Landmark Worker Liberty Setbacks from the NRLB and MO GOP

The Wall Street Journal reported that organized labor has a brazen new tactic to accomplish forced unionization. Meanwhile, the St. Louis Beacon reports that there is another new tactic to force unionization in Missouri. These power plays by big labor and Democrat politicians against workers and taxpayers are without precedent.

The Boeing Corporation found union demands so intolerable that they decided to build their newest plant in right to work, South Carolina. They simply followed the logical and well worn path of major manufacturers leading from forced union states to right to work states. Because organized labor devotes 90% of their political action funds to Democrats, it is no surprise that the Obama administration controlled National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) would do the bidding of big labor and launch air strikes against the freedom road out of forced labor land.

What is perhaps much more striking is what is happening in Missouri where Republican enjoy huge majorities in both Chambers. Not surprisingly, Senate leaders opened the Session with the bold announcement that they would make worker liberty a top priority. While that right to work law languishes, negotiators on a St. Louis police "local control" law announced that they have a deal between the City and the police union. The Republican Legislature will give the City local control over the police force, and give the union their dream of forcing the City into adopting a collective bargaining deal with the union. It seems, "local control" is a mere slogan to be applied selectively by whoever has the power. So the rank and file cops will be forced to join the union and taxpayers will certainly learn what other cities know about how hard it is to remove that bad unionized officers.

This is all the more stunning in light of the reality that despite the St. Louis City reputation as a solid Democrat and union stronghold, the City has managed to stave off forced collective bargaining. Also this week, right to work Oklahoma lawmakers moved to further restrict public employee collective bargaining agreement. Nevertheless, it is a Republican Legislature that is poised to be the first lawmaking body in the country to force a local government into a collective bargaining agreement. Evidently, lawmakers in the Show Me State got the wrong message from Wisconsin.

An Embezzler For Your Banker

A left-leaning high school classmate asked about my being "far right" in my political views and why anyone would think it is a good idea to strip workers of their collective bargaining "rights". As a former lawmaker, I had some experience and, as it happens, opinions on the subject.

Julia, The term far right is really a misnomer. It depends on what you mean by it. I am really passionate about making the most sensible laws. By sensible I mean liberal, or free. I measured every vote by whether it added freedom or removes it. I called it my "freedom litmus test".

So if you were proposing more taxes or a new program that was expensive, I would see that as creating more of a burden on taxpayers, so it was "anti-liberal".
If you proposed an anti-smoking law, even though I do not smoke, I would resist that. Who am I to tell someone he cannot smoke, or tell a restaurant OWNER what he could do inside his four walls with consenting adults?
So we find that people who consider themselves "liberal" are actually leading the charge to limit a lot of freedoms while people labeled "far right" are actually the ones typically most vocal about retaining liberty.

As for collective bargaining "rights", FDR, the most famous progressive actually said that public employee collective bargaining was unconscionable.
A public employee union is funded by taxpayers in order to extract more pay, more benefits, and less work from those same taxpayers. Voting for any union-backed candidate is like putting an embezzler in charge of your bank. He may look nice, but his goal and yours for your money are completely different. Does that make sense?

Look at California. The unions managed to put in a majority Democrats in that once solidly western Republican state. The Democrats then raise union workers' pay, slash private contracting, and do everything they can to make more union members. Those union bosses then spend even more money electing more Democrats. California is bankrupt and yet has over 4000 retirees earning over $100,000 per year in retirement.
In my fire district, Monarch, the union spends $100,000 to $200,000 on each race for a single seat. They never lose. Today, the firefighters average over six figures in pay, overtime and benefits and work just eight 24 hour shifts per month. Those hundreds of thousands of dollars they have to spend are literally my tax dollars which now are being used to pull more tax dollars from my pocket-literally. They want to raise our tax rates and even start charging extra for ambulance rides that are already paid for.

You have heard the term military industrial complex. Military people retire early and run for office or go to work for military contractors and push for more military spending. It is the same with Democrats and unions and State and Federal government. Missouri has resisted this as Republicans have held enough power and joined with conservative Dems to moderate those moves.

So in Missouri we did things like ban teacher strikes. Union-heavy Illinois allows them. My aunt lives near Chicago. Her co-worker will retire at $90,000 per year in retirement at 60 and will be up over $120,000 by 75.

As for Wisconsin, like Illinois and California, they are bankrupt after years of the public union - Democrat complex. They cannot maintain the status quo and balance the budget. Reducing the nonsensical public employee collective bargaining rights is a move to break up the complex that created the problem.

Wisconsin voters knew that their liberal Dems had bankrupted the state and so they took a chance on Repubs who would restore fiscal sanity. The people really asked for this.

Anyone wishing to learn more about the issue of Right To Work laws is welcome to attend a presentation by Mark Mix, President, National Right To Work Legal Foundation

Friday, March 11th, 2011
10:30 A.M. – VIP Reception
11:00A.M. - Program
The Columns Banquet Center
711 Veterans Memorial Parkway
St. Charles, MO 63303

Pre-registration required: elizabeth@abcksmo.org