You Have To Marvel At The Corruption

Happily, the end is near for public sector unions

PAUL JENKINS
Published: February 26th, 2011 08:51 PM
Last Modified: February 26th, 2011 08:51 PM
As you watch the raucous fight over public employees union collective bargaining and, ultimately, who will run government in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, New Jersey and elsewhere, you cannot help but hope the end is near for public employees unions.

Oh, it may not happen today, but it will happen soon, the embers of public anger fanned to flame by union members brashly warning a recession-battered nation they are owed, even entitled, no matter what, to ever-increasing government wages, raises, benefits and guarantees unheard of in most of the private sector. In recent days, they have shown us the petty, mean face of liberalism, with its me-first mentality. It is not pretty.

To fund their demands, public sector unions expect the governments they have bought and paid for to bleed taxpayers. Reduced spending and lean, efficient government is anathema. Ask California or Oregon or any of a number of states awash in red ink largely because of unions.

We're talking about big money. The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees spent about $100 million in 2010 to get mostly Democrats elected, the Wall Street Journal reported. Democratic lawmakers the year before sent more than "$160 billion in federal cash to states, aimed in large part at preventing public-sector layoffs," the newspaper said. Tit for tat.

Republican governors and legislators swept into office in the last election by bruised taxpayers weary of paying for cushy public sector union contracts seem more than ready to push for real change to ease their states' fiscal woes. About half their Republican constituents back them. Democrats and independents? Not so much.

Wisconsin -- ground zero in the current fight -- was the first state, in 1959, to allow public sector collective bargaining. The federal government followed suite. In 1962, President John F. Kennedy, by executive fiat and despite more-than-adequate civil service laws, lifted the ban on government employee unions at the federal level. Kennedy recognized the public sector union gold mine that awaited Democrats as labor unions began to wane. It turns out that only 6.9 percent of private sector workers are union members, but 36.2 percent of all public sector workers belong to a union.

In union-friendly Anchorage, fat, five-year public employee contracts -- gifts from former Mayor Mark Begich and the Assembly's liberal wing -- will cost taxpayers about $200 million.
Even the city's Employee Relations ordinance accommodates unions. "No closed shop shall be allowed," the ordinance says, but, "Nothing in this section bars inclusion in a collective bargaining agreement of a requirement that all members of the unit affiliate with the bargaining representative within 30 days . . ." of being hired.

You have to marvel at the corruption.
Government employee unions have siphoned millions in cash from their members for membership dues and funneled it as campaign donations to politicians, mostly Democrats, at the city, state and national levels. Those politicians, if put into office, will vote to tax you to pay for generous union labor contracts. Too often, politicians supposedly representing all citizens end up representing unions. The Anchorage Assembly's liberal majority is a great example.

How is that not corrupt? Unions are paying elected government representatives at all levels to take from you at gunpoint your money to underwrite union dues and pay and benefits.
Let's compare that to earmarks, which political opportunists have decided are corrupt.
Instead of viewing them for what they are -- spending directed by the legislative branch rather than the executive -- Democrats and Republicans alike have spun earmarks into the devil's own work, even though they account for less than 1 percent of the federal budget. But they have served a purpose. Politicians looking for a cheap way to buy votes from the idioratti have taken to selling them to the rubes as corruption of the rankest sort, something to be stopped if we are to save the nation.

Having somebody give campaign donations to a politician in return for boxcar loads of your tax dollars certainly might seem heinous, even smacking of cronyism, conflict, bribery and even larceny thrown in for good measure.
Public employee unions do exactly the same thing. They give campaign donations to politicians for boxcar loads of your money.
The good news in all this is that Americans finally are waking up. The unions in the past few days have shown us their face. The end is coming for them.
If not now, soon.