Friday, March 18, 2011

Unions and Democrat politicians=taxpayer slavery

Are Unions A Detriment To A Good Work Ethic? You Betcha!

Democratic Party icon President Franklin D. Roosevelt believed that "[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied."

By Alicia Colon

Originally I was going to focus only on public unions but then I thought long and hard about my own experience as a union member and found that my negativity applies to the very idea of a modern union. Most disputes in private industries can be resolved through other means rather than what the unions practice - extortion. One thing that the Wisconsin protests prove is that FDR was right about public unions. In a National Affairs magazine article Daniel DeSalvo wrote: "Meticulous attention," the president insisted in 1937, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government... The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." The reason? FDR believed that "[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable." Roosevelt was hardly alone in holding these views, even among the champions of organized labor. Indeed, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, believed it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government."

Who can forget the Air Traffic controllers strike in 1981 when after warning the strikers that they were in violation of the law, President Reagan threatened to fire them? Lo and behold when they refused to return to work he did.

When the Governor of Wisconsin, Scott Walker, a Republican, tried to balance the state budget by reining in the costs of public sector unions, all hell broke loose. The teachers' union refused to make concessions that threatened their collective bargaining option and some Senate Democrats supported their protest by leaving the state to avoid voting on the proposed legislation. This was perfectly understandable because unions in general allocate millions of the members' dues to the Democrat Party.

The power of the unions flows from its ability to combine their energy and dues to support politicians whose policies fund the welfare state and tax the wealthy while demonizing conservatives. Those ongoing demonstrations in Wisconsin are well organized by the rank-and-file unionists and union heads who fear for their loss of power. Usually these protests succeed in influencing the public but many Americans now feel little sympathy for teachers who are highly paid, poor performers and sheltered by a greedy union.

With the latest statistics showing that 82% of schools are failing, the public is siding with the tough love shown by Gov. Walker. It's not just Republicans who are taking up the cudgel to smash public contracts that are breaking state banks. In Rhode Island, the Democrat mayor Angel Taveras fired every one of the city's estimated 2,000 public school teachers. The city of Providence was faced with severe shortfalls which the mayor claimed would ruin the city. Mr. Taveras told NPR, "With a layoff, for various reasons, you can be responsible for paying teachers who are not teaching in a classroom. In addition to that, if they go into the substitute pool, you're paying them their full pay and benefits, and that's costing an enormous amount of money. I can't allow the taxpayers to be on the hook for paying teachers who are not teaching." Mr. Taveras is a bit of a shock to those who thought electing a Latino would be a safe choice for business as usual.

It is absolutely disgraceful to see these well paid public servants shirk their responsibilities so that they can continue feeding at a public trough that's broken but it's not at all surprising. I learned many years ago that good work ethics in this country is on life support and unions are the main reason for that development.

Union-backed President Obama made the absurd statement during the unemployment extension debate that he didn't know personally anyone who would rather take an unemployment check than look for a job. I don't know personally anyone who wouldn't take that check to stay home. Neither could John Stossel who filmed a plethora of individuals on the Fox Business Channel who admitted they would do just that.

As for my own experience with unions, I must admit that from the very beginning of my work years I felt that unions were unnecessary if the company was trustworthy. I worked for a Canadian airline that offered great benefits along with a decent salary.

The reservations department was not unionized but the airport personnel were members of the Teamsters. When that union tried to enroll our department I distributed a petition letter outlining the benefits of the company and the risks of going out on strike for a grievance in another department. Most agreed with me and rejected the Teamsters proposal. After I left to raise my family, the unions tried again and succeeded. The airline ended up declaring bankruptcy years later and the layoffs began.

I was forced to join a union when I started working for the Vista Hotel at the World Trade Center in 1991. During my training period as a hotel operator I noticed that the other operators would let the phones ring without answering. One woman told me, "Don't answer it. It makes us look busy and then we can get overtime." I still had a work ethic and I would do extra work to make things go smoothly only to find that I was upsetting the cart so as the last person hired I was the first fired. A young MTA worker told me that he was instructed not to work so hard because it would make the others look bad. Union wages go up because the mayor caves when threatened with a strike. Passengers get hit with fare increases yet service deteriorates.

This may seem like such a small sampling but one has to look at the big picture. Most Fortune 500 companies are not unionized because they offer good benefits and salaries to solid employees. Union workers may feel safe after the probation period to slack off because it becomes harder and harder to fire a union member. Locally, the workers at the Stella Doro Bronx factory finally became unionized and when their contract was up they went out on a ten month strike. The company ended up closing the factory last October because of labor costs so the union workers were out of a job but the union bosses still have theirs.

My daughter is a teacher in a parochial school and belongs to a union of Catholic teachers. Compared to public school teachers, her salary is miniscule but there is no denying that the success rate of parochial and charter schools dwarfs those ruled by the teachers' union. Read Peter Brimelow's excellent book, "The Worm in the Apple: How the Teachers Unions Are Destroying American Education."

There are still industries that need unions because their employees are vulnerable to harsh working conditions but most are obsolescent. It should be obvious to anyone that millionaires don't need unions yet athletes' unions can threaten baseball and football seasons unless owners add to their players' millions.

Can you imagine Babe Ruth or Lou Gehrig striking? Nope. Their work ethic was never marred by a union. To look at those enormous protesting union crowds in Wisconsin is to weep for an America morphing into Europe.

Alicia Colon resides in New York City and can be reached at aliciav.colon@gmail.com and at www.aliciacolon.com

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