Ban unions for government workers!

What happens when government employees learn that they can't keep looting the public treasury? Here's what:



The really disgusting part of this story is that much of this mob consists of presumably educated, disciplined and cultured educators, many making making six-figures. A reported 40% of Wisconsin public school employees called in sick to participate in this mob. Alleged doctors (who presumably also called in sick) were on hand to handout apparently fraudulent sick excuses to the teachers and other government workers. Their students surely must be impressed!

As is typical of liberals, these people are slobs, leaving litter and damage in their wake.

Why all the fuss? Wisconsin (like many States, cities, and the federal government) is going broke paying wages, benefits, and pensions that far exceed what most people make in the private sector. Government employees reportedly average almost 50% more than their counterparts in the private sector. Why do they make so much? Because politicians can easily buy their votes with fat compensation packages at taxpayer expense. In the private sector, on the other hand, employers have a bottom line. If they overcompensate their employees, company profits sink and the company can even fail.

A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters [government workers] discover that they can vote themselves money from the public treasure. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most money from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's great civilizations has been two hundred years. These nations have progressed through the following sequence: from bondage to spiritual faith, from spiritual faith to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependency, from dependency back to bondage. — Attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, a Scottish historian/professor on the fall of the Athenian republic in The Cycle of Democracy, (1778)

In the private sector, businesses must make a profit. If a business doesn't provide the owner(s) an attractive return on their investment, they close the doors. Businesses generally have competition and must provide equivalent or better products at equivalent or better prices to attract customers. Business that can't compete in a free market go out of business (unless the government provides some sort of subsidy or other bailout). When the workers of these businesses unionize the result is an adversarial relationship. The workers want more money and benefits, job security, and better working conditions. The owner(s) want to make a profit for themselves. The give and take between the two parties eventually results in a compromise.

In the public sector, on the other hand, the government has no competitors -- they have a monopoly on the services they provide (and we don't have a choice whether to pay for services we don't want or don't use). The owners are the taxpayers whose interests are often ignored by the government -- unlike the owner(s) of a business. One would think that elected officials are beholden to the voters and taxpayers. In reality, far too many politicians are beholden to those who give them the most money and other campaign support. This is where unions -- particularly public sector unions -- come in. Public employees are in the unique position to elect their own bosses and the persons with whom they will negotiate their own compensation and working conditions. The presence of public-sector unions has been extremely visible around certain political campaigns (ie Barack Obama, Harry Reid, and other ultra-liberal Democrats). When politicians are voted into office with this help of the public sector unions, there is little or no adversarial relationship between management and union as explained above for businesses. Hence, public sector employees typically have substantially better compensation package and significantly better job security than their employers -- the private-sector taxpayers.

I've been a union member for 25 years -- in the private sector. The greed, corruption, and ugly behavior of members of public-employee unions over the past several years makes me ashamed to be a union member.

Public employees should never be unionized. They work for the people and should never be paid more than their employers. Many of them, however, seem to believe that the only reason taxpayers exist is to provide a comfortable lifestyle to government employees and politicians.

I warn the taxpayers of Wisconsin (an all other States) to remember what Governor Walker and the Republicans in the Wisconsin Legislature are doing to protect the taxpayer's interests because the unions will certainly remember. If taxpayers do not support every politician who fights for the citizen's rights, the politicians who fight for the unions will invariably win.