Your Public Sector Unions at Work - Andrew Klavan

Andrew Klavan explains how private and public sector unions are different and what it means for you, the taxpayer.

Bill Whittle - The End of the Beginning

Another great history lesson from Bill Whittle on the three great waves of human civilization and how the power of public sector unions is bound to collapse as power devolves back to the people because of the information age and the people's ability to self-organize. Witness the Tea Parties.

Why Public Sector Employee Unions Should Not be Allowed

Unions once had their place in protecting workers but in the modern age workers have access to information in the form of what other employers than their own are paying in wages and benefits and are free to take a better offer. Employers know they have to compete with each other for the best employees. Unions have become largely irrelevant. In the public sector, unions are actually destructive because they can influence elections and support candidates who, though elected to represent the interests of voters, are actually then beholden to the public sector unions and will act to increase government employee wages and benefits to the detriment of the voter/taxpayer. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Public sector employees now make more on average than their private sector counterparts, who must pay taxes to support them and they have the protection of civil service laws to boot. In other words, the employees get to elct their own bosses, who must then keep the employees happy.

Over the last few days, teachers in Wisconsin have been staging a sickout in protest of Governor Scott Walker's plan to rein in the power of the unions by removing their collective bargaining rights with respect to benefits, not wages, just benefits. Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel columnist Patirck McIlhern sums it all up here but I thought this part of his column on the issue best sums up the difference between private and public sector unions:

"Unions in the private sector are a way of organizing private interests, those of employees, against other private interests, those of a company's owners, for economic gain and for protection against unfairness. In government, workers are already protected against unfairness by civil service laws, and Walker has supported expanding those. Economically, government unions pit a private interest, that of employees, against the public's interest, that of taxpayers and voters."

Read the whole thing.

Thomas Sowell Has Something for Everybody Today

Two Blogs, two separate quotes from one interview that Thomas Sowell gave to John Hawkins at Right Wing News recently.

Glenn Reynolds keyed in on this one:

THOMAS SOWELL ON WHAT SHOULD HAPPEN WHEN BIG-SPENDING STATES RUN OUT OF MONEY: “They should go bankrupt. I’m looking forward to it.”

Glenn's observation:

"It’ll hurt people who have relied on their promises to pay. But so did what was done to the Chrysler bondholder"

At Samizdata, this caught the attention of Perry DeHavilland:

John Hawkins: Now, in recent years we started to hear more people calling to get rid of the Federal Reserve. Good idea, bad idea? What are your thoughts?

Thomas Sowell: Good idea

John Hawkins: Good idea? What do you think we should replace it with? What do you think we should do?

Thomas Sowell: Well it's like when you remove a cancer what do you replace it with?

Personally, I liked the following point about government employee unions:

John Hawkins: "Well, related question to that -- certainly we should allow unions in society. Should we be allowing government workers to unionize?

Thomas Sowell: "Oh, I don't know about allowing them to unionize, but they certainly should not be allowed to strike -- and there was a time when they weren't allowed to unionize. There's a whole atmosphere in which a strike is regarded as some kind of sacred thing. A strike is not simply a refusal to work. We all can refuse to work whether we're unionized or not. A strike is a refusal to let other people do the work that you refuse to do and I don't know why anybody should have that right

There's a lot more. Read the whole thing.








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Another Delicious Smack-Down by NJ Governor Chris Christie

Via Roger Kimball at Pajamas Media we have this delightful smack-down of a clueless New Jersey teacher's union member.

It really is too bad this man has (so far) ruled out running for President in 2012. The country as a whole could benefit from someone who isn't afraid to spell out reality the way he can and the Republicans in particular can learn a few lessons from listening to him. No apologies and no prisoners. Go and read Roger's commentary on it too. You'll be glad you did.

Scott Ott on Unions and Jobs Americans Can't Do

Scott Ott claims that big union collectivism is turning us into a nation of brain-dead robots, incapable of filling open jobs even if any are available. Why?

1) Job compartmentalization by powerful unions discouraged cross-training and skills development in exchange for “security.”

2) Teachers’ unions continue to produce high school “graduates” whose mental capabilities make them unworthy of the title.

In other words, the anti-competitive spirit of private- and public-sector unions conspires to dumb down its victims, making them into dependents — first of the union and then of the state, when the employer lets them go, or goes under. Even workers in non-union jobs and plants have felt the impact of career compartmentalization as unions have bullied employers to transform the logistics of the factory to suit their members’ alleged need for “security.”

It even extends to our political class. You just have to shake your head at the following gem from Nancy Pelosi earlier this week.

You can almost hear the dull hum of lethargic synapses in House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s numbed skull as she says that extending unemployment benefits is “the best way to stimulate the economy.”

That’s right. Rep. Pelosi says the productive members of society should pay others to remain unemployed as a way to generate the juice that keeps our economy surging forward.

If she really beleives that, the brain rot has set in much deeper than I thought or she thinks we're stupid. Go and read the whole thing.