Modern day union is often little more than governments and their union supporters bleeding the public dry in order to subsidize a political party and a union leadership

[Sandra]

Modern day union is often little more than governments and their union supporters bleeding the public dry in order to subsidize a
political party and a union leadership that brings in the votes for that

party

Who Will Protect the People from the Unions?

 By Daniel Greenfield  Sunday,

January 2, 2011

It is often forgotten that one of the causes of the evolution of the

modern American urban union was the lawless suppression of workers by

Democratic party affiliated political machines, and yet it did not take

so very long before the union became an outgrowth of that same political

machine. And having wiped out nearly every independent industry with

which it was associated, the only unions still surviving are those in

control of either municipal services or state subsidized service

providers, particularly in the medical field.

If the union began as a way to negotiate salaries and working conditions

between employers and workers, the modern day union is often little more

than governments and their union supporters bleeding the public dry in

order to subsidize a political party and a union leadership that brings

in the votes for that party. The situation is most critical in

California, but many state and city budgets are almost as badly strained

by the combination of municipal union contracts and the subsidized

services that they are associated with.

Lethal work slowdown by union members in New York City during the blizzard

The recent



lethal work slowdown by union members in New York City during the

blizzard or the multimillion dollar media blitzes by California unions

for Jerry Brown and New Jersey teacher’s unions against Chris Christie is

a harsh reminder of the utter greed and ruthlessness of the union’s last

stand, their death grip on public services fed by taxpayer money. These

stands have little to do with worker’s rights. They have next to nothing

in common with the old union image of underpaid workers protesting

outside of factories. It’s still about exploitation, but it’s about the

exploitation of the public by a union-government political

establishment.

As the bosses of old have given way to managers and then to politicians,

the union bosses are the only bosses still in the game, who enjoy wealth

and power far beyond those of the average taxpayer being fleeced without

his or her consent. Union rhetoric may pretend that they are contending

with mayors and governors, but in reality it’s the public that they’re

really contending with. Their strikes have hardly any effect on the

politicians, but target the public. And the money that they’re paid with

is the public’s money. The New Jersey’s teachers union real target was

New Jersey homeowners who already pay the highest property taxes in the

country. But when given a choice, homeowners across New Jersey said no to

paying more property taxes into the union’s pockets. And Governor

Christie won so much acclaim, because he called the union on what it was

doing and insisted that the voters should have a choice. But much of the

time politicians are more than happy to give in.

Union negotiations with politicians that they help elect are a corrupt

farce, because the money extracted from the public goes in part to the

same politicians who decide whether to accept or reject their offer. In

any law abiding system, this would be a tremendous conflict of interest,

like sending in your bank’s loan officer to act as your real estate

broker. But under our current system it is actually commonplace for

unions which live off contracts with politicians, to be able to fund and

work to elect those same politicians. And it represents a level of

corruption that makes the Pentagon’s 100 dollar screws or the corporate

tax shelters that liberal pundits complain about seem almost petty. And

now entire states are collapsing under the weight of dirty contracts with

unions that act like a Praetorian Guard, elevating and removing governors

and mayors who displease them.

Governor Schwarzenegger went in as a reformer, but after losing a battle

with California nurses unions turned into a Yes Man for Sacramento. His

replacement, Governor Jerry Brown



was elected with millions of dollars of union money. The California

media has made much of how much Meg Whitman spent on her campaign, but

Jerry Brown didn’t have to spend much money on his campaign. The unions

were out there doing it for him, with money extracted from a state budget

in freefall. This arrangement under which a new governor, who has never

held any job that was not on the public dole, got elected thanks to an

arrangement with unions who live off the public dole.

Corrupt collusion between union bosses and politicians, exchanging public money for political support

If this was corrupt collusion between businesses and union bosses, as has
often been the case with some unions such as SEIU, then the only victims

would be union members. But this is corrupt collusion between union

bosses and politicians, exchanging public money for political support.

And not letting go even when the public is bleeding red and there’s

literally no more money to give.

It means that unions get paid, while



state tax refunds to the public are delayed. Because the unions are

always at the head of the line. When Governor Schwarzenegger tried to

temporarily cut worker pay, State Controller



John Chiang refused to comply. Chiang was also the man who decided

that working families could wait for their tax refunds. And it’s no

wonder because John Chiang, the man with hands on the purse, was also



elected by the same unions he’s pandering to. California unions spent

millions to put Chiang in place and more to keep reelecting him.



How long can the system go on before it breaks down? That doesn’t really

matter. Because the man at the top in Washington D.C. also got there

through union backing. And ObamaCare exempts unions, but forces ordinary

Americans to buy into a health care system whose contracts are negotiated

to benefit unions. It’s a safe bet that Barack Obama won’t let Jerry

Brown, John Chiang and their unions go under. Because his own reelection

campaign depends on it. Money sent to California unions, is also money

sent to the Campaign to Reelect Barack Obama. But it’s also a safe bet

that the California taxpayers won’t just be the only ones hit with the

bill. California may default on its debts, state bonds may prove

worthless and the federal government may go on covering whatever

entitlements funding is needed, but sooner or later the system will still

break down. It will just be a national system, rather than a state

one.

Political machines have robbed states and cities blind before, but in the

19th century they did not have access to a massive federal budget on this

scale. Even President Martin Van Buren, a Tammany Hall man, could not

command the kind of wealth and credit that Barack Obama does. President

Buchanan might have helped cover up a murder by Congressman Sickles, one

of his Tammany Hall favorites, who had been engaged in blatant corruption

using government money, but even accounting for inflation, he could have

never overseen a fraud and theft of this magnitude.

The

Pigford settlement alone makes Tammany Hall’s worst crimes seem like

small change, and yet it’s far from the most notable misuse of money by

this congress or administration.

Politicians and bureaucrats could and did steal, but there was a limit

and scope to their theft. Those who stole too much would usually be

brought down before they caused too much damage, and drove an outraged

public to cut off the pipeline. Tammany Hall’s leadership was repeatedly

purged in just that fashion. But while the current union system is

essentially a legal version of the old Tammany Hall system, in which

municipal employees were obligated to pay “the ring” for their jobs, it

has no more limits. Not even the bankruptcy of the system that it feeds

off.

When the union is isolated enough and the public is desperately trying to

make ends meet, then the unions may lose. That’s what happened with the

teacher’s union in New Jersey. But when the unions are big enough and

feed off a huge membership that knows it has no choice but to vote union,

and the unions are closely tied up with an entitlements dependent

electorate, then the system may be irreparable. And that is what happened

in California. You can’t fix a system like that, not without taking on

millions of people who are robbing it blind. And that’s not an election,

it’s a civil war.

In his own time as governor of New York and police commissioner of New

York City, Theodore Roosevelt could not succeed in cleaning it up. And

his many times removed cousin, Franklin D. Roosevelt turned New York

City’s corruption into a national standard with the New Deal. Together

with Tammany Hall’s New York Senator Wagner, their National Labor

Relations Act turned to compulsory unionization as a means of forcing

workers into supporting the Democratic party, whether they wanted to or

not. And by doing so, Wagner and FDR began the process of reclaiming the

unions from the Communist party and organized crime, and integrating them

into the nationwide structure of the Democratic party.

FDR and Wagner were both New York politicians with a ground floor view on

how its dirty politics worked.  And the NLRB was not about worker

representation, but about money and political power. It favored large

unions with political affiliations, destroying small unions, and taking a

Northeastern urban alliance between the political machine and the union

bosses as its model. The workers were no longer being beaten by goons

hired by their employers and the political machine’s police. Now they

were being beaten by goons hired by the union bosses and the political

machine’s police. Organized crime had always worked both sides of the

aisle, playing for the highest bidder. The NLRB showed organized crime

that unions were the future and industry was the past. But the

politicians were ahead of them.

The union became a parasite and union jobs either went south or were

outsourced. But the public sector union remained a tick fixed on the

bloodstream of the public. You didn’t have to be a factory owned to be

drained by them. You didn’t need to own a single share of stock. All you

had to do was live and pay taxes in an area where public sector unions

had gripped in their claws. The intersection of entitlements and public

sector unions and political machines meant that money was being exchanged

for political support, and the people outraged were not the ones that

politicians cared about. They still made a show of driving a hard

bargain, but more often they showed up at union conferences to loud

cheers. Their old electorate paid taxes. Their new electorate gobbled

them.

And that brings us back to 2011 where the oppressed worker is now the

taxpayer, whose income and future are being garnished by unions. The poor

man standing out in the rain is not the union employee, but the man

waiting to collect another check, that will be torn apart and consumed by

union bosses and politicians. Who will then protect those workers­ the

people, from the unions?





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