Articles tagged as

Union Thuggery

This is what happens when the Teachers want to play politics instead of teach: “Celebrate Reading Day’’

Yeah, NEA-NH is "all for the children" especially when it allows them to play politics instead of concentrating on reading, writing, and ‘rithmetic (will withhold snarky comments on provable results concerning the last three).  From DiStaso’s column:

Now that the state’s largest teachers unions, NEA-NH, has pulled the plug on its Read Across America event, House and Senate leadership have started a program of their own. Bragdon and O’Brien announced “Celebrate Reading Day’’ will be held at the State House on March 7.

“Students and legislators alike will be invited to bring their favorite book to Concord for a pep rally for reading,’’ the announcement said.

NEA-NH cited its members’ concerns that guns at the State House have been in the news lately, and they don’t want their program to bring children into an environment where they could confront guns.

O’Brien and others in the GOP say the presence of guns does not pose a threat to safety.“We’re delighted to be able to invite schoolchildren to the State House to celebrate literacy,’’ O’Brien said. No word on whether NEA’s hallmark Dr. Seuss hats will be available.

it is  a given – swap the Party in Power from Dem to Repub, and it is amazing…

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A Modest (Budget Cutting) Proposal

Public Sector Unions SuckThere are plenty of towns like mine trying to figure out where they can cut costs.  But every conversation seems to end at cutting education or safety services.  While I find it hard to believe that there is nothing else in a budget you can trim, I think I have come up with a reasonable compromise (if not just for the sake of our own rhetorical amusement) that can cut at least a little bit of money from the budget without affecting staffing or resources.

Any teacher, support staff, officer, firefighter or public employee who currently pays union dues will have the total amount of dues paid calculated and that amount removed from their respective department budgets (aka:paychecks).  This will do the one thing no one ever seems willing to do; include the unions in the burden of cost cutting.

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Evergreen hits home

That would be the law and not one of the pine trees that overlook the Home.  NH has an Evergreen law that basically says "Contract with union employees NEVER runs out"; it stays in force until a new one is negotiated and signed.  In these tough times, I’m betting that more than a few unions … Read more

Repeal The “Evergreed” Law

The Evergreed law screws taxpayers. It gives automatic wage and benefit increases based on the last approved contract removing any incentive on the part of the unions to negotiate in good faith with a town or city unless it thinks or knows it can do better than the contract it already has.

For Quite Some Time

For quite some time more than a few of us out here in the private sector have been paying into our own retirement plans–if we can–for years.  After the Housing bubble burst many of us began reducing the amount we contributed as a lousy economy consumed opportunities, wage growth and jobs–our neighbors jobs or even our own. 

Companies, small businesses in particular, that were once able to provide some benefits and 401K matching dollars shifted gears, re-directing that revenue (if they had it) to keeping the business afloat so they could pay enough remaining core employees to keep the company "a company"–with desks, paperclips, sticky-notes, and a space to keep them in.  We paid for our own retirement plans, owners and managers paid for theirs, took pay cuts, employees took pay cuts, millions accepted reduced hours, part time status, or were overcome by the recession and had to be let go.

At the same time various levels of government were handing out (or handed) billions and billions of dollars that did not exist, to prop up the public sector unions.  These unions, collective bargaining groups (emphasis on collective) were the primary benefactors of the past two years accumulation of debt.  Government rules favored them in opposition to all else and in contradiction to common sense, not just for cash handouts but the hand out of sparse jobs as well.  Even at the local level, the public sectors union handlers, who are really nothing more than fat cat capitalists selling shares in human flesh for a profit, in the from of a dues check each pay period, have fought against the tide to raise union salaries, benefits, and keep or create more jobs that must be paid for by the people going the opposite direction.

So the public sector unions, operating as nothing more than a private business, whose goal is to grow revenue, continued to do just that at taxpayers expense, all the while whining about private sector greed and malfeasance. We need to call them out for this. 

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Methinks the Law of Unintended Consequences has just bit Zandra in the behind…

UPDATE: The count is up to 222 Obamacare Waivers – roughly 25% are UNIONS!  Way to go, Zandra! ————————————————————————- Quite some time ago (2007), I had this as a post which subsequently was updated a number of times due to this picture of one of Zandra Rice Hawkin’s dupes as I caught the SEIU trying … Read more

Progressive Trade Rules

Being beholden to unions causes you to say and do stupid things.  Take Carol Shea-Porter for example.  She was against a trade deal with Panama because she claimed it would cost American jobs, when it would actually open up trade from us to them–they already had unfettered access; result?–it would have created American jobs. Provisions … Read more

Public Service Is About Trust

I’d just assume have a root canal without pain killer as suffer through an editorial by Carol Shea-Porter, but sometimes you have to take one for the team. So I have immersed myself in the last rights editorial of the soon to be former congresswoman from New Hampshire’s first district, which is ironically titled, ‘Public Service is about trust.’

Trust?

Before I proceed let me offer up a comment on Carol’s notion of trust.  In traditional progressive fashion the meaning of trust has had to have been tortured before admitting under duress and threat of death to its friends and family members, that Carol’s application of it’s meaning holds any relevance at all to the historical application.  In fact Carol’s willingness to even use the word in this context, nay–any context at all–in reference to what she refers to as her public service, is a public disservice to the word, the language, the people of the first district, and serves to cement the likelihood that she is the disconnected, ruling class political shill we suspect her to be, if not also clinically insane.

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Union Thugs and Right-to-Work

This is the face of union thuggery, as they harass and insult a lady apparently trying to get to work to feed her family. To prevent this type of thing in New Hampshire, the new state legislature must pass a right-to-work amendment to the state constitution, and present it to be voted upon. Other state constitutions have right-to-work guarantees. Why shouldn’t New … Read more

MilkingThe Union Cow

MooCarol Seiu-Porter gets 50% of her PAC money from Unions.  You remember the Unions?  Their leadership extorts taxpayer dollars away from the real workers to pay union employees then demands that they tithe  money to them for the privilege of doing it again.  Then they give some of it to Carol so she can help protect their interests.

That’s hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars filtered through union employees to a candidate they might not even support.

Carol also gets another 48% from congressional PAC’s, most of whom are heavily funded by unions.  These are congresspersons–some of them avowed socialists–who like Carol see no problem in giving the public sector employees more feed than those who work to feed them.

In exchange for that money Carol supports everything the unions want whether it is good for New Hampshire or not.  She loves their golden goose, card check, which would eliminate the secret ballot for organizing a union.  It allows unions to strong arm people into joining.  Unions do still do that.  Ask her AFL-CIO Buddy Richard Trumka. (and here).  And while I’m at it some of my own ruminations Here, Here, and Here. (and why not here as well).

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What About Union Campaign Ethics

Bill O’Brien, the next speaker of the New Hampshire House, has drafted a bill for next session meant to resolve the conflict of interest that exists when state employees campaign for state politicians.  Mr. O’Brien’s motivation, as reported in an article in the morning UL by John DiStaso, is Pam Walsh who  collected thousands in political consulting fees from Teflon John Lynch while employed by the state.

The State Union objects to the bill on the grounds that the language in the proposed bill is too broad, that no state employee would be able to work for anyone running for office in the state.  But maybe that’s not such a bad thing.

When you boil it down, there really isn’t any difference between a lobbyist and a public service union member who draws a taxpayer funded paycheck.  These folks have an immediate financial interest in who is elected to office.  They actually pay an entity (the union) to represent them in negotiations with the very government for whom they work, for the purpose of expanding their share of taxpayer patronage, a goal that is directly affected by who is elected to office.  Their natural inclination will be to support politicians who will reward them with financial remuneration and/or expand union access or power to achieve similar gains.  Not only is it a conflict of interest, it is a home field advantage that no other voter or taxpayer can hope to compete with, paid for by the taxpayers themselves from the dues paid out of taxpayer funded paychecks.

Why is this even legal? 

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One Nation – Sick Lying Bastards

So the lying liberal progressive dirt bags who want to turn America into a socialist state are the same lying dirt bags who post pictures like this to give the impression that anyone actually gives a damn about their stupid cause.

Obama and the SEIU

This Jan Brewer campaign video reminds us of the relationship between Obama and SEIU, and what their plan is.  To convert millions of illegal immigrants into dues paying pro democrat union voters. It is instructive.  (And Union meat-puppet Carol Seiu-Porter has to support this.)      

Andrew Breitbart and the Truth…

Andrew Breitbart confronted a union-manufactured protest, outside of his and Glenn Beck’s "Right Nation 2010" in Chicago on September 20. It is amazing what one person, and the truth, can do….

Union Herpes

Unions talk about evil corporations, but consider this.  Corporations entice you to purchase their products but you are free to say no.  You are not obligated to give them your money, you can choose to spend it somewhere else or not at all.  By denying them a portion of your income you deny them the … Read more

The Cost Of Education

When something doesn’t work, and you are a democrat, well you just keep doing it.  These graphs come to us courtesy of Andrew J. Coulson at Big Government.

Graph one Public education employees vs. student enrollment numbers.

Way out of wack@

Graph number two–on the jump–is the inflation adjusted cost of public K-12 education (that’s taxpayer dollars spent) compared to achievement levels.  (I hope you are ready for this.)

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Look For The Union Label

So far this year, $24.7 million in independent spending has been reported to the Federal Election Commission, campaign filings show. Unions have spent 9.7 million (or 39 percent of the total), compared with $6.4 million (26 percent) spent by individuals and 3.4 million spent by corporations.

Shea-Porter’s Money “Don’t know were it came from.”

Carol's LaundryMoney laundering is illegal unless you are in congress. Once you are a member in good standing you earn the privelege of access to a hoard of cash accumulated by the hundreds and hundreds of congressional PAC’s fed by those buying influence. It is money that comes from lobbyists, special interests, the corporate culture of business big and small, unions, fringe groups, mainstream special interests, and everyone else. Carol Shea Porter is a willing recipient of hundreds of thousands of dollars over her congressional career from this polluted well, but she would like very badly for to believe that "the money don’t know where it came from."

"The money don’t know" meme is the standard dodge reported ad nuaseum on television and in movies whenever one of our imperfect heroes discovers some stash of drug cash. It’s tainted money, accumulated by thugs and murderers on the lives, weakness, and addictions of others, (just like congress) but as the story goes…it’s ok to take it because the money don’t know where it came from. The heroes resist temptation. Shea Porter is no such hero.

From this mornings Nashua Telegraph, Kevin Landrigan quotes Sheep-Porter’s campaign manager Angela Ruslander as she justifies the paltry 200K in fundraising last quarter.

""Since Carol’s winning campaign in 2006 she has never accepted contributions from D.C. Lobbyists or business PAC’s,…Instead, Carol has always relied on a strong grassroots network. This support ensures that Carol can continue to stand up for Granite State veterans, soldiers, seniors, and middle class families."

Bwahahahahaha! Angela how the hell do you sleep at night?

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More Charter Schools?

The Sunday Telegraph is heralding their governors signing of HB 1495, a bill that authorizes more Charter Schools in New Hampshire. It’s a glowing report about a state executive committed to educational opportunities until you get to paragraph six where the governors true motivations are revealed. New Hampshire’s application for millions in new federal aid from … Read more

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