Wisconsin passes bill to protect the people from unions

The Democrats in the Wisconsin senate have fled for their political lives. Without being able to access taxpayer funds via union dues for their campaigns they are much less likely to win election. They may also lose an army of campaign workers. Unions typically man phone banks, make calls, and provide campaign workers to their favored candidates. In return those candidates continue the upward spiral of wages and benefits that has contributed to bankrupting cities and states all over the country.

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Katrina Trinko at National review Online has a great article exposing the taxpayer dollars going to the cowardly senate Democrats. Taxpayer dollars for campaign funding? Remember these are mostly public employee unions. They get paid by states, counties, and cities. They also receive federal taxpayer dollars. For example the Wisconsin schools received $669.6 million federal dollars in fiscal year 2008. All wages of public employee union members are subject to dues. The dues are then used to elect Democrats both directly through PAC contributions and indirectly through advocacy ads and campaign workers. Katrina Trinko's article points out that 13 of the 14 Democrat senators who fled the state received generous contributions from unions:

"their cumulative donations range from $5,750 to $113,603. And of the 13 Democrats in the state senate who accepted labor-union funds, ten received a third or more of their PAC or political-committee donations from unions. Five have collected over half of such donations from unions."

Even greater amounts are expended in election help to avoid contribution limits. In the case of the Wisconsin Democrat senators unions spent millions as Katrina pointed out: "The Wisconsin Education Association Council's PAC spent nearly $1.6 million supporting state-level Democratic candidates during the 2010 election cycle. Other unions also spent in support of Democratic candidates, although in smaller amounts: $45,000 ($65,000 total, with the remainder supporting a Republican candidate) from the Wisconsin Professional Police Association, $13,000 from the International Union of Operating Engineers, and a little over $9,000 from Madison Teachers Inc." It simply recycles your money. Your funds pay teacher or other public union salaries. Unions collect dues from those salaries which they use to pay Democrats in the form of contributions and campaign work to keep them in office so they can fund union salaries and benefits at higher and higher rates. Your tax money is being used to campaign against you. The same kind of quid pro quo relationship is happening all over the country at every level of government. Money equals power. Campaign money means election, election is power. Damn the people full spending ahead! At the federal level the amounts spent by unions to elect Democrats is mind boggling. Our recent editorial "Like a Mafia Don, Dem lawmaker tells unions 'Get a little bloody when necessary'" gives the facts and figures on the worst perpetrators. Notice how most of the stories you are seeing about unions refer to collective bargaining 'rights' trying to frame the discussion as one of civil rights. Baloney. It wasn't always allowed. It was put in place by John Kennedy with an Executive Order 10988 January 17, 1962. Even leftist hero FDR was against unions for public employees. He wrote a long letter opposing them to Luther C. Steward, President of the National Federation of Federal Employees, of August 16, 1937. Here are a few excerpts:

"All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

And,

"Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable."

Shane Atwell has a good description of what 'collective bargaining' really means in today's labor dominated world: 'Collective bargaining' is not what its name indicates (hence the scare quotes). It is not bargaining. In fact it means exactly the opposite of what you'd guess. Collective bargaining refers to the obligation of an employer to recognize the elected representatives of a group of workers and his further obligation to negotiate with those representatives. This last part is what makes 'collective bargaining' extortion. Under collective bargaining laws, employers have to recognize an elected union and have to negotiate with them, i.e. employers are forbidden from firing their unionized employees. Under threat of fine, confiscation and/or police occupation. But a negotiation that doesn't allow one party to walk away from the table and say 'no' is not bargaining. If this kind of 'bargaining' reigned in normal society, then anyone responding to a craigslist ad would have the 'right' to purchase despite not making an offer the seller likes. If the purchaser insisted, the seller would have to continue 'bargaining' with purchaser until he got tired of it and sold at a personal loss. In the same way employers are obliged to keep on employees who's salaries or benefits they consider a loss to their company. Collective bargaining is in fact union extortion. Obama has made it very clear that the union agenda is his agenda. Obama said he believes he can make SEIU's agenda the agenda of the country. In this video he thanks SEIU for their support and tells them 'your agenda has been my agenda.' He even says that before working on his policies he consulted with the union. AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka claims in this video to speak with someone at the White House every day and to visit there two or three times a week. Former SEIU union boss Andy Stern was the top visitor to the Whit House in Obama's first year. Obama reiterated his staunch advocacy for unions recently as he said he would 'walk on that picket line with you as President of the United States of America.' in this video. Recent paybacks to unions by Obama include overturning a 76 year old rule to make it easier to unionize airlines and more importantly a new executive order requiring all government contracts be to union companies. Both of these union payoffs were done without needing or even asking for congressional approval. Close to half of Obama's first $820 billion stimulus bill went 'to entities that sponsor or employ or both members of the Service Employees International Union, federal, state, and municipal employee unions, or other Democrat-controlled unions' according to Ben Stein in an article last year in The American Spectator about the stimulus. More recently, congress passed the $30 billion 'teacher bailout' bill which funneled approximately $16 billion to union teacher and other public employee union jobs. Obama usurped a long history of banking and creditor laws when he bailed out GM and Chrysler. In return for campaign support Obama gave partial ownership of both auto companies to the UAW and shafted the bond holders who had legal legitimate claims on the assets of the companies. Its a vicious cycle that can only be broken in two ways. First, union supporting Democrats must be voted out of office. Some should probably go to jail. Then all cities and states should end collective bargaining for public employees. Work in your state to at least make it a right to work state where workers are free to work without joining a union if they so choose. We must break the cycle of unions supporting Democrats supporting unions. Michael Whipple, is the Editor of usACTIONnews.com