‘Coronavirus’ Aid Shouldn’t Reward Egregious Fiscal Mismanagement On April 14, Big Labor Democrat politicians in Illinois, led by Senate President Don Harmon, demanded that Congress approve a multi-billion-dollar federal taxpayer bailout of their state’s underwater government pension funds. Credit: Justin…
Gov. Ralph Northam has opted to foist monopolistic unionism on Virginia even as other elected officials are desperately rolling it back. Credit: Credit: Bob Brown/Richmond Times-Dispatch, via AP Governor Signs Legislation He Plainly Knows Will Hurt Virginia Today, more than…
Even in good economic times, government-sector monopoly unionism routinely results in greater debt burdens, higher taxes, and inferior pubic services. In bad times, the impact can be disastrous. Credit: Sean Delonas, City Journal Big Labor Politicians’ Rendezvous With Reality –…
Find the February 2018 National Right To Work Newsletter pdf here.
New Jersey NEA Chief Backs Trillion-Dollar Federal ‘Loan Program’ (source: National Right to Work September 2015 Newsletter) For decades, many government union chieftains across America have enjoyed what effectively amounts to the ability to “elect our own boss,”…
From Reason: The latest Reason-Rupe poll of 708 Wisconsin adults on landline and cell phones suggests Wisconsin voters favor reforming public employee unions, over raising taxes and…
From the "progressive" Washington Post's Charles Lane, an exposure of public sector unionism and its unequaled influence on elected officials and the cost of government: Of course, collective bargaining in the public sector is inherently contrary to majority rule. It transfers basic public-policy decisions — namely, the pay and working conditions that taxpayers will offer those who work for them — out of the public square and behind closed doors. Progressive Wisconsin has a robust “open meetings” law covering a wide range of government gatherings except — you guessed it — collective bargaining with municipal or state employees. So much for transparency. Even worse, to the extent that unions bankroll the campaigns of the officials with whom they will be negotiating — and they often do — they sit on both sides of the table. More from Lane: The furious drive to oust Walker is the sequel to last year’s dramatic battle over his plan to limit collective bargaining by public-sector unions. Walker won that fight, despite tumultuous pro-union demonstrations in and around the state capitol and a boycott of votes on the bill by the Democratic minority in the legislature.
From the "progressive" Washington Post's Charles Lane, an exposure of public sector unionism and its unequaled influence on elected officials and the cost of government: Of course, collective bargaining in the public sector is inherently contrary to majority rule. It transfers basic public-policy decisions — namely, the pay and working conditions that taxpayers will offer those who work for them — out of the public square and behind closed doors. Progressive Wisconsin has a robust “open meetings” law covering a wide range of government gatherings except — you guessed it — collective bargaining with municipal or state employees. So much for transparency. Even worse, to the extent that unions bankroll the campaigns of the officials with whom they will be negotiating — and they often do — they sit on both sides of the table. More from Lane: The furious drive to oust Walker is the sequel to last year’s dramatic battle over his plan to limit collective bargaining by public-sector unions. Walker won that fight, despite tumultuous pro-union demonstrations in and around the state capitol and a boycott of votes on the bill by the Democratic minority in the legislature.
Trying to increase the number of workers who are forced to pay union dues as a condition of employment is perhaps the TOP priority for President Obama at the moment. Michael Barone takes the president to task for his consistent refusal to say no to the union bosses. Here is his rundown: [Obama] certainly can demonstrate that he cares about certain jobs -- the 7 percent of private-sector jobs and 36 percent of public-sector jobs held by union members. During his two years and nine months as president, he has worked time and again to increase the number of unionized jobs. Some pro-union moves have a certain ritual quality. Democratic presidents on taking office seek to strengthen federal employee unions. Fully one-third of the $820 billion stimulus package passed almost entirely with Democratic votes in 2009 was aid to state and local governments. This was intended to keep state and local public employee union members -- much more numerous than federal employees -- on the job and to keep taxpayer-funded union dues pouring into public employee union treasuries. In arranging the Chrysler bankruptcy, the Obama White House muscled aside the secured creditors who ordinarily have priority in bankruptcy proceedings in favor of United Auto Workers [union]. That's an episode that I labeled "gangster government." Former Obama economic adviser Lawrence Summers protested that his White House colleague Ron Bloom had made similar arrangements before. But in those cases Bloom was working for the unions, not for a supposedly neutral government.