The Unions That Are Destroying Our Country

Republicans are trying to save this country- pulling it out of the depths of recession while liberals are kicking and screaming to continue their job crushing, debt accelerating, anit-American ways that are destroying this country. These liberals are using their public sector unions, and the Democrats those unions have put in office with taxpayer money to milk taxpayers dry… you know, the people that are actually working for their money?

Liberals seem to view government as the “company” providing jobs to those who couldn’t get a job in the private sector due to their skills, attitude or sense of entitlement. Then they get paid more to produce less. Sounds like your typical liberal thought process.

There is no room for public sector workers to unionize. There is a big difference between a private sector union and a public sector union. Even FDR and former AFL-CIO president agreed with this point. FDR said, “…collective bargaining cannot be transplanted into the public sector” while former AFL-CIO president, George Meany, says, “Unions are not appropriate for civil servants.”

Liberals don’t seem to understand that there exists a difference between the two different kinds of unions, public and private. Ever since this latest fiasco in Wisconsin liberals have been trying to knock conservative pundits like Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck for siding with Governor Scott Walker on the issue of public sector unions. Liberals say these guys don’t know what they are talking about; they belong to unions themselves. Hey, smart guys- those are private sector unions they belong to. Even Ronald Reagan, the father of the modern conservative movement, belonged to a union…. that’s a private sector union.

There are many reasons there is no room for public sector unions; but all those reasons originate from one fundamental business practice, “negotiations”. Government unions don’t have hostile management on the other side of the bargaining table like private sector unions do. The government “bosses” are part of those same unions themselves and they are on the same side of that same negotiating table. That means the taxpayers don’t even have a seat at the table, making it so the workers get whatever they want because they have no one they are negotiating against. So, management and the workers are bargaining against no one for their better wages and benefits.

Due to liberals and these unions getting their way for so long public sector workers are making ridiculous amounts of money and benefits without having to produce.

In the private sector workers are expected to produce a certain amount to make their share of the company’s profits, their wages. If they produce more there is an opportunity to make more, if they produce less they lose their job. This isn’t the case in the public sector. There is no incentive for the public sector worker to produce more or even what is expected. They will get their wages, with automatic pay increases, no matter what their output. Just look at the teachers of New York getting paid to sit around to do nothing because they are unfit to be in a classroom. Due offenses ranging from insubordination and incompetence all the way to sexual misconduct. The taxpayers are footing the bill at the tune of $65 million a year for these teachers to sit around and play Scrabble.

On top of that, due to the public sector unions “negotiations”, if you want to call them that, even if these civil service workers don’t produce what is expected it is nearly impossible to fire them. Then, when/if cuts are needed and people need to be let go the decision of who to lay-off is made solely by seniority, not merit.
What makes this all even worse is the federal worker makes substantially more than his counterpart in the private sector. In 2009, the average public sector worker made $123,049 in salary and benefits while the average public sector worker made $61,051. Then, when just wages are considered both the hourly and salary employee of the federal government makes 57% more than the private sector worker.

Liberals, like John Berry of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management (OPM), love to say that this is not comparing apples-to-apples because the federal worker is on average more skilled and/or schooled than the private sector worker. Well, the Heritage Foundation did two studies that accounted for skill, education and even experience (apples-to-apples) and the federal employee still made 22% more in wages than the private sector worker. Twenty-two percent is a lot when the private sector worker probably produces around double what his private sector counterpart produces.

Private sector workers, in 2010, quit their jobs at a rate of 1.6% while public sector workers quit at a rate of 0.2%. All this being said it very apparent why public sector workers don’t quit their jobs. They make amazing wages, have great benefits, can’t be fired and don’t have to produce anything, and they don’t…. why would anybody quit that job?

All of this waste is costing the taxpayers a fortune. If the wages and benefits of federal employees were reformed to market rates it would save the taxpayers around $50 billion a year at the federal level alone. This doesn’t mean that Congress should uniformly reduce the rates. What they should do is expand outsourcing to the public sector and replace the current system with a new performance based pay system. Congress should also bring the federal benefits in line with market rates.

Of course these liberal filled unions don’t like this because they will actually be forced to work for once. They also would get passed up by the guy that is actually working and producing what he was hired to produce. Seniority would no long be they safety net it is today.

Not only have unions been telling Democrats they put in office, with taxpayer money, what to do but those Democrats have been promising the public sector unions more money, more benefits and more job security. If those Democrats, that are elected with the dues the union members pay (whether they want to or not), don’t support the union in every aspect they are told they will be removed from office.

Elected officials have no offsetting concern when negotiating with public unions, at least Democrats don’t. The more taxpayer money these officials get the unions- the more the unions will contribute to their campaigns for reelection.

After years of this same routine, finally the battered taxpayers have some people fighting for them at that negotiating table. Governors like Chris Christie, Mitch Daniels and Scott Walker have been reforming the systems in their states to work the way things are supposed to.

For example, Governor Scott Walker cut through the pleasantries and announced what the state really was, BROKE! Instead of letting the state’s credit card continue to go past its spending limit, he proposed a solution. Part of that solution, which didn’t include raising taxes like the Democrats have done for years, was to curtail the collective-bargaining right of state employees- restoring the voter and taxpayer control over the system. This has been called an assault by many, including the president. The problem is this isn’t an assault and it is the only way for Wisconsin and other states alike to have a responsible, fiscally sound government.

This caused unions to go ballistic, bitching and moaning, launching protests at the state capital of Madison- All just because they were asked to contribute to their pensions and healthcare, still around 30-40% less than the average private sector worker does. The protests were supposed to help the unions gain public support. Of course, during the protests, the unions fail to inform the public, in their chants, that they have continuously confiscated the rights of their members, or how their demands will bankrupt the state.

It really is too bad for the unions because Mitch Daniels did this exact same think in Indiana and it saved the members $1000/yr. It also made it so the members who didn’t what to pay their dues, which automatically go to the Democratic Party, didn’t have to. So for these union members to say that they won’t be able to live on these new wages and without collective bargaining is absurd.

Then the unions say that are “for the people”, they aren’t “for the people”, they are “for the Democrats.” Time and time again these same unions have proved that they are more interested in their political agendas and the union big wigs than their actual rank and file members. There have been so many instances where the unions have decided to allow their members to be laid off instead of taking a cut in either wages and/or contribute more to their benefits.

One can only come to the conclusion that all this is normal when dealing with liberals. It’s like they find the worst way to do something and will stop at nothing to keep doing it that way. It doesn’t matter what the consequences are or who it hurts…. it’s the liberal way, right?