Back to Basics

It is about time that “We the People” stop the corrupt politicians from purchasing their political power with OUR tax money. No more providing special interest perks and privileges in return for campaign contributions and voter support.

There is little or no doubt that public employee unions and unions which service local, state and government infrastructure repair or replacement are the proximate cause of the real and coming bankruptcies of our cities and states. I challenge anyone to provide credible evidence that unions are a cost-effective labor solution to today’s government problems. How can any rational society justify a workforce that rewards seniority over merit, the status quo over innovation, ever rising costs with no corresponding increase in productivity, work rules which demand multiple workers for a task that can be handled by a single individual, and interference in a disciplinary system which makes it difficult to fire non-performing or malfeasant workers.

If you haven’t noticed, local and state politicians have voted to spend money on social issues and special interest projects that keep them in power. They no longer represent “We the People,” they represent themselves and their cronies. All while our infrastructure is crumbling. Here in California, our water distribution system and electrical grid are outmoded. With the politicians allowing utilities to raise price to dampen demand so that natural peak usage is too costly to achieve. Many private utilities use these inflated rates to boost share price and stockholder returns – not to mention executive bonuses – instead of building-out additional capacity.

In some cases, special political deals leave a tremendous amount of “dark” fiber – fiber optic channels that can bring broadband internet at speeds approaching those found in Japan – as a means for communications carriers to charge increasing fees for slower connection speeds. And, what about those municipal franchises that protect the cable companies from competition?

It is time to remind the politicians and the bureaucrats that they work for us and that the fiscally sound cost and productivity rules that apply to the private sector need to be implemented in the public sector. No more featherbedding to increase the size of government – and a bloc of committed voters who need more and more taxpayer money to keep their unproductive jobs.

It is time to remove public employee unions from the equation. No more organized crime allowed to plunder our pockets. Yes, organized crime – where the union extorts or blackmails a candidate into favoring union demands over fairly representing “We the People.”

Think that is not the case? Listen to this union representative threaten politicians …

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avB_iFEURY4

And for those of you who do not remember the SEIU (Service Employees International Union), it was the sister organization of the corrupt ACORN (Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), both founded by radical socialist/communists – and whose head, Andy Stern, was a frequent visitor to the Obama White House.

Bottom line …

It is time to return fiscal prudence and sound operating principles to government. Throwing out those who would subvert the political process and further enable the corrupt politicians. And as a great first step, eliminate all public employee unions and demand that government contracts contain a “lowest wage” provision as the definition of the lowest wage.

– steve

The nation’s largest teacher pension fund took the first step Wednesday toward divesting from companies that make guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines that are illegal in California.
State Treasurer Bill Lockyer made a motion to begin the divestment process after pension fund officials determined that the fund invests in the owner of a company that manufactured one of the weapons used in the Connecticut school shooting. The California State Teachers’ Retirement System’s investment committee unanimously approved the motion.
“CalSTRS’ action targets ammunition clips that turn ordinary guns into killing machines, assault weapons and other firearms that pose extreme dangers to public health and safety,” Lockyer said. . . .

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but…

The very latest from the East Coast/Gulf Coast port strike scene is that the International Longshoremen’s Association has walked out of federal mediation talks. According to Joe Bonney of the Journal of Commerce, “ILA walked out of NY-NJ local contract talks today, objecting to proposed changes. Coastwide bargaining session still on for next week.”

In case you need a refresher, Big Labor is throwing a hissy fit over modernization efforts by industry to reform archaic work practices, corrupt waterfront rackets, and container fees — a 60s-era relic.

While many observers breathed a sigh of relief at the temporary “reprieve” from a crippling strike before the end of 2012, it was nothing more than a p.r move by the union.

Note this: A new report about the economic impact of the week-long West Coast port strike late last year shows that trade volume at the Port of Los Angeles was down 16 percent as a result of the union shutdown.

In the meantime, here’s a look at how just one sector — the meat industry — will be affected by a looming East Coast port shutdown:

USMEF data reveals that a potential ILA strike – the first such strike in 35 years – could wreak havoc in the domestic meat markets. Looking at U.S. beef exports, the greatest potential impact rests with the Port of Houston, which handled nearly 150,000 metric tons of outbound beef in the first three quarters of 2012 – or about 25% of all beef shipped out of the U.S. through an ocean port. Other East Coast and Gulf Coast ports handle smaller volumes of beef, but the cumulative impact would be very significant.

For pork, USMEF said the largest impacted outlet would be the Port of Norfolk, Va., which handled more than 90,000 mt from January through September. Other major outbound ports for U.S. pork that would be affected by a strike include New York, Philadelphia, Houston, Charleston, S.C., Jacksonville, Fla., Wilmington, N.C., Gulfport, Miss., and Savannah, Ga.

Remember Karen Lewis? She’s Chicago thuggery personified. I introduced you to her last September when she spearheaded the abandonment of 350,000 schoolchildren over merit-based pay, teacher evaluations, and a 16 percent pay raise:

Derision is her specialty. Her tirades at teachers’ confabs are infamous. Don’t feel sorry for her when she moans about Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s bully tactics and trash mouth. Lewis has one of her own.

Well, that trash mouth is baaaaack. Intrepid Kyle Olson of EAGNews.com caught Lewis joking about labor leaders who seriously contemplated killing the rich during the “robber baron” era.

When Lewis appeared at the Illinois Labor History Society’s “Salute to Labor’s Historic Heroes from the History Makers of Today,” she didn’t disappoint the crowd. She threw gasoline onto the fire of class warfare, and even mentioned mob killings of wealthy Americans.

“… Do not think for a minute that the wealthy are ever going to allow you to legislate their riches away from them. Please understand that. However, we are in a moment where the wealth disparity in this country is very reminiscent of the robber baron ages. The labor leaders of that time, though, were ready to kill. They were. They were just – off with their heads. They were seriously talking about that.”

Some in the audience laughed and clapped at her remark.

“I don’t think we’re at that point,” Lewis laughingly replied, without specifying when “that point” might arrive. “And that’s scary to most people. But the key is they think nothing of killing us. They think nothing of putting our people in harm’s way. They think nothing of lethal working conditions.”

She then used schools without air conditioning as an example of “lethal working conditions.”

The true labor leaders of the “robber baron” age would probably roll over in their graves and remind Ms. Lewis that she and her colleagues have it quite good.

Big salaries with an average income in the $70,000 range. Generous benefits and pensions. Limited work days and nine-month work years. What are these people complaining about?

Bloody progressives are never satisfied. Agitation is their be-all and end-all.

Watch the video at Kyle’s site.

There is little or no doubt in my mind that unions are evil, the socialist manifestation of a step towards totalitarian government based on traditional Marxist principals and a class warfare agenda. What rational and productive individual could sponsor any powerful entity that appears to be malevolently detrimental society. Rewarding seniority over merit. Maintaining the status quo rather than innovate. Demanding work rules which differentiate and divide singular tasks in order to require more unionized workers. To demand ever increasing wages and benefits without a corresponding increase in efficiency and productivity. Unions and their mismanaged pension programs are the proximate cause of huge municipal and state deficits. Unions corrupt the political process and remove “We the People” from the political process.

So, I was struck by the dangerous absurdity of an article titled “6 Ways to Juice Up the Labor Movement.”

6 Ways to Juice Up the Labor Movement

Some of the smartest organizers and thinkers we know give us their suggestions on how to build a reinvigorated, vibrant labor movement.

1. Stephen Lerner, architect of the Justice for Janitors campaign

“It’s time to reinvent the strike—the strike as guerrilla warfare,” says Lerner. The strike is the traditional weapon of organized workers, but employers have gotten pretty good at beating those strikes. But in his work with Justice for Janitors, Lerner learned that bosses weren’t ready for short, quick strikes. “If you look at the strike as a way to make them pay a price for how they treat you, you do short strikes, in and out strikes,” he notes. “

The second thing Lerner suggests is a re-politicization of bargaining. “We need bargaining not to just be about workers but what’s good for the community,” he says, “So that we’re bargaining for broader issues, especially in the public sector. So that it’s not bargaining for the few, it’s bargaining for the many.” Chicago’s teachers, he notes, raised the issue of the city divesting from banks that were foreclosing on people. “We need to make it so that people see that when those workers win, we all win, rather than they’re negotiating for something we don’t have.”

We have seen the deleterious effects of strikes on major industries – where the executives of General Motors would do almost anything to avoid a strike – including accept many of the self-destructive union contracts and work rules which led to the demise as a paragon of capitalism. Now General Motors is a union pension fund with a car company as a funding vehicle (pun intended).

Additionally, we see that unions subvert the capitalist mandate that the corporation’s fiduciary duty is to its shareholders, with community relations being a function of recruiting and retaining good workers. Using corporations as instruments of public policy – as were done with Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac and General Motors with their “green electric vehicles that nobody wants” is counterproductive and anti-competitive. Disadvantaging the corporation who now needs to serve multiple and competing masters.

1. Jonathan Westin, executive director, New York Communities for Change, organizer of recent fast food strikes

“We believe that the future of the labor movement is really organizing low wage service sector jobs.

It’s hardly a surprise that Obama-the-Spiteful is incapable of letting states legislate without putting in his two cents (which were worth five cents when he took office, by the way) worth of federal intimidation:

Lots of folks scoffed in town when reports surfaced that Democrats had petitioned the President of the United States to insert himself into the unseemly debate over Right to Work. Some asked out loud, doesn’t POTUS have more important things to do than lobby Gov. Rick Snyder on that?

But lobby the president did.

During an exclusive one-hour sit down on WKAR-Public TV, the governor confirms that he and President Barack Obama shared a few minutes in private and the president looked the governor in the eye and said, “He wasn’t pleased with Right to Work,” Mr. Snyder reveals for the first time.

And the governor’s response?

Short, sweet and to the point. “I said thank you for sharing that with me.”

And that was it?

“Pretty much, yeah,” the GOP governor glibly recalls.

Too bad Snyder didn’t reply, “Yeah, well I wasn’t pleased when Obamacare passed either, but we can’t always get what we want.”

Enjoy this bonus article from Santa Burt. Don’t forget to read the second article, which follows both on the site and in your email subscription copy.

by Burt Prelutsky

A lot of conservatives were delighted when Michigan decided to become a right-to-work state. I was one of them, but I wasn’t quite as ecstatic as some. The problem is that by now everyone who isn’t a union boss or one of the dumber members of a private sector union could see the writing on the wall. The unions have been going the way of the dodo for some time now.

It’s not just that private sector unions have been losing members and influence, but that they’ve gone out of favor with the public. We’ve seen their thug-like behavior in Wisconsin and now in Michigan. We’ve seen teachers carrying placards that insist they’re demonstrating on behalf of the kids who are using phony medical excuses to play hooky so that they can make an embarrassing spectacle of themselves in public. It’s worth noting that only 31 % of Michigan’s eighth graders are proficient in math and a mere 28% are up to snuff when it comes to reading.

Perhaps the next time that public school teachers in Michigan or anywhere else decide to do something for the kids, they might try teaching them something besides how to walk in circles while chanting inane slogans..

It’s no secret that right-to-work states have lower unemployment rates than those that allow unions to have a monopoly when it comes to jobs. In their defense, the unions point out that union employees get paid more than other workers. What they neglect to mention is that people don’t rush to build factories or start businesses in those states for that very reason.

These days, thanks to global markets, manufacturers located in, say, New York aren’t just competing with companies in South Carolina or Oklahoma, but with those in China, India and the Philippines. And when you factor in not only salaries, but pensions and health insurance, it’s a wonder that companies located in union states can compete with anyone.

Most of us have gotten fed up with unions using their clout in order to keep teacher/perverts on salary for years, long after they’ve been accused of molesting their young charges. Just recently, the UAW forced Chrysler to re-hire 13 workers who had been captured on video boozing and smoking pot on their lunch breaks. And let us not forget that when southern non-union volunteers came north to help restore electricity for victims of Hurricane Sandy, the union thugs in New Jersey made them turn around and go home.

One of the reasons that Broadway tickets are so pricey is because for decades, New York unions have forced producers of non-musicals to place high-paid musicians on their payrolls.

So the fact that private sector unions are finally getting their teeth kicked in is welcome news in most quarters. The problem is that it does nothing to rein in the public sector unions. Whereas private sector unions have been losing members for years, the federal government has been hiring, on average, 101 new employees every day since Obama took office.

The “right to work” without be forced to give a portion of your earnings to an organization who may use it to promote political or policy positions you abhor should be a fundamental human right – much like your religious right not to support those things which run counter to your religion …

So why is MSNBC’s Chris Hayes claiming racism?

Chris Hayes: “Right to Work” is Racist

Referring to Michigan’s newly obtained right to work status, Chris Hayes of MSNBC wanted to make sure the rest of the panel to whom he was talking and all the listeners understood that right to work legislation has its roots in “southern racism” and racial segregation. He said:

“The phrase is coined by a guy by the name of Vance Muse, who is an oil industry lobbyist in Houston, Texas in the 1930s who is a white supremacist and segregationist, who — that’s what the term was first brought into use, to fight against unions as sites of forced racial integration. The origin of this movement is an origin of the movement of the segregationist white supremacist south against the labor union as a site of forced racial integration.”

First of all, Vance Muse didn’t coin the term “right to work.” In the context of labor unions, the phrase originally appeared in a Labor Day editorial in the Dallas Morning News in 1941. The editorial spoke in favor of a law that would allow employees the freedom to choose whether or not to join a union. The proposed law or amendment would effectively give workers the “right to work” regardless of their membership status in a union. Source:Chris Hayes: “Right to Work” is Racist

Bottom line …

We are losing our freedoms, one law at a time. And any law that denies you the right to work without having the fruits of your labors taken to support causes with which you disagree is not racist, it is anti-American. How many people know that unions walk hand-in-hand with international socialism and communism? How many people know that many union bosses live as lavishly as the private sector bosses they excoriate daily – without producing one penny of tax revenue, without producing any products or services of benefit to the American people and while promoting policies which reward seniority over merit, the status quo over innovation, and complex work rules that demand two people do the work of one? Unions guarantee higher costs and lower productivity. Unions guarantee labor discord as they flex their muscles to demonstrate their power – not to remind members, or the companies that are unionized, but to remind politicians of their power. And how many people know that unions are still infested with organized crime – which is ironic considering it is organized crime infested with organized crime.

In most cases unions are both evil and corrupt.

Remember: it’s about your choice – where you can work and what politicians and political party you can support. It’s about the unions killing entire industries and being the proximate cause of outsourcing. It’s about your freedom.

– steve

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2trIypROnSw

Hoffa: . . . That said that places like Oklahoma with right-to-work would thrive.  When Oklahoma became right to work  If anything the wages went down in Oklahoma.

CNN Host: Yah.

Hoffa:  So it really doesn’t work and that is just a spin from big business.

CNN Host: No, no, I am just saying the fear.

Why would a CNN host have to agree so emphatically with Hoffa that right-to-work’s benefits are just the spin of big business? In case the bias isn’t obvious, here is an interview that CNN had with a supporter for right-to-work.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnPvWohCiBM

This is small business owner Clint Tarver of Lansing, Michigan. He was caught in the violent chaos that erupted when union thugs attacked the Americans for Prosperity tent on the capitol grounds yesterday during the right-to-work debate. His hot dog stand was destroyed.

Velvet Hammer reports that the thugs shouted “Uncle Tom” and “nigger” at Tarver.

Dana Loesch has more on the story and how to help.

Donate HERE to help Tarver get back on his feet.