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© 2011 The Union Label Blog & Grassfire Nation
A nurses union spent big cash to “Occupy Washington DC.”
On November 3rd, 2011, the National Nurses United Union, allied with the AFL-CIO, payed for the expenses of more than 1000+ members to march with Occupy DC and ask the President to raise taxes. Both public and private hospitals must have gone short staffed as the nurses hailed from all over the country and were very clear who brought them there.
My favorite part was the militant, anti-American nurse that said her union refuses to deal fairly with employers and prefers to use their big money to get the federal government to “force” employers to do what unions want them to do.
We don’t believe in trying to work with management in a hospital to make change cuz they won’t do it, they won’t do what’s right. So, we lobby for legislative change to force them to do it.
What could be a more un-American attitude than this? Our founders didn’t intend government to an interventionist force that would lord over the business sector and “force it” to do things that unions what employers to do.
Unions are authoritarian, anti-democratic, big government monsters that really do need to be cut down to size.
Video courtesy of Accuracy in Media.
-By Larry Sand
With the state and various cities on the brink of insolvency, it’s imperative that the electorate become more informed and demand that school districts and teachers unions do their negotiating in public.
This past Sunday’s Los Angeles Times above-the-fold headline screamed “Voters back tax hikes for schools.” It was déja-vu all over again. As I wrote in September,
“… a poll which is biased and does not take into account the knowledge of the people being polled is misleading and dangerous. The public is led to believe that the responders are perceptive and knowledgeable, when in reality so many are not.”
(And I could have added that a poll that misleads or misinforms its respondents is the most dangerous of all; I’ll address that shortly.)
The Times article reported that a USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences/Los Angeles Times Frequency Questionnaire released last week showed that 61 percent of those surveyed said they would pay higher taxes to boost school funding.
As I read those words, I wondered, Continue reading »
-By Warner Todd Huston
General Motors was too big to fail. This is why President Obama had to ride in on his white steed with billions of taxpayers dollars in hand to bailout GM rechristening it Government Motors. Besides, we were told it would be a great deal, a money maker, right? Well, not so much. The Administration has reported a dramatic increase in the money We The People have lost on the GM bailout.
This week the Treasury Dept. has announced that the estimates of our loss has gone from $14.33 billion tax dollars to $26.6 billion.
To put it in terms easier to understand, for the American people to just break even on the bailout deal the more than 500 million shares owned by the U.S. Treasury must sell at $53 a share. Unfortunately for all of us, GM stock has tumbled to just $22.99 (as of closing on Nov.14). We are waaay off from the break even point, folks!
And all this for the benefit of unions.
So, what is Obama going to do about this failed bailout program? How is he going to rectify it all? He intends to make it worse by changing fuel standards to the point where new cars will cost another $2,000 per car.
Obama has decreed through his powers to regulate that the auto industry must raise fuel efficiency standards by five percent by 2025. There is only one little problem with these demands. Current technological development and science cannot yet reach those goals. Obama has set standards just because he feels like it, not standards based on realistic goals.
These requirements will make cars harder to afford for folks in the middle class and lower middle class not to mention the additional burdens it will place on small businesses trying to purchase cars for their businesses.
Worse, with the costs of new cars skyrocketing, the costs of used cars will go up commensurately. And none of this will help GM’s stock prices go up high enough for the American people to break even on the billions our president gave away to the auto giant.
Sadly, Obama’s polices don’t appear to be too big to fail.
-By Maggie Thurber
In responding to a post on a local Internet forum, I came across some rather startling information regarding right-to-work (RTW) states and Ohio.
It’s from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research and it contrasts economic performance of RTW states and Ohio from 1995-2005. It says:
There is overwhelming evidence that Right to Work laws are economically beneficial. Here’s how David Littmann, the former senior vice president and chief economist for the Detroit-based Comerica Bank and current senior economist for the Mackinac Center for Public Policy, summed up the evidence this February in testimony before the Michigan House Tax Committee on Restructuring: “Economic growth in right-to-work states has so convincingly and consistently eclipsed the average growth for non-right-to-work states that it makes the whole argument for workplace flexibility a non-controversial subject.”
Between 1995 and 2005, U.S. Department of Labor data show private-sector job growth in Right to Work states exceeded private-sector job growth in non-Right to Work states as a group by 79% and in Ohio alone by nearly 500%. Over the same period, inflation-adjusted U.S. Commerce Department data show real personal income growth in Right to Work states exceeded overall personal income growth in non-Right to Work states by 39% and exceeded Ohio’s meager increase by 142%. Meanwhile, U.S. Census Bureau statistics show that, from 1994 to 2004, the number of citizens covered by private health insurance grew by 11.5% in Right to Work states, slightly more than double the aggregate growth in non-Right to Work states. In Ohio, over the same period, the ranks of the privately insured actually declined by 0.2%…
Read the rest at Thurber’s Thoughts.
House Speaker Brian Bosma (R-Indianapolis) issued the following statement following a joint press conference where he announced he will pursue Right to Work legislation this session to bring more economic development opportunity for Hoosiers:
STATEHOUSE – “Today marks the beginning of the freedom campaign for Hoosier workers. While we are the envy of the Midwest in our job creation efforts, economic development experts tell us that removing the last barriers to job creation in our state will help the quarter of a million unemployed Hoosiers get back to work. That is why my top priority this session is to make Indiana the 23rd Right to Work state in the nation.
“Right to Work isn’t about Unions – it is about freedom and economic opportunity. It is about giving all Hoosiers the freedom to choose a job, decide how their hard earned money is spent and bring more employment opportunities to Indiana.
“With the national economic malaise, and our unemployment rate stubbornly hovering around 9 percent, we can’t afford to not address this issue this session. Right to Work means back to work for the unemployed. This is America, Hoosiers deserve this freedom.”
Senate Pro Tempore Senator Long (R-Fort Wayne) issued the following statement following a joint press conference where he announced he will pursue Right to Work legislation this session to bring more economic development opportunity for Hoosiers:
STATEHOUSE – “While we’ve been aggressive in drawing businesses to our state, the realities of the current global economy are clear: without a Right to Work law in Indiana, companies will continue to overlook us and take jobs either out of state or overseas. Hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers are unemployed and we must do everything in our power to ensure Indiana is the best place for jobs to locate. A dynamic and growing economy is critical to our state’s future. To ensure that becomes a reality, we must remove any additional barriers preventing companies and businesses from expanding or locating in Indiana.”
-By MJ Lee
New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg suggested Friday that unions took over the Occupy Wall Street protest yesterday.
“A vast percentage of the people were union members protesting — some private unions and then some municipal unions — and they had, you know, organized signs and leadership and that sort of thing,” Bloomberg said on WOR radio station Friday. “So it really wasn’t the protesters that have been in Zuccotti Park or that you see around the country.”
Bloomberg added, “It was just an opportunity for a bunch of unions to complain or to protest or whatever they want to do.”
The mayor warned that some of those union members, especially the municipal union members — should “step back” and realize that their salaries depend on the city’s ability to attract companies, investors and people who pay taxes…
Read the rest at Politico.
Eric Odom (Media Director)
Vanguard of Freedom
Warner Todd Huston