LOOK FOR THE UNION FABLE
By Ann Coulter
AnnCoulter.com
The good news out of Wisconsin is that public
school students' test scores skyrocketed last week,
mystifying educators. The bad news is many
student-teacher love affairs were hard-hit without
access to janitors' closets and locker rooms.
Democrats are acting as if Wisconsin Gov. Scott
Walker's demand that public sector employees give up
collective bargaining would have George Washington
rolling in his grave (a clear violation of
Gravediggers' Local 803 regulations concerning the
rolling of the dead).
In fact, government employees should never, ever be
allowed to organize.
The need for a union comes down to this question: Do
you have a boss who wants you to work harder for
less money? In the private sector, the answer is
yes. In the public sector, the answer is a big, fat
NO.
Government unions have nothing in common with
private sector unions because they don't have
hostile management on the other side of the
bargaining table. To the contrary, the "bosses" of
government employees are co-conspirators with them
in bilking the taxpayers.
Far from being careful stewards of the taxpayers'
money, politicians are on the same side of the
bargaining table as government employees -- against
the taxpayers, who aren't allowed to be part of the
negotiation. This is why the head of New York's
largest public union in the mid-'70s, Victor Gotbaum,
gloated, "We have the ability to elect our own
boss."
Democratic politicians don't think of themselves as
"management." They don't respond to union demands
for more money by saying, "Are you kidding me?" They
say, "Great -- get me a raise too!"
Democrats buy the votes of government workers with
generous pay packages and benefits -- paid for by
someone else -- and then expect a kickback from the
unions in the form of hefty campaign donations,
rent-a-mobs and questionable union political
activity when they run for re-election.
In 2006, 10,000 public employees staged a rally
outside the New Jersey State House to protest the
mere discussion of a cut to their gold-plated
salaries and benefits. Then-Gov. Jon Corzine leapt
onto the stage shouting: "We will fight for a fair
contract!"
Only later, someone noticed: Wait -- isn't he
management? (It takes a special kind of courage to
promise 10,000 crazed union agitators that you'll
fight to get them more money.)
Service Employees International Union officials
openly threaten California legislators. At a 2009
legislative hearing, an SEIU member sneered into a
microphone: "We helped
to getchu into office, and we gotta good memory.
Come November, if you don't back our program, we'll
getchu out of office."
It used to be widely understood that collective
bargaining has no place in government employment. In
1937, the American president beloved by liberals,
FDR, warned that collective bargaining "cannot be
transplanted into the public service." George Meany,
head of the AFL-CIO for a quarter century, said
unions were not appropriate for civil servants. As
recently as 1978, the vast majority of states
prohibited unionization of government employees.
Anytime there is the slightest suggestion that
perhaps in the middle of a deep recession, public
school teachers should pay 1.5 percent of their
salaries toward their extravagant health care plans
for their entire families, suddenly we get
television ads of hard-working men doing dangerous
jobs on docks and in foundries while being abused by
their greedy capitalist overseers.
The unions must be desperately hoping that no one
will notice ... Wait a minute! WE'RE TALKING
ABOUT TEACHERS! This isn't the Discovery
Channel's "Dirty Jobs" -- it's Mrs. Cooper's
seventh-grade "values clarification" class.
With heavy union dues, labor has plenty of money to
pay for propaganda and to threaten and bribe
politicians.
On his first day in office, the Republican governor
of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, signed an executive order
denying public sector employees the right to bargain
collectively -- something that had been granted,
naturally, by a Democratic governor.
As a result, Indiana government employees instantly
got to take home an extra thousand dollars that no
longer went to union dues -- and good employees
started getting raises, while bad employees got
cashiered.
But government workers think the job of everyone
else in the economy is to protect their high
salaries, crazy work rules and obscene pensions.
They self-righteously lecture us about public
service, the children, a "living wage" -- all in the
service of squeezing more money from the taxpayer to
fund their breathtakingly selfish job arrangements.
There's never a recession if you work for the
government. The counties with the highest per capita
income aren't near New York City or Los Angeles --
they're in the Washington, D.C., area -- a
one-company town where the company is the
government. The three counties with the highest
incomes in the entire country are all suburbs of
Washington. Eleven of the 25 counties with the
highest incomes are near Washington.
For decades now, the Democrats have had a good gig
buying the votes of government workers with
outrageous salaries, benefits and work rules -- and
then sticking productive earners with the bill. But,
now, we're out of money, no matter how long
Wisconsin Democrats hide out in Illinois.
COPYRIGHT 2011 ANN COULTER
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