Public unions thrive at taxpayer expense - 1 views
-
Gary Edwards on 09 Dec 11The bottom line is that the public unions continue to increase their wages and benefits, inspite of the economic free fall the economy is in, because they ruthlessly use members dues for lobbying and bargaining with politicians who are paying them with "other people's money". CC provides some interesting diagrams describing how the scam works, and, he does point to two solutions being tested in Wisconsin and Indiana. In Wisconsin, gov Walker is trying to end public sector "collective bargaining". While Gov Daniels in Indiana has successfully ended the the requirement that the State deduct union workers membership dues from their pay checks. When given the chance to choose, most union workers chose NOT to pay those dues. The Daniels method seems to be working very well, and is based on an easy to understand Constitutional principle; money earned is personal property, and the individual should have the right to chose what happens to their property. There are some other things that might be tried, although i think the Daniels principle should be an automatic first step taxpayers take to restore Constitutional Rule of Law. .... Break strike threat with non union replacements President Reagan was tested by the public sector unions when they threatened a strike by the thought to be essential and irreplaceable Air Controllers union. Reagan called them on it, and brought in non union replacements to break the strike. Painful, but it worked. ..... Privatization The most basic and Constitutional response is to privatize the service, and turn it over to the open market of competitive contract bids. Works every time, but the awarding of contracts has it's own level of political corruption and influence peddling. Personally i would prefer a grand jury approach to oversight problem involved in the awarding of contracts. Citizens need to be pressed into the task of backstopping political corruption. Any connection of cross channeling of people or t