Greek Rioters and Union Cheeseheads

Greek Rioters and Union Cheeseheads

Pride is a funny thing.  The Bible says it comes before a fall.  Those Democratic Party state senators in Wisconsin who fled to Illinois instead of doing their job now proclaim that they are “proud” that they defied the voters who turned out last November.  Clearly the “will of the people” is unimportant to the union bosses who own those state senators lock, stock and barrel. 
As an aside, I’m shocked that the state of Wisconsin allows demonstrators to invade and occupy its State Capitol Building.  This is allowed in a state where leftists have blown up buildings on the University of Wisconsin campus?  This is “mobocracy” at its worst.  It allows out of control agitators and demonstrators to physically intimidate legislators with whom they do not agree.  This is not representative government in action, it is thuggery in action.  While I fully support the right to demonstrate outside of public buildings, demonstrating and disrupting business inside goes beyond the pale.

The demonstrators, who at times stole their way through a window into the Capitol Building, were not representatives of workers, but of union bosses.  Consider the fact that public employee unions have an unfair monopoly status on all state workers in Wisconsin.  Then combine this with their unholy alliance with legislators who bribe them with financially unsustainable contracts, and you have a recipe for political corruption.  It works like this, the politician agrees to an unsustainable union contract and then the union provides millions of dollars in political support.  Today public unions have taken cities, counties, and states to a position of financial insolvency. 
Incredibly those who work in jobs that produce consumer goods and services are paid less than those who drag down our economy, i.e. government workers.  Our taxes go to those who now get paid more, and receive benefits befitting a king for doing nothing to improve the prosperity of our nation.  Nothing.

In Wisconsin, government school teachers get paid and promoted solely on the basis of seniority, not merit.  They have absolute job security regardless of performance.  That’s not good for the taxpayers and incidentally, it’s not good for the government school teachers either. 

Governor Scott Walker asked for some very modest concessions from the public unions, but they refused to negotiate.  He asked them to pay just a very small amount of their health care costs (like almost everyone in the private sector does) and to pay a small portion of their retirement benefits.  He also proposed that they must re-certify their union each year.  

After the Democratic Party state senators illegally fled the state, he offered through e-mails to make concessions, but they refused.  They reject the fact that their outrageous salaries and benefits are financially unsustainable and have brought the state of Wisconsin to the brink of bankruptcy.

While the union demonstrators in Wisconsin claim a camaraderie with the pro freedom demonstrators in Egypt, the more apt comparison is with the public workers in Greece, who when told they could not continue on their bankrupting course by the European Union, rioted.  The union bosses pulling the strings in Cheesehead Country are no different than the union bosses who manufacture riots in Athens.  The two are soul brothers.

The real reason the union bosses would not compromise or negotiate has nothing to do with the welfare of the rank and file union worker.  It has everything to do with politics.  Today the Democratic Party survives on the backs of the public unions.  For instance, in Wisconsin public union members are required to pay annual union dues in excess of $1,000.  That money is then spent by the union bosses to elect more politicians who jump and dance to their every whim.  

While the unions who exist within the private sector continue to shrink, the public unions have expanded exponentially.  Each election cycle they spend hundreds of millions of dollars to elect Democratic Party candidates.  And once those leftwing Democrats take office, they fatten the till of the union bosses so that the money will keep flowing to their election campaign.  It’s not only bad for taxpaying citizens and union members themselves, but it is also corrupt and it needs to come to an end.

States that have right-to-work laws (laws that forbid a union from forcing a worker at a company to join a union) are the most prosperous and healthy.  The primary reason for the so-called Rust Belt is the unions themselves who have driven businesses out of their states.  It’s not that Americans can’t compete in the manufacturing business, it’s that a union shop, i.e. requiring every worker to join a union, makes a business noncompetitive in the world of today.

The demonstrators in Madison have nothing in common with the freedom demonstrators in Cairo, and everything in common with the rioters in Greece.  Thanks to the Greek unions, Greece is an economic basket case that is pulling down the entire European Union.  

Either the voters in Wisconsin use common sense and back Governor Walker and the brave Republican Party state representatives and senators who stood up for common sense, or the state will sink into total insolvency.  What will happen next election day?  Stay tuned.