Big Labor Choosing Profiteering over Teachers' Jobs

Big Labor Choosing Profiteering over Teachers' Jobs

In Las Vegas, the Clark County School Board is refusing to allow competitive bidding for health insurance for teachers forcing the school district to use a costly insurance program owned by the union itself.  This decision alone could lead to the firing of 1,000 school employees. As the Education Action Group notes: The CCEA is not the first teachers union to form its own insurance company and pressure local school boards into purchasing that company’s overpriced coverage. The Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, established its own insurance entity, the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust, in 1993. The Benefits Trust “ facilitates” the purchase of employee health insurance for Maine’s public schools, essentially selling them coverage provided by the state’s largest carrier, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Nearly every school district in the state has been lulled into joining this system over the years, according to officials in several Maine school districts. The Benefits Trust/Anthem scam, which discourages outside competition, has driven insurance prices through the roof for Maine schools. The Michigan Education Association owns its own insurance company, called the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA). For years local union negotiators have pressedschool boards to purchase MESSA employee health insurance, despite its high cost.
Big Labor Choosing Profiteering over Teachers' Jobs

Big Labor Choosing Profiteering over Teachers' Jobs

In Las Vegas, the Clark County School Board is refusing to allow competitive bidding for health insurance for teachers forcing the school district to use a costly insurance program owned by the union itself.  This decision alone could lead to the firing of 1,000 school employees. As the Education Action Group notes: The CCEA is not the first teachers union to form its own insurance company and pressure local school boards into purchasing that company’s overpriced coverage. The Maine Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, established its own insurance entity, the Maine Education Association Benefits Trust, in 1993. The Benefits Trust “ facilitates” the purchase of employee health insurance for Maine’s public schools, essentially selling them coverage provided by the state’s largest carrier, Anthem Blue Cross/Blue Shield. Nearly every school district in the state has been lulled into joining this system over the years, according to officials in several Maine school districts. The Benefits Trust/Anthem scam, which discourages outside competition, has driven insurance prices through the roof for Maine schools. The Michigan Education Association owns its own insurance company, called the Michigan Education Special Services Association (MESSA). For years local union negotiators have pressedschool boards to purchase MESSA employee health insurance, despite its high cost.

Sick of being FORCED to pay for union bosses' politics? Right To Work is the Answer

Terry Bowman, a UAW member,  writes in the The Detroit News that to end forced-dues-funded politics "the best and easiest solution is to pass a Right To Work law."  And, he is right.  The surest way to end compulsory-dues for politics is to end compulsory-dues. From Mr. Bowman's editorial: A worker's constitutional rights seem to take a back seat to the political privileges of the union. Earlier this year, UAW local 898 officials displayed their political views for everyone who drove by the union hall. "Recall Gov. Snyder, sign up here!" was the message glaring from the parking lot sign for all passers-by to see. A recent Harris poll shows that 60 percent of union households say that unions are too involved in politics, and we know that 40 percent or more of union households vote Republican. Unfortunately, union members who disagree with these partisan political attacks are forced, as a condition of employment, to financially support this message. Federal laws are supposed to restrict union officials from using regular dues for political purposes. Regrettably, it still happens all the time. In a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Communication Workers of America vs. Beck, unions were forbidden to collect full union dues from non-members; only those dues that are supposed to reflect the true cost to the union as a collective bargaining agent. In other words, members could choose to resign their union membership and then only pay what is called the "agency fee" to keep their job. Obviously, there are problems with this ruling. Workers who wish to exercise these rights have to jump through hoops, and they are then persecuted and ridiculed on the job for doing so. The agency fee also includes all the educational and subjective political activities that unions engage in. Union newsletters and magazines are full of political propaganda, and union officials travel the country spewing hateful venom and a destructive worldview, yet their salaries are paid for with regular union dues. And there is so much more.

Sick of being FORCED to pay for union bosses' politics? Right To Work is the Answer

Terry Bowman, a UAW member,  writes in the The Detroit News that to end forced-dues-funded politics "the best and easiest solution is to pass a Right To Work law."  And, he is right.  The surest way to end compulsory-dues for politics is to end compulsory-dues. From Mr. Bowman's editorial: A worker's constitutional rights seem to take a back seat to the political privileges of the union. Earlier this year, UAW local 898 officials displayed their political views for everyone who drove by the union hall. "Recall Gov. Snyder, sign up here!" was the message glaring from the parking lot sign for all passers-by to see. A recent Harris poll shows that 60 percent of union households say that unions are too involved in politics, and we know that 40 percent or more of union households vote Republican. Unfortunately, union members who disagree with these partisan political attacks are forced, as a condition of employment, to financially support this message. Federal laws are supposed to restrict union officials from using regular dues for political purposes. Regrettably, it still happens all the time. In a 1988 Supreme Court decision called Communication Workers of America vs. Beck, unions were forbidden to collect full union dues from non-members; only those dues that are supposed to reflect the true cost to the union as a collective bargaining agent. In other words, members could choose to resign their union membership and then only pay what is called the "agency fee" to keep their job. Obviously, there are problems with this ruling. Workers who wish to exercise these rights have to jump through hoops, and they are then persecuted and ridiculed on the job for doing so. The agency fee also includes all the educational and subjective political activities that unions engage in. Union newsletters and magazines are full of political propaganda, and union officials travel the country spewing hateful venom and a destructive worldview, yet their salaries are paid for with regular union dues. And there is so much more.

Athens, Greece Meets Athens, Ohio

Writing for the Fiscal Times, Liz Peek details how big labor and their big spending were able to hijack Ohio: Governor John Kasich, elected in 2010 and bequeathed an $8 billion budget gap. Like other governors across the country, Kasich took on the public employee unions, demanding limits to collective bargaining, voluntary payment of union dues and greater worker contributions towards pensions and healthcare. Having been battered in New Jersey, Wisconsin and even labor-friendly New York, union Bigs mobilized, eliciting millions in contributions from national unions like the SEIU in New York ($1 million), the AFL-CIO in D.C. ($1.5 million) and the National Education Association in D.C. ($2 million). Spending an estimated $30 million, organized labor is expected to have defeated Governor Kasich’s reforms. This script did not have to written.Near the end of the eighteenth century, agents of the Ohio Company established a new township along the Hockhocking River. They called it Athens, to remind settlers from the young United States of their debt to Greek democracy – an homage unlikely to be repeated any time soon. Watching the ongoing destruction of the Greek economy, we marvel at the depth of the country’s financial chasm, smugly secure that it couldn’t happen here. Surely, our citizens would prevent the soaring government spending and impossible promises to public workers that lie at the root of Greece’s collapse. The union juggernaut is a tragedy -- not yet a tragedy on the scale of Greece – but a scene from the same script. At the heart of the debt problems confronting Greece and other EU countries, and challenging the governments of Ohio and many other states, is the aging of our populations combined with the generous pensions and healthcare packages awarded to public sector workers. Seeking campaign support from unions, politicians for decades have paid to play.