Why Unions need limits placed on them

5 Reasons Unions Are Bad For America

At one time in this country, there were few workplace safety laws, few restraints on employers, and incredibly exploitive working conditions that ranged from slavery, to share cropping, to putting children in dangerous working conditions. Unions, to their everlasting credit, helped play an important role in leveling the playing field for workers.

However, as the laws changed, there was less and less need for unions. Because of that, union membership shrank. In response, the unions became more explicitly involved in politics. Over time, they managed to co-opt the Democratic Party, pull their strings, and rewrite our labor laws in their favor.

As Lord Acton noted, "Power tends to corrupt," and that has certainly been true for the unions. Unions have become selfish, extremely greedy, and even thuggish in their never-ending quest to take in as much as they can for themselves, at the expense of everyone else who crosses their path.

That's why today, unions have changed from organizations that "look out for the little guy" into the largest, most rapacious special interest group in the entire country. Where unions go, disaster usually follows. Just to name a few examples: [...]

It goes on to give 5 excellent examples of how the unions have been bilking taxpayers, demonstrating why it must not be allowed to continue. For all our sakes.
     

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.
     

End Union Thuggery and Mob Rule

I've said previously that Government Employee Unions are Ruining Us. And even the "Progressive" president Franklin Delano Roosevelt believed that government Unions needed restrictions, because of the potential for corruption. Public sector unions in particular become corrupt and destructive when they use their funding to buy political power, and turn the taxpayers into hostages. They need to be limited, before they destroy the foundations we are all standing on:

Capitol Chaos: Could Union Bill Be Passed Separately Tuesday?

MADISON - Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald says his chamber of the Wisconsin legislature will convene to pass non-spending bills and act on appointments on Tuesday even if minority Democrats remain out of state in an effort to block a vote on Governor Scott Walker's budget repair bill.

Could one of those bills be the union aspect of the budget bill, in a separate vote on Tuesday?

Democratic state Sen. Jon Erpenbach told The Associated Press on Monday that Republicans could attempt to attach the part of the proposal taking away collective bargaining rights to an unrelated bill and pass it Tuesday. [...]

YES! I hope it goes through. It won't destroy the unions, just put them in their place. If the Union leaders had any sense, they would stop trying to destroy the taxpayers who make their jobs possible.

I've heard that a recall effort is being mounted for the missing Democrats who are "hiding", shirking their jobs. I hope the recall succeeds. They need to be made an example of what happens to cowards who shirk the jobs they were elected to do.


Also see:

Apocalypse Now: Wisconsin vs. Big Labor; Plus: More out-of-state union recruiting & another teacher speaks up for Walker; police order for AWOL Dems; America agrees: End public union monopoly

Teachers teaching kids it's okay to lie

Rank-and-file teachers speak truth to prog power