Wednesday, March 02, 2011

No right to public-employee unions

Don't fall for the "Constitutional argument" of those saying mean Republicans are violating the right to union representation. It is not a right, but a privilege endowed by legislation.

State employee unions arrived in Washington in 2002 by an act of the legislature. Did public employees have a right to unionize before then? No, they didn't have that privilege before and never had a right.

If it is a right then why didn't FDR protect it?

Pres. FDR opposed public unions. Even ace labor organizer George Meany opposed it. Source: Heritage in NY Times

“It is impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

That wasn’t Newt Gingrich, or Ron Paul, or Ronald Reagan talking. That was George Meany -- the former president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O -- in 1955. Government unions are unremarkable today, but the labor movemen thinkers once thought the idea absurd.

The founders of the labor movement viewed unions as a vehicle to get workers more of the profits they help create. Government workers, however, don’t generate profits. They merely negotiate for more tax money. When government unions strike, they strike against taxpayers. F.D.R. considered this “unthinkable and intolerable.”

So ignore claims it is a right. No, respond that it is a privilege we can't afford.

This entry looks so terrible because I am using Ecto from Illuminex to write it. They decided to enter lots of blank lines.

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