How Public Employee Unions Shakedown Taxpayers in a vicious, endless cycle

It's like putting the fox in charge of the hen house. Here's how it works:

Everything that Is Wrong with Public Sector Unions in Thirty Seconds

This thirty second video will show you everything that is wrong with public sector unions. [...]

[...] The video above shows a representative of the United Healthcare Workers from a budget hearing in California in 2009. She makes it clear that the union got ‘democrats’ elected and that they [the union] ‘have long memories’ should the members deign to not support the union demands. If the officials support needed measures to cut spending, the representative will unleash her members to campaign against their reelection. And her threats are all legally sanctioned. And they are paid for by us.

This is the central problem with public sector unions. They get to use taxpayer money to elect their bosses and they get to use taxpayer money to convince their bosses to give them more taxpayer money.

Let’s recap where we are:

* We’ve allowed labor unions to become monopoly personnel providers for many state and local governments

* We force employees to make weekly payments to union leaders

* The union leaders use these payments to hire lobbyists to agitate for more government spending

* The union leaders use these payments to spend millions on campaigns to elect politicians

* The union leaders then negotiate with these politicians to set pay, benefits and work rules for their members

* The politicians know that if they cross the union leaders, their reelection plans are more complicated

* We fund the whole thing

If we can’t break this corrupt cycle, no other policy decisions we make will matter. Yes, it is that important.

The whole article is worth reading, for the "how" and "why" of it. How government employee unions went from being reasonable and fair, to being the exploiting extortionists they are today. It's why even FDR believed in limits on Public Employee unions.

The way it is now, it's legally sanctioned extortion. It must end, and the taxpayers must be the ones to insist that it does. The unions will still exist, and they won't be powerless. But they will have limits on their GREED and THUGGERY. It's time for them to have a reality check and join the rest of us.
     

Government Employee Unions are Ruining Us

SOMEBODY'S GOTTA SAY IT ... GOVT. EMPLOYEE UNIONS ARE THE ENEMY

Here come the howls of outrage. "You are anti-union." Well, you're only partially right. I'm anti-government employee union. I don't have a particular problem with the legality of private-sector unions, so long as: (1) Employees vote by secret ballot as to whether or not the union will be formed; and (2) No employee should ever be forced to join a union nor should they be forced to pay dues to any union.

Government employee unions? Those are a completely different matter. These are people who spend millions of dollars to elect their bosses and then demand raises, pension plans and other benefits of those very bosses with threats that they will fire them if they refuse to go along. The taxpayers then have to pay for these bloated salaries, pensions and benefits. If more money is needed to pay the union tab, the unions then start spending millions on campaigns to raise taxes. It was government labor unions that were the primary financiers of the recent campaign to initiate a state income tax in the State of Washington. Why? The state needed the money to fund their classy ride.

It was John F. Kennedy who gave federal government employee unions the right to engage in collective bargaining. This was done not through legislation, but through an executive order. Franklin D. Roosevelt campaigned federal employee unions ... Kennedy presented this wonderful gift to the American taxpayer.

Here's something the Republicans can address. They need to begin making the case immediately for decertifying all federal government employee unions. For decades the primary advantage of being a federal employee was relative job security. Now these people make more than their counterparts in the private sector, they have better pension plans and better benefits ... and, as I said, they elect their own bosses. It needs to end.

Government employee unions are destroying California, and are about to do the same to the rest of the country:

AND THEN THERE'S CALIFORNIA

Perhaps more so than any other state, California's financial troubles can be placed at the doorsteps of California's government employee unions. In California unionized prison guards can earn over $100,000 a years. The unions are clearly bankrupting the state, and they show no sign of slowing down. And just who was it that gave California government employees the right to engage in collective bargaining? Why .. that would be none other than Jerry Brown when he was governor the last time. And who did the dumb mass voters of California just put back into the governor's office? Again ... Jerry Brown. Businesses and high-achieving individuals are bailing out of California right and left. Can't blame them.

It's just this simple ... government employee unions are at war with the taxpayers. The unions realize this ... the taxpayers don't seem to. Helluva way to fight a war.

Oh ... by the way. You do know which side The Community Organizer is on, don't you?

California and other profligate states are failing due to government employee unions strangling them. We must NOT bail them out:

Smash the Union Thugocracy
Republicans must not bailout profligate states nor the unions behind them.

One of the first orders of business in the next Republican-controlled House of Representatives will be the demand for bailouts of states that have been especially profligate: California, New York, Michigan, Illinois, and Connecticut. Throughout 2009 and 2010, these states stayed above water with repeated infusions of federal cash. These one-shot stimulus payments must be repeated each year. They are all non-recurring expenditures requiring separate annual appropriations.

The Republican House must say no and hold the line, stopping this raid on the federal Treasury. The cry in the caucus must ring loud: “No More Bailouts.”

But, as the Republicans demand fiscal discipline and refuse to make the citizens of other, more responsible states subsidize California and New York’s wayward finances, we need to focus on the union power that has forced states, localities, and school boards to raise taxes, borrow money, and — ultimately — depend on federal bailouts.

These unions have forced contracts on their states, localities, and school boards which provide for ever higher wages, benefits, and pensions. Even now, teachers are on strike in a suburb of Pittsburgh because they feel a 4.5 percent annual wage increase is inadequate.

The House must create a federal bankruptcy procedure for states that cannot make ends meet requiring — as in corporate bankruptcies — that state governments abrogate all their union contracts. The new state bankruptcy procedure should offer all states — and through them, their localities, counties, and school boards — the ability to reorganize their finances free of the demands of their union agreements.

This measure will return our state and local governments to the sovereignty of the people and take them away from the “thugocracy” of public-employee unions.

When states such as California and New York come to Washington begging for relief, they will threaten us with the closure of their schools and the release of their prison inmates if we deny them subsidies. Liberals and President Obama will try to portray the battle as schoolchildren versus niggardly Republican legislators.

But the real fight will be between schoolchildren and citizens on the one hand and unions on the other. The House must shape the issue so that it exposes the real cause of the state shortfalls: The excessive agreements public employee unions have won over the years.

The unions are about to fall prey to what Margaret Thatcher identified as the terminal drawback of socialism: Eventually, you run out of other people’s money.

Such an approach will also have a larger political impact. [...]

The article goes on to describe how public-employee unions used their tremendous power to in the recent election. The Democrats they elect are answerable to the government employee unions, not the taxpayers who have to pay the bills. We are becoming slaves to government employees.

The people of the Obama administration like to talk at length about "greedy" businesses. What about the "greedy" government unions, who are destroying us? This abuse MUST come to and end.

States that want bailouts, should be forced to declare bankruptcy, and dissolve their government employee unions. Those unions would first be given a chance to work with their state governments, to balance their budgets and avoid bankruptcy. If the unions refuse, let them be dissolved. Before they destroy us and themselves by collapsing our currency with debts.