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By Ending Forced Representation, New Proposal in Congress Could Benefit Workers and Unions Alike


By: Rachel Greszler / December 14, 2023

Read more at https://www.dailysignal.com/2023/12/14/ending-forced-representation-new-proposal-congress-could-benefit-workers-unions-alike/

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What if some of the antagonism around labor unions in the United States could be reduced by eliminating laws that force workers and unions alike to do things against their will? A new bill in Congress would do that. Pictured: Employees of The Washington Post walk a picket line as they stage a 24-hour strike outside The Washington Post building Dec. 7. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

What if some of the antagonism around labor unions in the United States could be reduced by eliminating laws that force workers and unions alike to do things against their will?

That’s what the Worker’s Choice Act, introduced Wednesday by Rep. Eric Burlison (R-Mo.), would do.

Current law forces workers in unionized workplaces to be represented by a union even if they do not join the union and it forces unions to represent workers who do not pay union fees. The Worker’s Choice Act would allow workers who do not pay union fees to choose their own representation, and it would free unions from having to represent so-called free riders who do not pay union fees.

Under the Worker’s Choice Act, employees who live in the 26 “right to work” states that do not require workers to pay union fees as a condition of employment would no longer be forced to accept union representation that they do not want. Instead, they could negotiate directly with their employer, or choose their own outside representation.
This change would apply to the 4.2 million workers in right-to-work states who are currently represented by unions. Among them, nearly 800,000 currently nonpaying workers would no longer be represented by unions unless they chose to begin paying for representation.

The proposed law would not change anything for the 11.8 million workers in unionized workplaces in forced unionism states where the law requires workers to pay for union representation even if they do not join the union. 

This freedom from union representation would be particularly helpful to workers who do not believe the union represents their interests. They may think this for any number of reasons. A worker may want to be compensated and promoted based on her performance instead of the union’s rigid seniority-based system; a worker may feel ignored and ostracized by the union that is supposed to represent him; a worker may have caregiving duties that could be alleviated through a different schedule than the union dictates; and a young worker struggling to start a family and buy a home might be better served by bigger paychecks rather than the union’s Cadillac benefits plan.

Yet the bill does not only help workers. It would also free unions of their “free rider” problem. No longer would unions have to represent workers who don’t pay for representation. This would enable unions to focus their efforts on the interests of their paying members. Without the costs of representing nonpaying members, unions could lower their fees for those who want union representation. Moreover, some unions’ membership may even increase as non-members may choose to become dues-paying members to maintain their representation. Workers’ voices cannot truly be heard if workers are prevented from speaking for themselves and prevented from choosing who gets to speak for them. A 2016 Heritage Foundation analysis found that 94% of workers represented by unions did not vote for their representation.

Ending forced representation would benefit workers and unions alike by freeing workers to choose their representation and freeing unions to focus their time and resources only on workers who want and are willing to pay for their representation. An upshot of this shift could be growth in alternative types of labor organizations that allow more workers to band together and benefit from their shared interests and pursuits.

For example, as more workers are pursuing independent work that allows them to be their own bosses, professional organizations like the Association of Independent Doctors and the Freelancers Union can provide a collective voice and pooled resources to offer lower-cost products and services such as insurance, education, and advocacy.

Labor unions could also offer more targeted representation services that allow individuals to represent themselves, in order to appeal to more workers. For example, the Major League Baseball Players Association sets minimum salary requirements and provides individual representation services but also allows individuals to negotiate their compensation directly with their employer.

Exclusive representation muffles the voices and denies the rights of at least a minority of workers, and imposes undue burdens on unions. Prioritizing workers’ choices and reducing government barriers to work pursuits are crucial to elevating workers’ voices, improving their well-being, and expanding their opportunities.

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Extremist Left Claims Only Nazis Want To Teach Children Grammar And Patriotism


BY: JOY PULLMANN | JUNE 12, 2023

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2023/06/12/extremist-left-claims-only-nazis-want-to-teach-children-grammar-and-patriotism/

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The Washington Post’s Valerie Strauss is at it again: amplifying far-left partisans in their war on quality education for American kids. On June 8, she wrote about a report claiming schools that use a classics-based curriculum are vanguards of “right-wing Christian nationalism.”

Schools that emphasize personal virtue, English grammar, classic literature, patriotism, original source-based history, traditional and rigorous math and science, and classical artistic training are “designed to attract Christian nationalists with specific imagery and curriculum,” Strauss slanderously claims. I’m not making this up: She and the report claim the American colors of “red, white, and blue” and pictures of the American founders are racist dog whistles.

Such imagery on the schools’ websites is “designed to attract White conservative families,” Strauss says, citing the report. The implicit bigotry is appalling — assuming some people wouldn’t be interested in patriotic ideas simply because of their skin color. Who’s the racist: people who think American patriotism has a skin color or people who don’t?

Strauss and the report she’s citing also attack schools that promote virtuous behavior to their students, because “values” and “virtues” “stand as shorthand for quoted scripture.” We can’t have kids learning about the deep religious beliefs that created their unprecedented equality, liberty, and opportunity, now, could we? That would be horrible! They might, you know, shovel driveways for the elderly, stay faithful to their spouses, and donate their time and money to charity!

According to these anti-American, anti-Christian partisans, who clearly reject the founding American statesmen’s views about the purpose of public education, there’s absolutely no room for teaching children virtue, morality, or religion in public schools. What an interesting message to Christian parents from the people who control public education.

The report makes sure to target highly successful networks of classical schools, including those run by parents trained at and given free curriculum from Hillsdale College (my alma mater), the Great Hearts Academies, and Liberty Common in Fort Collins, Colorado, a model for many other classical schools. Strauss paints it as nefarious that a guy who wrote in The Federalist noticed such schools exist for the “purpose of forming young minds,” as if every single school in existence doesn’t form the minds who enter.

What she really means is that only the left should be allowed to shape people’s minds. That’s what this report and article are really about: boxing out of public education anyone who doesn’t think exactly like politically extremist teachers union leaders do.

This is another illustration of the reality that today’s left doesn’t believe in sharing the public square, public funds, or anything else with people who don’t parrot their views. This is why leftist-run schools don’t educate, they indoctrinate: You can’t educate without conversation.

Monologues are not conversation. Conversation is not shouting down ideas, banning them, or slandering them. That’s why suddenly conservatives are the only ones who believe in free speech, honoring our country’s fathers and mothers, and educating without indoctrinating: The left has abandoned these common goods in the pursuit of political power.

This report is the work product of the Network for Public Education (NPE), founded by Diane Ravitch, who used to believe in educating kids about their American heritage with original source documents. I’d bet you her U.S. history book is on the shelf in many of the schools this report targets because it is in my kids’ Christian classical school.

But Ravitch has subjugated herself to leftist ideology as she’s become more professionally dependent on corrupt teachers unions. She now seeks to foist a similar intellectual degradation on innocent kids. It’s a shame.

Given this connection, it’s no surprise NPE is financially, ideologically, and professionally connected to the nation’s largest teachers unions, which are gigantic, far-left political operations. The Chicago Teachers Union gave NPE and its political action fund, Network for Public Education Action, a series of grants that look like a startup endowment, according to CTU’s own website and its tax forms. From 2014 to 2016, the union’s foundation gave NPE $265,000, according to its tax forms.

CTU is a large affiliate of the massive national American Federation of Teachers union. It is notorious for extremist behavior, including shutting down Chicago schools in 2022 in defiance of elected officials’ decision to restart school post-Covid.

CTU takes in $32 million a year, and the AFT takes in more than $200 million a year, according to their public tax forms. CTU has something like $60 million in assets, and AFT has $140 million. Each has multiple other arms that also rake in millions each, as well as functioning as distributing houses for all the public money they collect.

The NEA, by the way, takes in $600 million a year, and has more than $450 million in assets, according to its tax records. Teachers unions are essentially giant political money laundering operations and among the top donors to the Democrat Party.

NPE says it has also received money more recently from the Schott Foundation for Public Education, which Peter Cook says received more than $1.3 million from unions between 2011 and 2019, according to their disclosures to the U.S. Department of Labor. Schott itself discloses AFT and National Education Association union funding on its website.

Like teacher’s unions, which strongly support political extremism such as teaching small children about gay sex and hiding kids’ gender struggles from their parents, NPE is an ideologically far-left organization. A conference attendee noted the organization considered canceling or moving its 2016 conference in North Carolina after the state passed a law requiring men to stay out of women’s bathrooms. The report’s retired journalist coauthor is a longtime school choice opponent and teachers union mouthpiece.

So, it’s quite rich for an organization connected to some of the biggest leftist political organizing operations in the United States to complain about politics in public education. What they’re really complaining about is competition, which is gaining steam because of how badly these far-left union activists are mangling public schools.

Union money goes all across the country to target any education innovations that threaten their control of the system. Classical schools are one of those threats.

Lots of parents aren’t happy with the current results of unions’ giant political influence operations masquerading as public education. Instead of responding to parents’ concerns about the lack of quality in their kids’ schools and the proliferation of extremist politics, the interest groups making billions off public education belittle concerned parents as Nazis. (Obviously, “white Christian nationalism” is to them a synonym for “Nazi,” a deeply offensive slander that is somehow OK for the left to throw at anyone who disagrees with their politics.)

“[T]he classical/right-wing sector is rapidly growing. Forty-seven percent of the schools we identified opened since the inauguration of Donald Trump in 2017,” the report says. It includes zero reflection about how the rise in leftist extremism since Trump’s tenure may have contributed to this rapid exodus of parents from conventional public schools.

If more parents get better schools that don’t happen to force teachers to launder billions of dollars to the Democrat Party through mandatory union dues, this entire multibillion-dollar power-mongering racket is in danger. This is not at all about the best education for kids; it’s about money and power.

Joy Pullmann is executive editor of The Federalist, a happy wife, and the mother of six children. Her just-published ebook is “101 Strategies For Living Well Amid Inflation.” Her bestselling ebook is “Classic Books for Young Children.” Mrs. Pullmann identifies as native American and gender natural. Her many books include “The Education Invasion: How Common Core Fights Parents for Control of American Kids,” from Encounter Books. Joy is also a grateful graduate of the Hillsdale College honors and journalism programs.

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U.S. Postal Service Just Institutionalized Election Interference with New Mail-In-Ballot Division


BY: CHUCK DEVORE | AUGUST 16, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/16/u-s-postal-service-just-institutionalized-election-interference-with-new-mail-in-ballot-division/

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Starbucks recently asked the National Labor Relations Board to suspend all pending and ongoing votes to unionize at its U.S. stores due to concerns stemming from mail-in ballots. The franchise’s objections once again raise questions about the credibility of election systems that rely on mail-in ballots. 

As with coffee companies, how much more with the American electoral process? With hundreds of millions of dollars of campaign material and increasing numbers of ballots in the mail, postal efficiency and honesty are becoming increasingly vital to free and fair elections. 

Ostensibly to address some of these concerns, the U.S. Postal Service (USPS) announced on July 28 that it was creating the Election and Government Mail Services division. Adrienne E. Marshall, a USPS veteran, was named as the division’s first director, with Marc Elias, the Democrat’s foremost lawfare professional and longtime proponent of elections by mail, tweeting out his approval.

The rationale for this new division is that the growing use of mail-in ballots requires extra attention to ensure the greater volume of mailed ballots can be handled by an increasingly overburdened USPS. The USPS reported it delivered more than 135 million ballots in 2020, with 40 million delivered so far this year during the primaries. 

Elections conducted by mail have been a longtime goal of Elias and others since long before public health fears over in-person voting during the Covid-19 pandemic. It is instructive to note that most European nations found mail-in ballots to be susceptible to fraud and limited their use. 

Among other problems, mail-in ballots can be cast by someone other than the voter, voter ID measures are harder to ensure absent in-person voting with a government-issued ID, and the secret ballot is more easily compromised by professional ballot traffickers who “help” the voter fill in their ballot. Thus, mail-in ballots will be an increasingly important part of the Democratic election playbook. 

In related news, President Joe Biden nominated three people to fill vacancies on the nine-member USPS Board of Governors. The board determines the postmaster general, who remains, for now, Louis DeBoy. Biden’s nominees include the former chief counsel for the American Postal Workers Union and the head of the National Vote at Home Institute, a non-profit that pushes for nationwide mail-in voting. Some 80 Democratic members of the U.S. House of Representatives sent a letter to Biden urging action on the board of governor nominees to speed DeJoy’s ouster.

Should the voting public be concerned about the USPS paying closer attention to mail-in ballots? It depends on the trust you place in federal institutions and their employees. 

The U.S. Postal Inspection Service is the oldest federal law enforcement branch. Regarding election-related mail, both campaign material and ballots, the Postal Inspection Service says they monitor “political and election mail as it moves through the postal network to prevent, identify and resolve any issues that might interfere with its secure and timely delivery.” All of which sounds great in theory, but what happens if the mail doesn’t get through? Or if it doesn’t get through selectively? Investigating after the fact won’t change election results. 

By its own metrics, the USPS claimed it delivered 99.89 percent of mail-in ballots within seven days during the 2020 election. But what if the leadership of the USPS’s heavily unionized workforce decided to put their thumbs on the scale? The National Association of Letter Carriers is an affiliate of the AFL-CIO and endorsed Biden in 2020. It represents 277,000 workers. 

The American Postal Workers Union also endorsed Biden. It represents another 330,000 workers and is also under the AFL-CIO umbrella. If there was a concerted effort to hinder election mail, the Postal Inspection Service likely wouldn’t notice it in time to stop it and prevent selective delivery of the mail from tipping an election.

In the case of mail-in ballots, USPS union interference might take the form of an effort to target delays in Republican-heavy areas of both mail-in ballot applications and the ballots themselves. But there are other ways to tip the scales through the mailbox: interfere with mailed campaign materials. 

A lot of campaign work involves the organization of presorted mail and delivering it to the appropriate post office loading dock. These mailings feature prominent “election mail” tags that are supposed to guarantee that campaign bulk rate mail was treated as first class. It isn’t impossible that unionized postal workers might seek opportunities to “misplace” the mailings of conservative campaigns. 

Two years ago, the USPS conducted an audit of election mail and found that some 68,000 pieces of election materials for the Baltimore mayor primary sat undelivered for five days before the June 2 election. This resulted in much of the campaign mail not being delivered until after most Marylanders had already cast their ballots by mail. 

Incumbent Democratic Baltimore Mayor Bernard C. “Jack” Young placed fifth in the primary. Young was seen as moderate and pro-business. Young raised the most money, but he was beaten by a progressive candidate who enjoyed substantial union support, Brandon Scott. Of the late mail, Young speculated, “That might the reason why I didn’t get a lot of votes.”

In what might have been a case of projection, two months later, Maryland Democrats accused the USPS under President Trump of deliberately slowing mail delivery to sabotage the November election. Notably, the president of Baltimore’s American Postal Workers Union promised, “Your mail will be delivered … you will get your vote counted.”

In May 2022, there was abundant evidence suggesting there was a concerted effort by postal workers to swing runoff elections in Texas. The Texas State House of Representatives District 73 is the 32nd most Republican district of the state’s 150. According to an analysis by “The Texan,” the district has a 71 percent Republican partisan lean — meaning that the real contest is in the Republican primary, as there is little chance of a competitive general election. After a three-way primary, the runoff came down to Barron Casteel and Carrie Isaac. The Casteel campaign received financial support from the largest government workers union in the nation, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), fire and police unions, and the Association of Texas Professional Educators. Given the hard Republican tilt in this district, Casteel would be the best Republican the unions could hope for. 

And, as happened in Baltimore in the 2020 primary, delayed campaign mail played a role in this election — though Isaac ended up prevailing by 271 votes out of the 22,207 cast and won by a margin of 1.2 percent. 

Interestingly, Republican voters in Hays County reported late mail from the Isaac campaign. In Comal County, Casteel’s home turf, the mail arrived on time. Hays County is served by a sorting center in northeast Austin. Comal County is served out of San Antonio. Isaac’s late pieces featured clear conservative messaging — an endorsement by Sen. Ted Cruz and calls to finish the border wall and to cut property taxes. 

Campaign mail today is scanned and tracked. This allowed Isaac’s campaign consultant, Jordan Berry, to know with certainty that six mailers totaling 11,426 pieces targeted at high-propensity Republican households in Hays County were delivered after the election. The six mailers were each dropped on separate days and cost the campaign around $10,000. As might be expected, the late mail had an effect on the election. Isaac, whose husband Jason represented Hays County for eight years, from 2011 to 2019, was expected to win Hays County as it was her home turf. Instead, she narrowly lost to Casteel by 308 votes. In Comal County, where Casteel served as mayor of New Braunfels, Isaac won by 579 votes. 

Of the late mail, Berry noted, “Of course, it had a negative effect. The campaign went dark to thousands of voters in the crucial homestretch. And over 15 years of political campaigns, this has never happened to one of our clients. That said, I’ve never seen so much union activity in a Republican primary. This was one of a handful of Republican runoff races where there was a significant difference between the candidates on key issues such as parent empowerment, government unions, and small business policies.”  

Labor unions came within a few hundred votes of altering the composition of the Republican caucus in the Texas State House of Representatives, not by campaigning or by deploying manpower but by interfering with the mail. One wonders where else in America this might have happened in the past few years.

Chuck DeVore is Chief National Initiatives Officer at the Texas Public Policy Foundation, a former California legislator, special assistant for foreign affairs in the Reagan-era Pentagon, and a lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army (retired) Reserve. He’s the author of two books, “The Texas Model: Prosperity in the Lone Star State and Lessons for America,” and “China Attacks,” a novel.

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87,000 New IRS Agents Will Join Union That Gives 100% Of PAC Funds to Democrats


BY: VICTORIA MARSHALL | AUGUST 10, 2022

Read more at https://thefederalist.com/2022/08/10/87000-new-irs-agents-will-join-union-that-gives-100-of-pac-funds-to-democrats/

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Democrats just doubled the size of a major Democratic war chest. Yes, remember those 87,000 new IRS agents that will be added to the federal payroll thanks to the Democrats’ Inflation Reduction Act (a misnomer if there ever was one)? The vast majority of those agents will likely join and pay dues to the IRS’ public sector union, the National Treasury Employees Union (NTEU).

Per Americans for Tax Reform, the union gave 100% of its Political Action Committee (PAC) funding to Democrats for the 2022 cycle, including $30,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, $30,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and $30,000 to the DNC Services Corporation, a group dedicated to “coordinating party organizational activities.”

It also gave 98.79% of its federal candidate spending for the 2021-2022 cycle to Democrats, most notably House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY). The NTEU specifically prioritized donating to key Democratic battleground races, such as donating $5,000 to Raphael Warnock’s Georgia Senate race and $10,000 to Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.). 

And that’s not all. In 2019, it was reported that IRS employees spent 353,820 hours of taxpayer-funded union time (TFUT) on the job. That means during a normal workday, instead of assisting taxpayers with filing their taxes, IRS agents spent hours working for an entity that spends 100% of its PAC funding on Democrats. This is an organization where if you call them, you have a 1-in-50 chance of reaching an actual human being. Those 353,820 hours could have been used to help taxpayers instead of strengthening a public sector union. 

As Aaron Withe, CEO of Freedom Foundation, put it, taxpayer dollars are being used to “double the size of an agency that has already weaponized itself against those taxpayers it deems its political opponents.”

By doubling the size of the IRS, Democrats are doubling the number of dues the NTEU receives, dues that will be funneled to bankroll Democratic political campaigns. NTEU dues range from $16 to $23 per pay period. If all 87,000 new IRS agents were forced to unionize, the number of dues collected would amount to at least $33,351,168 per year — all ripe for the taking by Democrats. How clever.

Victoria Marshall is a staff writer at The Federalist. Her writing has been featured in the New York Post, National Review, and Townhall. She graduated from Hillsdale College in May 2021 with a major in politics and a minor in journalism. Follow her on Twitter @vemrshll.

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Biden Faces Backlash Across Country For Canceling Keystone XL Pipeline


Reported By  Ryan Saavedra |  | DailyWire.com

WASHINGTON, DC – JANUARY 25: U.S. President Joe Biden pauses while speaking after signing an executive order related to American manufacturing in the South Court Auditorium of the White House complex on January 25, 2021 in Washington, DC. President Biden signed an executive order aimed at boosting American manufacturing and strengthening the federal governments Buy American rules. / Drew Angerer/Getty Images

President Joe Biden is facing backlash across the country after he signed an Executive Order last week that canceled the Keystone XL pipeline, a move that also drew criticism from Canada. The move by Biden comes after he signed Executive Orders on a wide range of issues last week during his first days in office, including orders on climate and energy matters.

Josh Senk, general manager of Michels Corporation, slammed Biden during a press conference in Wisconsin, saying, “The recent actions of President Joe Biden, the Executive Order halting the construction of the Keystone pipeline has effected Michels, thousands of union trade members across the country, and hundreds of guys that specifically work in Wisconsin.”

Senk later said that “hundreds of guys” have already been laid off.

The Associated Press noted that local leaders in New Mexico were worried about the impact that Biden’s decisions on placing a moratorium on drilling on public lands would have on their state and leaders in Utah have asked Biden to reconsider his decision.

“During his inauguration, President Biden spoke about bringing our nation together. Eliminating drilling on public lands will cost thousands of New Mexicans their jobs and destroy what’s left of our state’s economy,” Carlsbad Mayor Dale Janway told the AP. “How does that bring us together? Environmental efforts should be fair and well-researched, not knee-jerk mandates that just hurt an already impoverished state.”

Native American tribes have also reportedly been angered by Biden’s decision to cancel the pipeline. In a letter to the Biden administration, Luke Duncan, the chairman of the Ute Indian Tribe Business Committee, wrote:

The Ute Indian Tribe of the Uintah and Ouray Reservation respectfully requests that you immediately amend Order No. 3395 to provide an exception for energy permits and approvals on Indian lands. The Ute Indian Tribe and other energy producing tribes rely on energy development to fund our governments and provide services to our members.

Your order is a direct attack on our economy, sovereignty, and our right to self-determination. Indian lands are not federal public lands. Any action on our lands and interests can only be taken after effective tribal consultation.

Order No. 3395 violates the United States treaty and trust responsibilities to the Ute Indian Tribe and violates important principles of tribal sovereignty and self-determination. Your order was also issued in violation (of) our government-to-government relationship. Executive Order No. 13175 on Consultation and Coordination with Indian Tribal Governments, and Interior’s own Policy on Consultation with Tribal Governments.

The order must be withdrawn or amended to comply with Federal law and policies. Thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. We look forward from hearing from you.

Multiple unions that endorsed Biden during his presidential campaign — including the Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) and the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters — have since slammed Biden for canceling the pipeline. LIUNA said that the decision would “kill thousands of good-paying UNION jobs!”

“In revoking this permit, the Biden Administration has chosen to listen to the voices of fringe activists instead of union members and the American consumer on Day 1,” Mark McManus, General President of the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters. “Let me be very clear: When built with union labor by the men and women of the United Association, pipelines like Keystone XL remain the safest and most efficient modes of energy transportation in the world. Sadly, the Biden Administration has now put thousands of union workers out of work. For the average American family, it means energy costs will go up and communities will no longer see the local investments that come with pipeline construction.”

Local media organizations across the country have also reported on the negative impacts that Biden’s executive orders on energy have had on their states.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This article has been revised for clarity and emphasis. 

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Teachers Union Holds Schools Hostage Until Police Are Defunded, Charter Schools Shut Down


Reported By Ryan Foley | Published July 13, 2020 at 12:48pm

The United Teachers Los Angeles has released a list of demands that it argues must be met before schools can reopen in America’s second-largest city. While some of the proposals might seem reasonable in light of the coronavirus pandemic, others sound like they were crafted by New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

Members of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s teachers union apparently have adapted Rahm Emanuel’s phrase “never let a good crisis go to waste” as their slogan. At the very least, the policy paper put together by the United Teachers Los Angeles containing its insane demands illustrates just how political teachers unions have become.

The 35,000-member teachers union sees the coronavirus as a perfect opportunity to demand the enactment of a far-left agenda that it supported long before COVID-19 arrived in America. According to the political activists at the helm of UTLA, “The Safe and Equitable Conditions for Starting LAUSD in 2020-21” include;

  • the defunding of police,

  • a federal bailout of LA schools and

  • the abolition of charter schools.

While the document acknowledged that “the CARES and HEROES Acts provided funding for K-12,” it complained that the district still needed more money. In addition, the section on the desired “Federal Support” for reopening LAUSD schools included a demand for “Medicare for All.”

As for the section on “State Support,” the document calls on the state of California to implement a “millionaire’s tax” and a “wealth tax.” While the teachers seem quite confident that the massive redistribution of wealth would result in much-desired revenue, they failed to take into account the fact that many millionaires would flee the state the second the higher taxes were imposed.

UTLA Conditions by The Western Journal on Scribd

The most ridiculous demands came in the section on “Local Support.” Calling on local leaders to “defund police,” the brains behind the left-wing wish list urged elected officials to “shift the astronomical amount of money devoted to policing, to education and other essential needs such as housing and public health.”

Apparently, the people behind the UTLA paper aren’t bothered by the fact that homicides in their city rose by 250 percent in the first week of June as anti-law enforcement sentiment first swept through major American cities.

This shouldn’t come as much of a shock. Last month, Cecily Myart-Cruz, the union’s president, described the police as a symbol of “white supremacy” that needed to be dismantled.

Not surprisingly, the document had few kind words for charter schools, which teachers unions see as an enormous threat to their monopolistic power. UTLA said it wants a “charter moratorium,” but this radical list of demands should make Los Angeles parents who do not subscribe to the dictates of cultural marxism want to send their children to charter schools more than ever.

No document filled with left-wing demands would be complete without a call for “Financial Support for Undocumented Students and Families.”

It looks like President Donald Trump had it right when he declared that “the Democrats don’t want to open schools in the Fall for political reasons.”

This document should make Americans eternally grateful for the 2018 Janus decision in which the Supreme Court ruled that “public employees will no longer be required to pay involuntary agency fees to special-interest groups.” Nothing epitomizes the phrase “special-interest group” like a teachers union, which uses those agency fees to fund far-left groups such as the Center for American Progress and Media Matters.

The release of the UTLA demands comes just weeks before school is set to resume in Los Angeles on Aug. 18.

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos has made it clear to the nation’s governors that at the beginning of the next school year, “School must reopen, they must be fully operational.” For the most part, she is right. Schools should reopen in the fall.

However, in a place like Los Angeles, where advancing a political agenda is more important to the teachers than educating the next generation, parents should seriously consider homeschooling or sending their children to a charter or private school. Only then will liberal activists moonlighting as teachers in Los Angeles and other parts of the country get the message that many Americans do not support the push among some schools to reject “objectivity” in favor of indoctrinating America’s students with left-wing propaganda.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Ryan Foley
Ryan holds a bachelor of arts in political science from Rhode Island College. In addition to participating in the National Journalism Center’s internship program, he has written for several conservative publications.

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AFL-CIO Union Turns on AOC as Blue Collar Workers Realize She’s Targeting Them


Reported By Ben Marquis | Published March 13, 2019 at 2:10pm

When Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez first introduced the costly socialist power grab known as the Green New Deal — with a matching resolution in the Senate by Democratic Massachusetts Sen. Ed Markey — it was widely criticized and mocked as absurd and unconstitutional by the right.

Even some on the left expressed misgivings about the proposal to fundamentally transform the entirety of the United States’ energy sector, economy and much of society in general, ostensibly to combat climate change but in reality to centralize more power and control with the federal government.

Now the Democrats who support the measure put forward by Ocasio-Cortez are facing an incredible predicament as a major force for fundraising and voter support on the left — organized labor unions, especially the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, or AFL-CIO — have come out firmly against the Green New Deal.

That will force some Democrats to choose between placating their typically moderate liberal union worker voters or appeasing the increasingly rabid and radical far-left base of the party that demands significant action on environmental concerns.

Republican Wyoming Sen. John Barrasso tweeted out a copy of a letter sent from leaders of the AFL-CIO labor union conglomerate to Markey and Ocasio-Cortez,. It expressed how the labor unions simply couldn’t support the Green New Deal proposal that would “cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families,” a message with which the Republican senator agreed.

The letter, dated March 8, began by noting that union workers weren’t consulted on the ideas put forward in the proposal, even as those workers stood most at risk of facing severe economic disruptions and potential job loss because of the proposed policies. The unions agreed that some action was required to address the eventual impact of man-made climate change, and even expressed support for investment in new technologies to produce clean and carbon-free energy. However, they seemed to balk at some of the proposals — such aiming to do away with the current national dependence on fossil fuels like oil and natural gas within 10 years — as being non-specific and threatening toward the survival of their jobs and various sectors of the industrial economy.

The AFL-CIO letter stated that the Green New Deal is “not rooted in an engineering-based approach and makes promises that are not achievable or realistic.”

“We will not accept proposals that could cause immediate harm to millions of our members and their families,” the letter proclaimed. “We will not stand by and allow threats to our members’ jobs and their families’ standard of living go unanswered.”

The letter closed by reiterating that something needed to be done, but suggested that discussions be held about “responsible” solutions that would not utterly destroy the energy and industrial sectors of the economy and the livelihoods of those who work in those and related areas.

The letter was signed by Cecil Roberts, international president of the United Mine Workers of America, and Lonnie Stephenson, international president of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, as well as eight other major labor unions under the AFL-CIO banner.

The Washington Post reported that the criticisms in the letter seemed to echo comments made to the media just days prior by AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka while he was on Capitol Hill to speak with lawmakers.

Trumka said, “Look, we need to address the environment. We need to do it quickly. But we need to do it in a way that doesn’t put these communities behind, and leave segments of the economy behind.

“So we’ll be working to make sure that we do two things: that by fixing one thing we don’t create a problem somewhere else,” he added.

Labor unions have long been relied upon by the Democratic Party for considerable support in elections, but that support has been wavering in recent years, given the increasingly leftward lurch of the party’s base and elected officials who stand fundamentally at odds with the more moderate and conservative-leaning rank-and-file workers who make up private-sector unions.

President Donald Trump siphoned off quite a few of those typically Democrat-voting union workers in the 2016 election.

If Democrats continue to press forward with their proposal to wreck the economy and energy/industrial sectors as we currently know them, that problematic trend for Democrats will likely continue and grow devastatingly larger in the 2020 election.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: 

Ben Marquis
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Ben Marquis is a writer who identifies as a constitutional conservative/libertarian. His focus is on protecting the First and Second Amendments. He has covered current events and politics for Conservative Tribune since 2014.

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Union President Drops Trump Bombshell… Democrats’ Worst Fears Are Coming True


Reported By Benjamin Arie | March 11, 2018 at 9:34am

URL of the original posting site: https://conservativetribune.com/union-president-praises-trump/

Unions have been seen as the foundation of Democrat election victories for decades. The loyalty of those workers to vote blue has been taken for granted by liberal politicians since at least the 1960’s… but that could now be changing.

Donald Trump’s tariff proposals have generated serious controversy, with some critics calling them “protectionism.” The economic soundness of the president’s plan is still up for debate, but as a political move it might have been genius.

A major union has just revealed that they’re warming to Trump, and their traditionally blue votes could be switching to red very soon. During a Thursday interview with the decidedly anti-Trump MSNBC network, the president of United Steelworkers had shockingly positive words to say about Trump and his tariff plan.

“Gerard praised Trump for making it clear he is going to ‘tackle trade deficits’ which he called a ‘wealth transfer’ because they are ‘taking good jobs away,’” reported Real Clear Politics.

“It’s going to make it very hard for our members to ignore what he just did and what makes me sad is we’ve been trying to get Democrats to this for more than 30 years,” Gerard told MSNBC host Chuck Todd.

That statement could be huge: United Steelworkers is the largest industrial labor union in the entire country, with close to a million members. The union also has close connections to other groups, including AFL-CIO, a powerful lobbying and voting bloc. It’s worth noting that not only did the president of one of America’s largest unions essentially endorse Trump, but he also slammed Democrats for their failed promises in the same breath.

“The president has made it really clear that he’s going to tackle the trade deficits,” Gerard explained. “It is unacceptable that America would have an $800 billion trade deficit but when you subtract services, roughly $600 billion annual trade deficit.”

Gerard almost seemed to be repeating Trump’s own talking points. “That’s a wealth transfer and you can’t argue that those trade deficits are creating good jobs,” he stated. “Those trade deficits are taking good jobs away.”

The union boss again slammed Democrats — something that would have been unthinkable just a few years ago — and again voiced his trust in Trump.

“All we’re asking for is a level playing field and with the president has done is send a signal that he’s going to help us get a level playing field,” Gerard said.

“And we gave the Republicans and we gave the Democrats — we’ve given every government since before Clinton hope that they would do something.”

Those words echoed a similar sentiment from another voter group that has traditionally gone Democrat: Immigration advocates. Just yesterday, we reported that Dreamers are starting to call out the left for years of promises and no progress. Sound familiar?

While the media is busy slamming President Trump and calling his supporters crazy, actual Americans are seeing the positives from his first year in office. They’re receiving bonuses and promotions from the tax cut, and signs of an optimistic economy that is ready to explode.

The jury is still out on Trump’s specific tariff plans, but one thing is certain: Democrats may be in for a surprise in the 2018 and 2020 elections.

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Today’s Politically INCORRECT Cartoon


waving flagJob Killer

June 1, 2015
URL of the Original Posting Site: http://conservativebyte.com/2015/06/job-killer-2/
Wage-War-NRD-600
Laid Off Moved to China Show me the Union Dues union1taxpayers Union-Bosses unions-poliiticians  freedom combo 2

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Minimum Wage Lesson: Union That Campaigned for It Wants Exemption


waving flagPosted on May 28, 2015 by Mark Horne

URL of the Original Posting Site: http://politicaloutcast.com/2015/05/minimum-wage-lesson-union-that-campaigned-for-it-wants-exemption/#CTK6JBA7OcUQVlGY.99
 Union-Bosses

The union officials who demanded no exceptions to the Los Angeles minimum wage hike are now giving us a minimum wage lesson by asking for an exception.

Minimum wage increases don’t increase unemployment, they argue. Or, rather, they assert. There is no argument.

But then suddenly the truth comes out when the very people arguing that a higher minimum wage must be inflicted on all businesses without exception suddenly demand an exception in order to increase union employment.

From the Los Angeles Times: “L.A. labor leaders seek minimum wage exemption for firms with union workers.” yourgreed

Labor leaders, who were among the strongest supporters of the citywide minimum wage increase approved last week by the Los Angeles City Council, are advocating last-minute changes to the law that could create an exemption for companies with unionized workforces.

The push to include an exception to the mandated wage increase for companies that let their employees collectively bargain was the latest unexpected detour as the city nears approval of its landmark legislation to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour by 2020.Picture5

For much of the past eight months, labor activists have argued against special considerations for business owners, such as restaurateurs, who said they would have trouble complying with the mandated pay increase.

So the entire campaign was a pretense. Now that the law is about to be enforced, we suddenly find out that labor leaders want unions carved out of the protections. But if the reason for a minimum wage law was to protect workers from low wages, then why should unions get permission to reverse that protection and allow them to be exploited again?

“With a collective bargaining agreement, a business owner and the employees negotiate an agreement that works for them both. The agreement allows each party to prioritize what is important to them,” Hicks said in a statement. “This provision gives the parties the option, the freedom, to negotiate that agreement. And that is a good thing.”Bull

But if having options and freedom is so great, then why not give it to everyone? After all, if people would prefer the union to negotiating by themselves they can always join the union. So if people don’t want the union, why shouldn’t they have the freedom to make their own “bargaining agreement” with a business owner?

What is going on? Very simple: This was never a campaign to raise the pay for all workers to fifteen dollars an hour as far as the union leaders were concerned. That was always a deception. This entire campaign was a way for them to give unions leverage to make more businesses hire and negotiate with union members in a collective bargaining situation. The union leaders knew all along that forcing wages higher would lead to unemployment. But their plan was to give the unions the capacity to underbid non-union workers in L.A. They want non-union workers to be unemployed and allow union workers to work for less than the minimum wage.

So not only do we see that Liberals believe that higher minimum wage laws lead to greater unemployment, but we also see that they were counting on it.

freedom combo 2

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The Democrats’ War on Workers


Obamacare

Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2014/09/the-democrats-war-on-workers/

Democrats like to accuse Republicans of waging “war” on women and on “immigrants” and anybody else they need to lie to in order to solidify their base.  They get away with it only because the major media are nearly 100% in the tank for Democrats.  In the real world, it is actually Democrats who are waging war, and the war they’re waging is on the same base they lie to with a regularity that would put X-Lax out of business.

The Democratic party has been waging a war on workers, especially lower income workers, for decades.  They’ve gotten away with it because nobody – Republicans are you listening – has had the courage to point it out to those workers.  The tide may be changing on that, but that doesn’t mean the war is won, it just means the Democrats are doubling down.

obamamoney1There are two major issues that are at the forefront of the Democrats’ War on Workers.  So-called immigration reform and forced unionization of public employees.

With respect to “immigration reform,” which is in fact amnesty for 15 million plus illegal aliens currently in the US and another 30 to 40 million who will come in due to the chain immigration rules Democrats and Republican amnesty sell-outs like John McCain insist on, will depress wages at the low end of the scale because this flood of illegal aliens is made up almost entirely of uneducated, unskilled workers whose command of the English language is marginal at best.  The highest rates of unemployment are already low income workers and adding 15 to 45 million more potential low income job seekers will do nothing but depress wages.

The Reason Foundation cites twelve reasons why amnesty will hurt the most vulnerable among us.  The highlights include:

It will cost trillions, depleting resources.

According to The Heritage Foundation’s Robert Rector, the cost for amnesty is at least $6.3 trillion.  Most of this cost is absorbed in Social Security, Medicare, unemployment insurance, education, welfare benefits, and social services like police…

Amnesty will depress wages

The majority of the 33 million new immigrants that would benefit from amnesty would be low-skilled labor. The Congressional Budget Office stated that wages would decrease over ten years. Mass immigration is already hurting many low-skilled laborers, The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights stated that both legal and illegal immigration accounts for forty percent of the 18-point percent decline for African American employment levels.

Employment will decrease amongst low-skill domestic labor

The addition of 33 million new permanent job seekers would increase the already strained native work force.  According to the Center for Immigration Studies, “the native-born population increased by 16.4 million from 2000 to 2013, yet the number of natives actually holding a job was 1.3 million lower in 2013 than 2000.”

Get the idea?  Please follow the link to The Reason Foundation, it’s an eye opener.tax base

With respect to forced unionization, Democrats around the country have spent decades building the strength of public employee unions.  The reason is simple.  Employees are required to join the union, required to pay dues which are automatically deducted from their wages, and the unions are the number one funding source for the Democratic Party.Next election in the bag

We’ve seen some dramatic reversals on that score over the past few years.  Both Michigan and Wisconsin, states with a long history of labor union activism, have both become right-to-work states and unions have lost the majority of their members in both states.  Secondly, the recent Supreme Court decision – Harris v. Quinn – from Illinois that struck down the requirement that low paid home healthcare workers be union members has put a huge dent in union membership.  California, of course, is moving to counter the effect of that decision and continue to prop up unions at the expense of low wage workers.

Two years ago, however, the Legislature and Gov. Jerry Brown began to merge IHSS [In-Home Supportive Services caregivers] with other social services and shift the negotiation of union contracts for aides – who are selected by care recipients and usually family members – to a new statewide “authority.”Show me the Union Dues

As that county-by-county shift occurs, IHSS will become, in effect, a state program with nearly 400,000 employees. While IHSS unions like the shift to state bargaining, it’s creating a new and semi-adversarial relationship between them and the state.

The just-concluded legislative session provided some clues to that evolving relationship.

When, for example, President Barack Obama’s administration declared that IHSS workers were entitled to overtime pay, Brown attempted to limit them to 40-hour weeks to limit costs, but eventually settled for a lesser restriction.

When the Legislature was passing a so-called “domestic worker bill of rights,” laying out working conditions for housekeepers, babysitters and other home helpers, it exempted IHSS workers from its protections – a kind of do-as-we-say-not-as-we-do attitude.Laid Off

[…]The bill, ostensibly a budget cleanup measure, contains a curious provision giving union representatives the right – at public expense – to talk to new workers about union membership for “up to 30 minutes.”

Why?

Well, it may have had something to do with a U.S. Supreme Court decision in an Illinois case that IHSS workers cannot be compelled to pay union “agency shop” dues because they are not truly public workers, since they are chosen by their clients.Union-Bosses

IHSS workers are paid, in most cases, only slightly more than minimum wages, so union dues can be a major bite and many might opt out of paying them under the Supreme Court’s decree.yourgreed

Republican governors in both Michigan and Wisconsin fought the unions and won major victories for the workers in their states as well as state taxpayers.  Both governors inherited huge deficits from outgoing Democrats.  Both Michigan and Wisconsin now have budget surpluses just four years later and, in large part, the reason for those surpluses is moving to being right-to-work states.

It’s long past time for states to stand up for their most vulnerable workers and the best way to do this is to fight amnesty and fight for the right-to-work.  Where do your Representatives and Senators stand?  Where do your State representatives and candidates for statewide office stand?  It’s time to hold the politicians accountable.Resist AmnestyArticle collective closing

 

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Union Households Not Happy with Their Union Bosses


Complete Message

Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2014/08/union-households-arent-happy-with-their-union-bosses/#kRy3LAScrTB2kqwp.99

Unions, especially public employee unions, are quite rightfully taking a beating lately.

Scott Walker drove a stake through the heart of public employee unions in Wisconsin and survived a viscous onslaught from Democrats and their union owners in the process.

The UAW got their clock cleaned in Chattanooga, TN in a union election at Volkswagen plant, a plant where the management was not only not hostile to the union, but welcomed them and worked with them to organize their workers.  Then the recent SCOTUS decision that held that public employee unions like SEIU and AFSCME could not organize home health care workers.

The bottom line isn’t going unnoticed, although it is going unpublicized.  For example, in Wisconsin, every school district that complied with Act 10, the legislation curtailing public employee union contracts, no tax increases were necessary to fund schools and districts that had been facing huge deficits were suddenly facing balanced budgets or surpluses.

A number of districts in very liberal cities signed contract extensions with their teachers unions to avoid Act 10.

In every one of those districts teachers were laid off and taxes were either increased or budgets slashed in other areas to pay for teacher benefits.

This week, a new wrinkle got publicized although we had to stumble across it as opposed to hearing about it on a major news outlet.  Not even FoxNews reported it.  The Oregon Catalyst reported the follow good news for tax payers and bad news for union bosses.

Because of a deal struck by Governor John Kitzhaber, Oregonians won’t have the opportunity to end forced union dues in the public sector this year. However, a just-released public opinion poll makes it clear that if the Public Employee Choice Act had been on this November’s ballot, most voters likely would have supported it.

The poll, conducted for National Employee Freedom Week (August 10-16) asked adults across America:

“Should employees have the right to decide, without force or penalty, whether to join or leave a labor union?”

Nationwide, 82.9 percent of respondents answered Yes. Of the 500 respondents in Oregon, a resounding 84 percent answered Yes.*

Union-BossesThis poll may be surprising to some, but not to us here at CurmudgeonCentral! because we’ve followed the results of right to work legislation, most recently in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Teachers Union and AFSCME, the two major public employee unions lost up to 75% of their membership and millions of dollars in dues.  The biggest losers in the lost dues was the Democratic Party, because their largest donors are unions.

It’s time for conservatives to take heart and start working toward granting the right to work in states where unions still hold the workforce – and the taxpayers – captive.  Given the alternative, workers would prefer to spend the outrageous amounts collected by their unions and given to Democrats on their families than on their union bosses lavish lifestyles.

 

 

In the Unions pocketArticle collective closing

 

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Third-World Detroit… A Glimpse of America’s Future


http://joeforamerica.com/2014/06/third-world-detroit-glimpse-americas-future/

Posted by on Jun 12, 2014

detroit-bankruptcy_3

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Cloward PivenIt seems the current occupant of the White House is determined to solidify his title as the “Worst President Ever”, as he is in the process of creating a crisis of mass proportions along the U.S. southern border. Throngs of illegal immigrants, most of whom are minors, are pouring over the border in search of the rainbows and unicorns that Barack Obama, Harry Reid and other demon spawn in Washington have promised. The reality that is greeting them however, involves being warehoused in cesspools of disease and hunger.  In fact, the situation has become so dire, that it is now being compared to Hurricane Katrina, and Rep. Darryl Issa (R-CA) worries that many children will lose their lives trying to get here.

As thousands flood our borders daily, seeking amnesty and free handouts, they need only look at a certain city within these United States to realize what liberal promises are worth. If you want to see a lib squirm, mention the word “Detroit.” Detroit was one of the most prosperous cities in the country in the 1950s, when America’s auto industry was at its prime, but fat cat union bosses killed the goose that laid the golden egg with their desire for handouts and special favors at the expense of the industry that kept the city alive.

Detroit’s economic collapse has resulted in bankruptcy to the tune of $18 billion, as jobs and taxpayers flee the area. Even impoverished Tijuana, Mexico, had a lower unemployment rate at the end of 2012, at 7.4%, than Detroit at 10.2%. Now, languishing in blight, bankruptcy, and despair, this once-great city is no longer of any interest to Obama or his fellow Democrats. After all, if they have the votes of Detroit’s population sewn up, and it’s been run by Democrats since 1962, why put forth the resources?

8An article in Crain’s Detroit Business points out that, while politicians are busy hand-wringing over young illegals, the infant mortality rate in Detroit is higher than some third world countries, including Mexico. In fact, infant mortality is the leading cause of death for children in Detroit, with violence coming in second, but when jobs are scarce so is prenatal care. These children are American citizens, but they have no political capital to the “progressive” elites, the way foreign children seeking amnesty do. In addition, overall life expectancy in Detroit is the lowest of the top 25 most populous metropolitan areas. When there is no “hope”, longevity loses its luster anyway.

This is what happens when people become accustomed to suckling at the government teat. “Progressives” of both parties are nothing but dependency pushers, and they are no better than street corner heroin dealers. They serve their own purposes and they cherish the power that dependency provides.

The time is now for the pushback. The Eric Cantor dismissal was a good start. There has been speculation that his desire to reach an amnesty agreement with Obama is what did him in. There has been further speculation that any hope for an immigration deal this year leaves with him. Don’t count on it. The momentum is on the side of “We The People”, but now is NOT the time to retreat.

This country is teetering dangerously close to the point of no return. The flood of illegals at our borders may very well help Barack Obama “fundamentally transform” America into a place where every major city mirrors Detroit. The bitter irony is that the illegal immigrants now invading our country may soon discover that the great “promised land” they once dreamed about looks very much like the tattered mess they left behind.

For a great analysis on how Detroit went from being a beacon of industry to being brought to its knees, check out Ben Howe’s documentary (NEXT), Bankrupt – How Cronyism and Corruption Brought Down Detroit. Follow him on Twitter, @BenHowe.

detroit

Problem where he lives now17Article collective closing

 

 

 

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Seven Minimum Wage Facts That Have Democrats Worried


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/05/7-Minimum-Wage-Facts-That-Have-Democrats-

by Wynton Hall 5 Jan 2014

 

With the midterm elections just over 300 days away, nervous Democrats reeling from the Obamacare debacle are hoping a big push to raise the minimum wage will be the silver bullet that will spare them from the historic losses they suffered in 2010.

Democrats and unions are busy working to get minimum wage initiatives on state ballots in the hopes of creating an electoral “minimum wage magnet” to attract low-income, minority, and union voters to the polls.

Seven minimum wage facts, however, may diminish Democrats’ high hopes.

1. Just 2.8% of American workers earn at or below the minimum wage.

The U.S. Department of Labor says 1.6 million people make the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. Another 2 million earn below that rate, such as restaurant servers who make tips in addition to a lower base hourly wage which, according to U.S. News and World Report, “in many cases actually puts them   significantly above the minimum wage in reality, if not officially.” That means in a nation of 317 million people, just 3.6 million (1.1%) make at or below the minimum wage. As a share of the U.S. workforce, just 2.8% of people working make minimum wage.

2. Half of all minimum wage workers are 16 to 24 years old.

According to the Department of Labor, “minimum wage workers tend to be young,” and “about half of those paid the Federal minimum wage or less” are below age 25. Many of these are students working while in school or teenagers with part-time or summer jobs. That means half of the people most affected by a minimum wage hike are among those least likely to show up at the polls to vote, especially in a midterm election year. Indeed, minimum wage workers who are 16 and 17 years old are not even legally eligible to vote.

3.  Labor workers already make well above the minimum wage.

Democrats and unions hoping labor workers will be energized by a minimum wage bump will be sad to know that laborers in every single sector of what the government calls “production and nonsupervisory employees”—like manufacturing, construction, mining, retail, transportation, etc.—already earn well above the minimum wage. In fact, in November 2013, the government reported that the average hourly labor wage across all industries was $20.31—a figure nearly three times the federal minimum wage. And as the unions themselves boast, a union member’s annual salary is already $10,400 higher than a non-union worker.

4. Even those who support minimum wage hikes concede it could kill jobs.

Many economists and conservatives point to the body of economic literature that shows minimum wage increases kill jobs and simply encourage companies to pass along the added cost in the form of higher prices. But even ardent supporters like socialist Seattle City Council member Kshama Sawant, who recently helped pass a $15 minimum wage in the SeaTac, Washington, concede the move could spawn job losses. “There may be a few jobs lost here and there, but the fact is, if we don’t fight for this, then the race to the bottom will continue,” said Sawant.

5. Minorities and the poor are hit hardest by the minimum wage. 

Nobel Prize-winning economist Milton Friedman famously noted that “the most anti-black law on the books of this land is the minimum wage law.” Higher wages mean employers seek higher, more skilled workers. That, said Friedman, puts those with disproportionately less education and experience at a significant disadvantage when looking to put their foot on the first rung of the employment ladder.

6. Even progressives concede the minimum wage is no panacea for America’s economic woes.

President Barack Obama’s former chairwoman of the Council of Economic Economic Advisers Christina Romer says, “economic analysis raises questions about whether a higher minimum wage will achieve better outcomes for the economy and reduce poverty.” As a result, says Romer, “most economists prefer other ways to help low-income families.” Similarly, progressive Daily Beast writer Jamelle Bouie says while he supporters the move, “the minimum wage is a Band-Aid for wage stagnation and income inequality” and “doesn’t make up for our sluggish economy and weak labor market.”

7. 21 states already have minimum wages that are higher than the federal $7.25/hr rate.

Just last week, 13 states boosted their minimum wage rates above the federal minimum wage rate of $7.25/hr. That means 21 states now already have minimum wages that exceed the federal rate.

For these reasons and more, Republicans see Democrats’ minimum wage tactic as a desperate attempt to run from the Obama record.

“If I had a dollar for every time Democrats thought their issue of the week was going to be their pathway to victory, I would have enough money to pay taxpayers back all the money that was wasted on the broken Obamacare website,” said Republican Congressional Campaign Committee spokeswoman Andrea Bozek.

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Liberals have Corrupted Unions With Absolute Power


 

JayBy Jay Taylor, Senior Vice President – Liberty Alliance, LLC

 

When talking to fellow conservatives, one interesting question to ask them is why they are registered Democrat when they have nothing in common with them. The answer inevitably comes back to Labor Unions. The Union Movement was founded to protect workers, and has a great history in its founding with gaining worker protections, fair wages, and benefits. But now the power has gone too far, and instead of being concerned about workers, Unions seem to be more worried about electing liberals to office. The once proud union history has turned into one of bankrupting companies through ridiculous pensions that no one would be able to pay. Pensions should be outlawed and replaced with retirement accounts, but that’s a story for another day.

Some states have Right to Work laws where union membership is voluntary and you can’t be forced to join as a condition of employment. One of the arguments against Right to Work is that workers enjoy the benefits without paying dues. This is not true. The National Labor Relations Act makes it so unions can represent all, but are not required to do so.1 If union membership is all it’s cracked up to be, then why in Right to Work states do they have lower unemployment?2 You would think that pro-choice liberals would like the ability for workers to be able to choose their membership. They can have separate contracts for their members and if their benefits are competitive for the dues paid, wouldn’t members join? There is the true power of the unions as they collect $9 billion in union dues.2 Which in turn seem to be paid out to liberal politicians that frequently don’t have workers best interests at heart.

One of the most outrageous things was Coal Unions supporting Obama.3 There is no defense for anyone wanting to mine coal to support Obama when he has declared war on coal. It doesn’t make any sense if you want to keep your job. The auto bailout was for the unions since their pension had finally gotten to the breaking point and why the American auto industry has trouble competing.4 Hostess went bankrupt because of union greed.5 We’ve seen numerous cities go bankrupt as their unions demanded more and more of the limited city budgets.6 How are these good for jobs?

The strange relationship between liberal democrats and the union movement is tied to their march towards socialism.7 Both want more government with greater rules and control. The only problem is that once the collective has total control, freedom is lost and becomes a moot point. We need a balance where reason is the centerpiece. Unions started out as a good thing, but have traveled down a dark path where greed and power have corrupted them and now they have forgotten who they are.8

I’ve been forced to join two unions in my life. First was at Kroger and later at the hospital union. Both were college jobs, but they taught me a great deal about unions. I attended a Union Steward class to learn more about the Union but found this to be a two day Republican bashing session. When it did come time to learn about filing a grievance it was a 5 minute “here is this form” and where to turn it in. There was nothing about what a legitimate grievance is, or how the union rules work. My experience was that the Union prevented the lazy workers from getting in trouble or fired and got the same amount of money from the part time people in dues to pay for political activities. The only benefit I see from the Union is padding the liberal’s pockets at the expense of workers.

If you are in a union you need to look carefully at where your dues are being spent and who they are supporting in elections. Unions present a pretty picture of how much they say membership can bring you, but is it a short term gain that in the long run will be a bankrupt mess? Do your homework and research out the facts. For those conservatives out there who register as Democrat because of their union, the facts will amaze you. Don’t be used as a sacrificial political pawn for the liberal socialist agenda. Your fellow conservatives are ready for you to come home.    

  

1 – http://blog.heritage.org/2012/12/11/michigan-unions-freeloader-myth/

2 – http://blogs.wsj.com/economics/2012/12/17/closer-look-at-union-vs-nonunion-workers-wages/

3 – http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/08/fbi-affidavit-union-backed-bill-rights-for-guards-contributed-to-sex-drugs-in/

4 – http://capitalresearch.org/2012/01/the-union-difference-a-primer-on-what-unions-do-to-the-economy/

5 – http://www.foxnews.com/leisure/2012/11/20/hostess-poised-to-liquidate-after-last-minute-talks-with-union-fail/

6 – http://townhall.com/columnists/johnhawkins/2011/03/08/5_reasons_unions_are_bad_for_america/page/full

7 – http://conservativeoutpost.com/unions_history_their_socialist_agenda

8 – http://www.brighthub.com/office/career-planning/articles/121321.aspx

Read more: http://conservativebyte.com/2013/06/liberals-have-corrupted-unions-with-absolute-power/#ixzz2VZDFzfuK

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Really??????????


Chicago Union Head: Let Us Carry Guns, Get Paid Like Cops

by Breitbart News 22 Feb 2013 156 post a comment

Union members in Chicago are now intent on carrying guns aboard their buses if members of the civilian public are allowed to do so. And naturally, they want more taxpayer money for their trouble.

The NRA has insisted on concealed-carry laws that would allow the general public to carry guns on public transit; now Amalgamated Transit Union Division 308 President Robert Kelly says such a policy is “outrageous and cannot be allowed.” Chicago Transit Authority President Forrest Claypool agrees, “It would be disastrous to allow passengers to carry concealed weapons on our trains and buses.”

But sensing an opportunity to push for higher pay, Kelly added that if civilians were allowed to carry weapons, CTA employees “should get training and have the same right for protection. We will also need to be paid accordingly since we will have dual jobs as transit workers and police officers.”

The law in Illinois is slated to change radically come mid-June, unless Illinois comes up with a Constitutional law concerning concealed-carry rights. If not, anyone with the ID to purchase a firearm will be able to carry guns. As Chicago mayor says – and as the unions clearly believe – never let a good opportunity to waste taxpayer cash go to waste.

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