One Wisconsin Democrat says…if people don’t like paying union dues that are used to support Dem candidates, they can always get another job.
State Rep. Nick Milroy is the Democratic state representative from Wisconsin’s 73rd assembly district. He was on America’s Radio News with anchors Chris Salcedo and Lori Lundin. Salcedo pointed out that union membership was split by their votes in 2010, 49% for Democrats and 47% for Republicans, nearly an even split. But unions donated 93% of their total contributions to Democrats in 2010, and 7% to Republicans or others. The question was asked if the assemblyman could understand why Republicans were not in favor of having tax payer funded dues go to fund Democrat campaigns? The assemblyman contended that public employees can opt out of the unions. But when pressed about how even those that opt out must pay union dues, the assemblyman suggested that those people that didn’t want to be part of a union could find other work.
Get that? You’ll be forced to donate to a party that you don’t support, and you’ll like it!
Wisconsin is a unionized state, where right-to-work laws do not apply. So in many trades and occupations, there is no option to get another job without changing careers. That plus the high unemployment makes Milroy’s comments particularly heartless.
Politicians can have only one master. The unions or the people; which shall it be?
The unions ARE the people. The choice is the corporations or the people. And the GOP is firmly in the pocket of the corporations.
What you mean to say is that corporations consist of people. As do unions. They’re the same entity. There is no difference between a union and a corporation. Unions exist for their own sake, as do corporations. Unions can donate to political candidates just as much as corporations can. Unions cannot “love” and cannot “feel pain.” They’re legal entities.
You really didn’t think that through, did you?
Unions ARE the people? Well hell, THEY can pay all the taxes.
Yours is a common misconception. Unions donate 93% to democrats, while corporations are almost exactly 50/50 between democrats and republicans. Check it out on opensecrets.org, which by the way is primarily funded by liberals such as Soros and the Ford Foundation.
Typical Orwellian leftist pronouncement. The vast majority of Americans aren’t members of unions and don’t want to join them. Most of them are self-employed or work for small companies, how would a union fit in there? So what are they, chopped liver? Many people work for large corporations – they aren’t “people” either?
So your statement is false on its face, and in true Stalinist fashion, you have to erase the reality of enormous amounts of people just to make it. Typical leftist.
Unions are NOT the people. Union members are part of the people, as are non-union workers. Unions are an organization of people, just like corporations, and their leaders are just as greedy and unaccountable as the corporate leaders you fear. Actually unions are worse in many ways since they are not subject to laws against monopolistic callusion as are corporations, and they exclusively favor one party, instead of donating equally to both.
Public employee unions are a complete monopoly, since they represent those who work for a monopoly, gov. And private unions are allowed monopolistic practices, like being able to unionize an entire sector, and play one company in that sector against another, like the UAW did for years with the automakers, until foreign automakers, with non-union plants in the USA finally provided them with some real competition. And as others stated, repubs get no more money, and are no more subject to the will of big corporations and the super wealthy, than are dems. Just look at Obamas cozy relationship with GE, wall street, and George Soros. Note also that there are far more super wealthy dem politicians than repubs. The repub counterpart to unions is small business not big corporations and the super rich. The real devide is betwen those that benefit from more gov, and gov handouts, to both business and individuals, and those that benefit from less gov.
I hope the voters of his district remember this — and tell him to get another job.
Yet another dem who deserves a Darwin award.
O.k., Maybe it’s just me. I agree with him. Actually, if someone has been paying union dues for years and is just now realizing that by FREELY ACCEPTING employment in a union-monopolized industry in a union-monopolized State, they have been financially supporting the advancement of communism in America; then perhaps I’d have some sympathy for the poor, ignorant, dupe as he collects unemployment while trying to find another career. On the other hand, if they have known what union leaders have been doing with their money (and I cannot conceive that they haven’t); then I sincerely hope the union fails, they lose their job, their benefits, and their pensions; they are barred from ever collecting any form of welfare or social security; and that they are unable to become gainfully employed ….. anywhere, …. ever.
That’s just my opinion. I could be right.
The hypotheticals you laid out are not structured in a manner to determine whether you could be right. So no, you cant be right.
If teachers in Wisconsin don’t like what the Governor is doing, they can get another job.
^^ This.
Why is it not extortion if I have to pay someone to get a job, and then continue paying them to keep it, and then they use that money in ways that I find unpalatable…
Yet that is exactly the conservative/libertarian/Republican/Ayn Randian response to complaints about mandatory membership in an HOA union as a condition of home ownership.
Even though HOA unions are creations of government policy [ http://onthecommons.net/2007/04/30/on-the-commons-with-steve-siegel.aspx ], and represent another layer of government, double taxation, serve the interests of parasitic lawyers who threaten the private property rights of millions of American home owners, and are communist in nature.
Hmmmm……..
So one has to support a particular party to be employed in Wisconsin for a class of occupations? Are you freaking kidding me? This idiot said it out loud?
Ok if you want to be a doctor. lawyer accountant, or ANYTHING except a teacher a few percent of your pay confiscated and donated to the Republicans….. sounds fair
Finally, after all the decades of hiding in the shadows while extorting taxpayers to fund the circle of corruption, public unions are in the spotlight. They and their corrupt enablers are seeing the end of the march to Marxist Utopia as states fight bankruptcy. Union leaders are caught in the inevitable cross between scarce resources and the electronic age. Technology has obsolesced the public school model of brick and mortar, and the best way to improve education is electronic, computer-enabled learning, which will provide individualized instruction. Private schools and home schoolers have already moved forward, with proven results. Vouchers and charter schools cost less and provide better quality education, freeing everyone from the union parasites who use the teachers and politicians for their own agenda. The free market will solve this problem.
WHat this assemblyman may have intimated, is that union members are simultaneously dues paying Democrat party members. If that’s the case, how can someone defend public sponsorship of just one party? It seems akin to an established state party.
Right, “…those funds can be segregated…”, who’s gonna be in charge of that?
The same guys that are lobbying to deny their members a secret ballot?
Unions are a racket pure and simple. 99% of the stunts the pull routinely, would land a non union square straight in jail.
I was in a union Pal, so don’t tell me.
The Democrats are now convinced they have won this. They look at polls that show Walker’s support under 50%. They should fight this out on that theory. He has been there before, as MIlwaukee County executive and was overwhelmingly re-elected. Now is the time to find out which philosophy is preferred by the taxpayers. If the Democrats win, the lid is off the union power. But, if not, the unions are dead.
Seems like a deal to me.
“1. Avoid profanities or foul language…”
Well, so much for my comment…
“Live by the sword, die by the sword.” If the public employees act like a branch of a political party, and their party loses an election, they should pay the price.
yes, we all know libs are a total joke
I love this idea. Does this mean that this guy is so open and democratic that he would immediately stand up and call for an anonymous vote from all Union members Nationwide to see if they support or repudiate their Union membership? As a Union man myself let me unashamedly say, please, Bring it on!
And by the same reasoning, if an employee doesn’t like his work conditions, he can just go and find another job. I read that as an argument against the need for unions. In fact that could easily be a quote from some union-busting robber baron. Jeez.
The poll results are … interesting. Ask general questions about collective bargaining rights, the public is generally in favor of that. Ask questions about Gov. Walker’s specific proposals, and people are in favor of them, too.
But it’s not just Wisconson and Republican controlled governments working to bridle GEUs, it’s Ohio, New York, et al.
Of course, this same Democrat would be screaming if my private employer held a company-wide meeting and said that some of this year’s profits, and thus unavailable for distribution, would be supporting Rep candidates. And then passed the hat around for “voluntary” donations. And if anyone didn’t like the Rep posters, emails and “company arranged” meetings, they should look for another job.
I left my first job at a local supermarket after they told me I’d have to join a union and start paying dues (that supermarket chain no longer exists, btw). A decade later, I worked for a state university and when local unions started their campaign of unionizing employees in my line of work, I told them and my supervisor that if that ever happens I’ll leave. And eventually I did.
If people would leave jobs they don’t like, we as a society would be in a much better place (and so would they individually). This, of course, requires that people generally be more educated, proficient, and independent than they are now.
Exactly. I’m not sure how it was determined that the CHOICE of employment should no longer be subject to Free Market concepts of supply and demand; but it has been so determined — even by those who consider themselves supporters of Free Market principles.
Kind of like when George Bush said he’d “abandoned his Free Market principles to save the Free Market.” Except that they’ve abandoned Free Market principles in exchange for higher pay and benefits.
I have a Mexican friend, hell I’m from west Texas – I have lots of Mexican friends, but I digress. Fidel has a petroleum engineering degree from a university in Mexico. The only place he could obtain employment in Mexico using his newly minted degree was Pemex. The HR person with whom he interviewed at Pemex was willing to hire him……for an upfront fee of $25,000. This was back in about ’82 when $25,000 was serious money. Especially in Mexico. It was about 2.5 years of gross salary if I remember correctly. He instead chose to cross the border and work illegaly as a truck driver. He has a permanent worker’s visa now and makes about $75,000 a year hauling tanks in and out of the oilfields in west Texas and eastern New Mexico. One of the best educated oilfield truck drivers out there.
It’s just occurred to me recently that paying to gain and maintain employment is not a corruption found solely in third world sewers like Mexico. You can find that same corruption right here in America. Living in non-unionized Texas, it had just never occurred to me.
Story quote is a good example of why Right to Work is needed. Having the employees of a business vote on unionization and the majority deciding for all is tyranny of the majority. Letting those who want a union unionize while those who disagree don’t is freedom.