Meet Your SEIU Babysitter and the Left’s Scheme to Unionize Everything
A district court judge checked the governor’s claim to power last week, granting a temporary restraining order halting the vote to unionize. While this is not the end of the battle in Minnesota, it is certainly a defining moment.
The Court believes that the separation of powers provisions of the Minnesota Constitution do not allow the governor to enact by executive order, a law which should be initiated in the legislature.
… in this Court’s view I think it is likely that the plaintiffs will prevail on the merits of this issue if it ever makes it to trial…
The moment defines not just the merits of the case, but the character of the defendants and the nature of their unionization effort. From the beginning of this episode in Minnesota, the unions and the governor have claimed that their goal is to serve the best interests of childcare providers, parents, and children most of all. However, they have done everything they could to avoid the scrutiny of the legislative process through which such interests are weighed.
Indeed, in the wake of the temporary restraining order, rather than take a step back and come at his effort from a more appropriate direction, Governor Dayton has stated that he will challenge the order in an upcoming injunction hearing. Apparently, the governor thinks he knows better than both the Court and the legislature how law ought to be made.
Childcare Freedom coalition spokesman Jeff Davis spelled out just how disappointing the governor’s response is:
… several interested parties were involved in discussions about alternative ways to facilitate the dialogue that was the governor’s stated objective. If this is all really about finding ways to increase Child Care Assistance Program subsidies and easing regulations, a taskforce could easily be formed to come up with recommendations for legislation. I don’t think the governor really needs to go to court again to have a discussion. There are less expensive, less heavy-handed means to have a conversation.
That observation added to the sum of the unionization effort thus far indicates that a conversation is the last thing Governor Dayton and his union allies want. It’s much easier to bleed the Childcare Freedom coalition with legal expenses until there is no one left with a dollar to fight back.
Hello France!!! Command and control anyone? A layman’s look at a scarily similar model too Obama’s:
For example, if I were to work in France and need a babysitter to care for my children rather than have the state care for them, I would have to pay the ‘sitter’ 10 Euros/hr. Mandated by regulation. Well … try finding a job in France that pays enough for a person to then pay a babysitter from his/her earnings, (Never, unless you are of the ‘privileged’ class) there is no alternative but to put children into ‘daycare’ (also state run) or give them to ‘state paid’ Nannies who take them to school if necessary; official private baby-sitters do not exist. France is currently 64th on the Heritage Foundation’s list of ‘economic freedom’ – worse than any other European country just about. Regulation and Union control does one thing: increases dependency upon the state through coercion – which is what Obama is all about. Everything Obama is doing resembles that of the French State – which to me, looks more like old school Fascism than anything else; where every aspect of life is regulated and controlled by the state.
France in a nutshell (figures are approximate):
1)The country is divided in ‘counties’ (called Departments)- where each village and surrounding area (commune) is 100% controlled and administered by the Mayor of each of those villages.
2)Groups of counties (2-5 depending) on the size, are called “Regions” (about 20+ in total). Each ‘region’ is administered by the “Prefect” (the boss of every mayor of every village in every county under his/her authority) – the “prefect” even controls the hunting season regulations in his ‘region’.
3) Each ‘prefect’ of each of the 20+ regions in France is accountable to a minister in the “Ministry of the Interior” (not sure about the name of the position of the minister or the Ministry’s correct name). Of course, the center of this control is in Paris; which gives rise to the phrase, “You control Paris … you control the country”.
Economic freedom in France is poor – which is why everyone’s ‘gone Galt’, creating a huge black market economy. Many rural people will satisfy law enforcement by having a legit job paying the usual minimum wage and access to healthcare; and then work on private cash-only jobs for the rest of the week; where they can not only make more money but they can also fins work that utilizes their competencies and as a result, can enjoy a higher standard of living and perhaps save a little money.
So what does Sarkozy propose?? More taxes. The French regime is draconian and tyrannical to the point of being inhumane IMHO; yet, there is a strange acceptance of a government “by the elite for the elite” and the monuments to dictators continue to be adored in Paris by subjects and visitors alike.
Now more than ever, the U.S.A. is a model for the rest of humanity so we can’t give it away to Statists like Obama; people are counting on us.
Sounds a lot like the “Gau” system under the Nazis, but it stops at the “Ort” level rather stopping at the Block or Cell level.
As a former Member of a “Mobbed-Up”[La Cosa Nostra] Chicago Teamster Local Union,I’ll say that if anyone from [a] union [SEIU] et.al. shows up at or near my grandchildren, they will be met with severe prejudice of the 2nd Amendment for “Indoctrination” in BULLETS! PERIOD!
“States and municipalities have begun to rebel against overly generous compensation schedules and benefit packages. All said, unions are having a hard time maintaining their iron grip on the taxpayer’s throat.”
Not in Wisconsin. There, a sitting governor who has tried to make a difference is now facing a recall election because of AFSCME and SEIU and God knows how many other unions (including the all-powerful teacher’s union). One Governor is trying to break the union’s stranglehold on a state and he is being destroyed because of it. And even after the governor has proved that by breaking these contracts the state can actually MAKE money, the union and the people don’t seem to care. Scott Walker, the governor of Wisconsin, is a man of great courage and principle, and we certainly need a lot more Republicans like him. It is disgusting what the unions and their minions did to the state capital in Wisconsin while they were “protesting” this issue. It was more like a terrorist invasion of the State Capital. Even the gutless Democrats in the State Senate literally ran away rather than face the idea of losing in an honest vote. Shame on them all. And the bums, thieves, and downright extortionists that run SEIU, AFSCME, and ACORN should be put in jail rather than be allowed to forcibly occupy public buildings. I really, really, hope Walker wins his battle. He certainly deserves it and the unions have to finally be taught that they can’t keep threatening people to get their own way. Mobsters behave that way, not responsible leaders. Oh, I’m sorry, with the number of mobsters that run the unions (especially the Teamsters), what did I expect?
Hey, I dealt with public employee unions for almost thirty years, I’ll take the olf-fashioned mobsters and wannabe mobsters over the “new-fashioned” communists any day. You can give the mobsters a little money and they’ll shut up, go away, at least to the next election, and let you run your government. The communists like AFSCME are just a constant PITA with singing songs and carrying signs, mau-mauing supervisors and managers, grievance campaigns, letter writing campaigns, any thing they can do to keep your workplace in constant turmoil.
And what every Republican governor, and even the Democrats that want to actually run their state, is very loudly and publicly publish the hours during which government buildings are open to the public. You have to allow a union at least the same access that you allow the public, so if you leave your capitol rotunda or lobby open all the time, the union can come in there and sing songs and carry signs all the time. If you have a clearly articulated policy that the building is closed at, say, 6PM, you can drag them out in handcuffs at 6:01 – if you have the guts and have enough control over your cops to see that they can’t manufacture a Saul Alinsky moment. What you have to worry about is unionized cops who’ll, of course, follow your order to remove their brothers and sisters, but will be a part of a planned media event so the TV cameras can get some good faked violence and injuries as the worthless punks are removed.
Arty boy! Don’t you know that unions are beautiful, man. They gave us the weekends off, the 8 hour day, and better wages. Why bash unions? They improve the quality of life for everyone in the country, including you. You don’t have to belong to one in Alaska I don’t think. Why complain? They get you stuff for free. They help liberals and commies, and by extension, other “lazy” Americans become entitled. Its great. I can sit on my ass and let the unions get me stuff. I dont have to work at all. And this is all paid for by redistributing your taxes to less fortunate people. Isn’t that patriotic? You get to help other Americans. And the best part is, you don’t even know where your tax money is going most of the time without going through hoops, and jumping through windows. Why complain? You are helping people! You are a hero, art! you are my hero! You work hard so people like me don’t have to, right?
Well, actually, I don’t work much anymore, none in the last three months since I broke my heel and can’t walk very well, not at all for awhile. You can take comfort in the fact that everytime you fill up your car, you’re contributing to my retirement and to my Permanent Fund Dividend. In this part of the World, we love $100/bbl. oil.
Alaska is heavily unionized including the entire executive branch workforce below the appointee level. Most heavy construction and nearly all publicly funded construction is union. Most public employee unions aren’t unions at all, they’re cash cows and muscle for the Democrat Party. The big wall to wall public employee unions like AFSCME or the National Extortion, excuse me, Education Association do a lousy job of representing their members and rarely even try if the member got crossthreaded with an administrtion the union supported. They are pretty good at politics but not if they have any real opposition. They thrive in the Blue places where the union and the Democrats can conspire agains the taxpayers.
Libertyship46… it does my heart good to see/hear you praise my governor, Scott Walker. Indeed, he is a brave soul. He is leading the way, showing how it can be done.
And, you are correct, he is being crucified for it. The Left is currently trying to satisfy the requirement of gathering 540,000 signatures for a recall election. Disgusting and absurd.
And, one thing that is harder to appreciate… the man (Walker) has completely stayed above the fray. There is no baiting, no snarky responses (and the Lord knows that the Left has deserved mucho snarky responses), no video snippet of him losing his cool and responding to some of the outlandish accusations, no heated exchange with a protester, no nothing! It is truly one of the neatest displays of decent statesmanship. (Interesting how everyone in America seems concerned about the “tone in partisan politics”. Yet, here’s a man deliberately NOT descending into the sewers, and there’s no mention of it.)
Thx for keeping Wisconsin in your thoughts. The fight isn’t over.
Cj
The really cool thing about the Walker recall is how that corrupt bag of douche Jimmy Bingo Doyle (lots of Indian Casino money) got to set up a “Government Accountability Board” – made up of retired Liberal judges to monitor things like elections verses a regular government agency accountable to the legislature.
This cabal of tax-payer-eating cannibals has already stated that they will accept every signature on every petition submitted (if Walker wants to validate the signatures he has to pay for them out of his own campaign-pockets). So now we got ACORN operatives here running around with recall petitions, Adolph Hitler, Daffy Duck, and the guy who stated he’d signed it like 80 times making up the numbers for the recall.
Not only that, StalinObamsky and his Holder thug are ginning up to stop all voter ID laws put in place to prevent 150 people from voting from one bungalow, buses with Georgia plates from making the rounds of polling places, the dead rising from the graves, the vegetable vote, people whose mailing addresses are in city parks, on bridges, or in the null-space between buildings and out in Lake Michigan…not to mention everyone in a union from Northern Illinois.
Its going to be a fun year…think about paying $4,026 in property taxes on an 84 year-old, $125,000 duplex in a neighborhood where I dropped renting the flat because the only tenants around here are the kind of entitled masses that would warm Obama’s heart … and what bringing back the Demoncrap corruption brigade to Madison will bring to my future.
First a quibble: SEIU is not AFSCME’s parent organization. They are both independent unions. AFSCME is an AFL-CIO affiliate but I’m not sure SEIU still is. I don’t follow this stuff so closely now that I’m retired but I think they went off on their own with the Laborers and perhaps others because they believed the AFL-CIO wasn’t doing enough organizing. Last I looked, AFSCME kept itself to strictly public employees so that it could escape federal regulation under the LMRDA. SEIU represents both public and private employees and at least for those parts of its structure representing private employees is subject to federal labor law and reporting requirements, not that stuff like reporting matters much in a Democrat administration.
I knew that the Earth had shifted under my feet when back in ’04 or ’05 I attened the annual conference of the Association of Labor Relations Agencies in Seattle. This group is composed of members of state and federal labor boards and people subject to their jurisdiction. One of the featured presentations was a VP for labor relations for a big CA healthcare provider and an SEIU organizer who did a joint presentation on how they had “partnered” to organize healthcare workers and all the political power that would give them to provide better healthcare to Californians. Took all I could do to restrain projective vomit!
They’ve already played this with some kinds of home healthcare providers in CA and perhaps other places. The do it in the standard Democrat way; the union petitions to represent a group of employees, with hardly a peek to see if the petitioned for group represents a rational community of interest, a Democrat governor enters into a mutual recognition agreement with the union, no election no bargaining unit composition hearings and determinations, just some contributions to the Gov paid back by giving the union some members. That’s the way my state’s whole Executive Branch workforce, including supervisors and confidentials, was “organized” back in the ’70s. We chipped away at some of the bargaining unit definitions from back then and moved some employees around, but never could get supervisors and confidentials out of bargaining even though the “employee” definition clearly doesn’t include them. If you’re going to do stuff like that, you start it when the Gov’s hand is coming off The Bible and you absolutely must get all the appeals finished well before the next general election. If you don’t, your case on appeal goes on the auction block in the gubernatorial election. Don’t ask me how I know!
As a former Member of a “Mobbed-Up” Chicago Teamster Local Union, I’ll say that if [any] SEIU Agent of any ‘TITLE”, or that of ANY UNION comes at or near my Grandchildren, THEY will be met with SEVERE PREJUDICE of the 2nd Amendment KIND for Indoctrination of BULLETS! PERIOD!
I’ll leave them Face Down in Their Own Pool Of Blood, and they can Thank Hoffa ["Bring These Sons of Bitches Down"] and Obama [If They Bring A Knife We'll Bring A Gun"] for their FATAL Demise.
I’ll NOT STAND BY AND WATCH THE FORCED & THREATENED BRAINWASHING OF MY GRANDCHILDREN WITH PROPAGANDA, LIES, DISCETE AND MAXIST-STATIST CONTROL BY HENCHMAN & THUGS OF ANY UNION.
I HAVE A RIGHT TO “DEFEND” MY FAMILY FROM “DOMESTIC TERROISTS” WHICH IS EVIDENCED BY HOFFA/OBAMA STATEMENTS.
Those who choose to do so better heed the “Conceal & Carry” laws across the Nation and in particular the “Castle Doctrine[s] and Amendments thereto as well.[Think Missouri]
It’ll be Tha Tha That’s All Folks!
“Bada Bing”! NEXT!
That’s “The Chicago Way” exported to Ozarks where the 2nd Amendment is upheld as is self defense. Red China’s New Found Friend Andy Stern BEWARE!
I’ll NOT STAND BY AND WATCH THE FORCED & THREATENED BRAINWASHING OF MY GRANDCHILDREN WITH PROPAGANDA, LIES, DISCETE AND MAXIST-STATIST CONTROL BY HENCHMAN & THUGS OF ANY UNION.
It happens every day in schools and colleges across this nation…where were your shouts when it started?
Unions are the primary political arm of the communist party. That is why Obama is so close to their leaders.
Bingo.
I love it….
The Public Teachers in my area (Bucks County PA) through their union, earn 100,000 average salary for just 180 days of “work” with numerous “mini vacations” tossed in the mix throughout the year. Like all those important “conferences” and “meetings” cant EVER happen between June and September I guess.
The median private sector salary of my area is half that, around 50,000, so we absolutely MUST have dual-income households to support our TAX BURDENS…We absolutely must have daycare/after school care for our kids because mom and dad are WORKING till past 6 PM every day (not 2:45 like the teachers) Plus for when the schools close for what seems like several day each month for various nonsensical reasons (see paragraph one)
Now these same unions that crush us with property taxes are going to “own” the very daycare institutions they forced us to employ because of the (wait for it!) Crushingly High Property Taxes, and astonishingly light work schedule they’ve set themselves up with, at our expense.
I’m with Chris…
We’re well past the point of no return.
I just hope the “ugly” happens while I’m still YOUNG enough to be a MEAN old man
RICO SEIU.
I believe in unions but I hate BIG UNION as much as BIG GOVERNMENT. They are all about self service.
You might as well say “I believe in the mafia, but not the BIG-TIME Mafia.”
Organized labor was a lot bigger in the 40s and 50s than it is now. They’re down to less than 8% of the private sector workforce, less than it was in ’32 prior to passage of the National Labor Relations Act. The FDR Administration through the War Production Board and similar agencies practically unionized the entire economy during WWII and under the original NLRA, there were no “right to work” states. Most defense contracts were like what we now call a project labor agreement where unionization was a part of the contract with the US and the unions and the contracting employer agreed that there would be no strikes or lockouts to impede war production and any disputes over application or interpretation of the labor agreement would be submitted to binding arbitration. My father building Liberty Ships and my mother working in a paper bag and box plant in Savannah, GA both had to be union. I think we still have my father’s union card from those days. Can you imagine what it was like for a 22 yr. old Southern farm kid to be making $50 – 75.00 a week take home pay in 1942; he was the king of the World. And actually he was handicapped by being born with “club feet,” which had been surgically somewhat repaired but he still didn’t have a natural walk or much strength in his legs so he was 4F. A person with his handicap would never have been employed in such work had it not been wartime. In any event, though he like most working there had never seen a ship before, they were building them. He was better educated than most, couple years of college, so he wound up laying the gun mounts for the anti-aircraft guns, which took some math skills. It was the late ’50s before he made that much in wages again and then only by dint of inflation.
In any event, many of the unions were communist controlled, especially among the so-called industrial unions in the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO). Many would not honor the no-strike provisions, most notably the United Mineworkers under John L. Lewis. And lots of people didn’t like being forced to join unions. Just the general bad behavior of unions during and especially right after the War led to the Taft-Hartley Amendment to the NLRA as the result of which the law was titled the Labor-Management Relations Act. When dealing with labor relations folk you can quickly tell whether somebody’s background is union or management by whether they call the law the NLRA or the LMRA. The unions to this day refuse to acknowlege the Taft-Hartley Amendment or the re-naming of the law and hate Republicans with a perfect intensity for having passed Taft-Hartley in ’48 over three (IIRC) vetoes by Truman. Taft-Hartley was followed by the Labor Management Reporting and Disclosure Act in, I think ’56 which attempted to make unions more financially accountable and more responsive to their members. This was also the time of the Congressional hearings into mob influence, particularly in the Teamsters, but the Teamsters were certainly not alone. And while the AFL and after the merger AFL-CIO took steps to at least make the communists put away their hammers and sickles, there was still plenty of communist influence especially in the Communications Workers and the West Coast Longshoremen led by Harry Bridges, last seen with his comrades on the Kremlin Balcony. The Harry Bridges/communist connection to Seattle and Hawaii goes a long way towards explaining Comrade Obama’s family history.
From Eisenhower through Reagan, the Republican Presidents generally tried to rein in union corruption and even the Democrats of that era weren’t all that tolerant of overt bad acts. Some unions, Teamsters, Laborers, and Food and Commercial Workers notably but certainly not exclusively, spent decades under DOJ/DOL supervision and there was a revolving door between union offices and federal penitentiaries. Along the way employers got really good at defeating organizing drives and mounting decertification campaigns. That along with changes in the economy spelled the doom of private sector unionization except in what many call the Third Sector, heavily regulated or heavily publicly funded industries, e.g., defense and aerospace, auto, regulated utilities, shipbuilding and maritime trades, heavy commercial construction, and publicly funded construction. But as the private sector unions went the way of the dodo bird, the public sector unions sprang up from the late ’50s onward. Public sector unions are not really unions within the meaning of labor organization as it is used in the LMRA and public sector bargaining is a creature of state, not federal law and is mostly completely unregulated. At a given time about half the states have widespread public employee bargaining. At first the AFL-CIO unions wanted nothing to do with public employees and most unionized public employess were in independent employee associations. By the ’70s declining membership and the general absence of regulation and reporting requirements for public employee unions piqued the AFL-CIO’s interest and they began a move to either affiliate or decert and replace the independent associations. By the ’90s public employees came to dominate the AFL-CIO and many public employee unions had become essentially socialist labor parties allied with the Democrat Party.
Well, that didn’t start out to be Labor History 101, but there you go.
Oh, and whatever bad you can say of them, and there is plenty, the unionized workforce of WWII performed prodigious feats of production, albeit at great cost. If you’ll recall the scene in “Saving Private Ryan” early in the movie looking out to sea from the bluff above Omaha Beach, there are ships and airplanes from horizon to horizon and vehicles, equipment, and men everywhere. That is a dramatization of an actual picture. The ONLY things in that picture that existed on 7 Dec 41, were two WWI battleships in the bombardment fleet and the men themselves who were mostly still in high school. And that was just one of three full scale invasion fleets that the US had.
if you would please, find a way to write union history articles for Pjm, or on a blog, so that they are searchable by google. as it is, I have to trip over your writing, to find what you’ve written. sometimes it’s grouchy old guy, sometimes it’s fascinating stuff that I don’t know anything about.
I do hope you write this down, for an education for the rest of us.
Thank you for the kind words! Sometimes I am “grouchy old guy,” especially when dealing with lefties and “true conservative” purists.
For a paltry $9.99 you can have everything I know about public employee unions and running a Republican government in a unionized environment right here: http://www.amazon.com/Red-Blue-Establishing-Republican-ebook/dp/B005M784HW/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1325280069&sr=8-1
this seems inevitable
if spontaneous lemonade stands can be called unsafe and, by extension, illegal how on earth can our most precious resource, “DA’ CHILREN’,” ever be left in the care of some neighbor who most obviously lacks the proper accreditation and totalitarian training…
If they find private child care providers that way similar means could be used to find illegal aliens, electric, cable bills, etc. Then they could unionize them. Drug traffickers too.
“It’s much easier to bleed the Childcare Freedom coalition with legal expenses until there is no one left with a dollar to fight back.” This aspect in almost all areas of life in the US is not getting enough attention.
Whether it’s Environmentalists wackos, union thugs, or just being carful to use the Politically Correct terminology. All it takes is a law suit by some Leftist person or group, no matter how illegitimate, just an intentional harassment suit, and you will be financially wiped out by your legal defense fees, which the Progressives and their lawyer alies are well aware of.
I can’t wait… Obama wins in 2012 with Hillary as VP, Biden as SecState. The unions will all be declared to be “formal” militias with arrest authority. The EPA, IRS, and all other Government agencies will be allowed to set up their own jails. All white anglo-saxon persons (WASPs) will be required to carry papers at all times; other ethnic groups — not so much. The Democrat party will change its name to Democrat-Communist party and Republicans will not be allowed to participate in local, state or federal Government elections.
Welcome to the Union of Socialist States of America.
just change– Democrat-communist party to Democratic People’s Party and we’re there
Well, I guess it’s not quite enough for the small c’s to indoctrinate our kids while they sit in publicly-funded schools, they have to take over the day-care hours too. Sheesh.
Back in the ’70s and into the ’80s, barber shops were “unionized”. I always wondered how that worked. Who do they strike against? Eventually, Asians undercut them, and now there are no more “union shops”.
In the west, there’s an employee-owned supermarket chain out of Boise called Winco. The unions aren’t happy about them, and picket the stores. How would that work if they were unionized? How do employees strike against themselves? I’ve been to several Winco stores, and the employees there all seem very happy. No wonder the unions are on the warpath.
My mother finally divorced her abusive, controlling husband when I turned 18 and custody battles were no longer a threat. By then she was in her late 50s with no employment record, no marketable job skills, and a minuscule alimony that my father didn’t pay – jail time was preferable to him than that! But her experience in raising children could be used; she opened up a small daycare in her home. And it’s people like her that the union wants to exploit and wring for dues. Gaaaargh.
Well, that is how they think of us. Not as Citizens existing within a great experiment in Democracy, but as self-aware units whose entire purpose is to produce for the their “machine.”
An utter perversion of the meaning of “Citizen,” is it not?
True to its reputation as a Progressive petri dish, California is taking this to the max. Not only do our dear leaders and greedy union goons in Sacramento want to unionize child daycare workers (all of them, not just those whose clients receive public assistance to pay for the service), they want to unionize housekeepers and gardeners as well.
If this passes, the state will dictate how much I have to pay my housekeeper, will force me to pay workers’ compensation and force her to take specified breaks and mealtimes. She already makes a well-deserved $25 p/hour, sets her own schedule so she can be in and out of my house in four non-stop hours leaving it spotless, which works out perfectly for her as she is done in time to pick up her children from school. She is already covered against injury by my homeowners’ insurance policy. In other words, she and I have worked out a mutually agreeable private contract and if the state meddles it will be detrimental to both of us.
This is the same back door method that SEIU used in California to get named as representing Home Health Workers. They manufactured a group of home healthcare workers and petitioned the State to name them as representative based on the request of this astroturfed group.
California pols were more than happy to do that and Home Health workers in California now have a Union that they never asked for, but they have to pay for.
the SEIU “organized” home day care providers in Maryland by giving the governor $2 million for his campaign and then having him do it by executive order. irony is there is a three tier day care system in the state. licensed providers, semi-legal unlicensed home day care providers, and totally unlicensed under the table providers. it was the homes daycare providers that that the SEIU wanted and got dues from by “negotiating subsidies” THe providers wound up getting essentially nothing for their dues.
The SEIU and AFSCME divvy up territory rather than compete for membership in the home daycare racket. The SEIU is a truly evil and ruthless lot way more interested in socialism and political power than the welfare of their members for whom they care little. At least the Teamsters as crooked as they may be get you a good contract.
Sheesh, it would be tough to run a day care in that state before the union moved in.
I thought the Copper Bosses shot you, Joe!
Back in the 60′s unions were attacked by the gov. because they were not for the people. They were the 1% of the working force if you could get a union job you were set a civil service job didn’t pay much but you could retire after 20 years and get a real job now it’s better to get a gov. job… and still only 10% of the work force is union, so why does the gov. worry so much about what the union says……. union member for 35 years.
There really are very few unions and employers who engage in the purely economic dynamic of collective bargaining that was contemplated with private sector unionization under the NLRA, as amended. Today, the political dynamic far, far outweighs the economic. If a developer wants to develop a large project that will require significant permitting, exercise of emminent domain, or public funding of any sort, the unions will ally with the greenies and yank the chains of every politician and bureaucrat over which they have power. Union opposition can only be eliminated by giving them a project labor agreement that guarantees that all hiring will be through the union and where legal all employees on the job will be union. The unions will usually but not always hold out for their strange bedfellow allies, the greenies, getting what they want, though sometimes the only thing the greenies want is to kill the project altogther. In that case, the unions will go their on way and back the project if they get a PLA. If the greenies are to be placated, their price is bleeding edge environmental technology, usually only available from companies allied with or fronting for greenie groups and which usually have very good, and usually Democrat poltical connections and lobbying power.
If the greenies want tougher auto emissions rules, their friends the UAW will ally with them and use it as a stick to get more for themselves. If an auto or aircraft maker is seeking a government contract, the unions will use their political power to thwart the maker’s getting the contract until the union gets what it wants. The UAW and the IAM have far more power over US defense procurement than does the DoD or, usually, the Congress.
In the public sector where states have authorized wall to wall collective bargaining, about half the states, the unions own the state government. I live in and once worked in labor relations for the only state that has consistently had either a Republican Legislature or Governor or both which has unionized employees. The reason for that is that the unions own the Democrats and the oil industry owns the Republicans. When you represent the government it is like having Saul Alinsky on one side of you and the governor general of the British East India Company on the other; neither play nice. It is further complicated by the fact that sometimes Saul and the governor general become allies if a Democrat offers them enough. For example, any Republican governor would have been hung from the flagpole in front of the Anchorage Daily News for giving the oil companies the concessions and tax settlements a recent Democrat governor gave them, but at the time the unions and the industry could make common cause because a candidate was willing to give them both what they wanted. The government of Alaska has long been interested in providing a road link to Juneau, the capital, now accessible only by ship or plane. The greenies are adamantly opposed to that or any other road in Alaska. That same Democrat seeking to sop the greenies by not advocating for the road but wanting to keep his union friends on his side tried to split the baby. He figured he could go against the construction trades unions who backed the road by giving them plenty of other goodies and get the maritime unions on his side by buying some new ferries to provide better seaborne access. Before the greenies will play they have to insist on their cut which causes the ferries to be bleeding edge techology of a sort that has never been run successfully or economically in this Country and no one has even tried to run such vessels under American Admiralty and labor laws. A further price was they had to be built in a union shipyard in a non-right-to-work state, which effectively doubled the price. So, the State of Alaska gives the contract to a union shipyard with very good connections to the Clinton Administration – it was practically a ward of the federal government – in a state whose Congressional delegation has historically opposed everything the State of Alaska supports with regard to resource development, and 100 million dollars later we have two overpriced and uneconomic white elephants. Now, that should give you some understanding as to why some governments concern themselves with unions.
I have your e-book on my shopping list for the future when I can finally afford a Kindle (or the like) and discretionary spending for books. (This may be after we emigrate; it all depends on 2012…)
Be that as it may, I think that you should be writing a labor column for PJM. I would suggest that the comment moderators pass this suggestion along to the PJM powers-that-be. It’d be a huge readership draw for PJM.
Thank you for the kind words! You can download a Kindle reader for your computer and even most smartphones free from Amazon, so don’t let that stand in your way. That said, I love dead tree books and still have hundreds in my home, but from here on out, if its available on Kindle, I get it on Kindle and the only exception is collector, leather bound, or other special books that I just like to have around me. Again, thanks for the kind words.
It’s good to see so many people who really understand the evil underpinnings of SEIU and AFSCME.
Now let me clue you in on the fact that many, if not MOST Child Protective Services people belong to SEIU or AFSCME. You know- the people who kidnap kids from good enough homes and make them Legal Orphans so the agencies can collect the Federal Funding Streams.
They literally are destroying America from the inside by destroying families. And it’s deliberate.
AFTER ALL- “Destroy the family, you destroy the country.” -Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
And if you might be really curious where THAT came from-
http://revolution2.us/content/docs/history/communist/manifesto.htm#family
Leonard Henderson, co-founder
American Family Rights
http://familyrights.us
“Until Every Child Comes Home”©
“The Voice of America’s Families”©
LOL
Thanks for writing this and informing people about childcare providers and other fighting to stop SELF-EMPLOYED small business owners from being forced to unionize (yes, “dues” are voluntary, but fair share fees are not. AFSCME and SEIU are very careful about the words they use and don’t address fair share fees).
I’d like to make 2 important clarifications:
1) Judge Lindman issued his ruling on December 5.
2) Childcare Freedom has been awesome in this fight to protect our rights as individuals, but US PROVIDERS have been working against this for years, most notably through all of 2011. I just want people to realize that this IS NOT a partisan fight as PROVIDERS have been leading the charge against this, spending our own time and money to prevent unionization of family childcares. Childcare Freedom has handled the financial and logistical support for the lawsuit and we desperately need your help to stop this…any amount helps! If we can be unionized, what’s to stop them from doing the same to doctors, grocers, homeschoolers, Mary Kay reps, independent anyone?!
Thanks for your support. Please visit http://www.childcarefreedom.com for more info and learn how you can help. Happy New Year!
Wow… This is the old method of babysitting advertising.. now a days you can registered on sitter websites, and you get thousand of jobs…. But you could be certified…
The Unions have turned the United States into a shitty country. There is no pride anymore. There is no work ethic. It’s all, gimme..gimme. Well, I don’t want to live in a shitty country. Does anyone know how unionized Australia is? I’ve been thinking maybe about leaving the United Crappy States of America (made crappy by the left and the lazy bums and the unions)and permanently moving to Australia, unless the Aussies have the same left wing crap we have. Maybe their economy is more laissez faire.
I don’t want to give my expertise, my brain power, my tax dollars to a crappy government. If Australia is what the USA used to be, then I want to live there, give my loyalty to that government, and give them my tax dollars.
The only thing that would make me want to stay in the United Crappy States of America (made shitty by the leftists and the unions)would be a civil war (which I pray for every night) that will restore sanity to the country, and drive all the leftists, Marxists, unionists, lazy entitlement bums to Canada where they can screw up that country. Realistically, a civil war could divide the country into two separate nations, one a crap hole of lazy, entitled people, with high taxes and an absolute in the toilet economy and a single political party, and one of people who believe in hard work, in getting what you earn, not what some politician gives you, a country of no labor unions, with multiple political parties and no democratic party.
If we had a civil war that divided the United Crappy States of America into two separate nations, then I would not want leave for Australia. I could live in a country that I could be proud of. But no civil war seems to be on the horizon.