there are unionized members of the National Guard? I cannot reconcile this nor the fact that "management" allowed it to happen. In ALL cases it is management's fault whether public or private sector.

I was deployed (in a combat zone) with several union members. One day they approached me with union BS as a was the officer-in-charge. I told them to shove it up their arse! They folded their tent and went about generating combat sorties. Small victory for me and the common man.

I have a long history of union-bucking. I have no use or sympathy for unions.

Bird of Paradise said...

Stop forcing people to join unions and pay union dues in order to hold a job anywhere