Articles tagged as

Unions

Janus vs. AFSCME – a personal take

John_Stark_statue,_Concord_NHUPDATE: As the Supreme court just decided for Janus and against the unions, this post is appropriate.  Best news? SCOTUS rules that public sector union MUST be opt-in for payments.   Essentially, this returns freedom to individuals over the unions; no more paycheck protection for unions.

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“Live Free or Die” – that’s our state motto and unlike many on the Left that find that absolutely abhorrent, it’s one of the reasons why I’ve stayed in the Granite State for over three decades (yep, came for a job, stayed for the motto).  The rest of the motto is not one that is repeated too often, that saying from General John Stark to his former soldiers: “Death is not the worst of all evils“. The Progressives here shudder every time it is stated.

For them, life is not to be free in the traditional sense of the word.  Freedom is the Collective.  Freedom is belonging to such a collective.  It also isn’t about remembering history because much of their philosophy regresses back to the mistakes and catastrophes of the 20th and 19th Centuries when Collectivism tried to overwhelm that most radical of American ideals – the idea that the Individual is sovereign and happens to have a government instead of what most of the world’s history and actions show to be the opposite – a country with subjects.

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Breaking News: Mandatory Union Dues Violate First Amendment

Supreme_Court_Building_at_DuskBoom!

For these reasons, States and public-sector unions may no longer extract agency fees from nonconsenting employees. The First Amendment is violated when money is taken from nonconsenting employees for a public-sector union; employees must choose to support the union before anything is taken from them. Accordingly, neither an agency fee nor any other form of payment to a public-sector union may be deducted from an employee, nor may any other attempt be made to collect such a payment, unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.

More from the opinion on the jump.

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DISQUS Doodlings: Both Jonathan Baird and Dan Williams are wrong about the First Amendment and the NFL

Level the playing fieldBackground: Jonathan Baird works for the Social Security Administration, Dan Williams is a government teacher.  Both work in union dominated workplaces; my opinion stems from that and that both of them get the new NFL policy wrong from different viewpoints.  Mine?  The owners own the teams – they can make policies that their employees have to follow; Baird disagrees (reformatted, emphasis mine):

The new policy outlined by Commissioner Roger Goodell that requires NFL players to stand during the national anthem did not come out of any collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the players. It was a unilateral assertion by management. Up until now, there has been no NFL rule that prohibited players from demonstrating during the national anthem. I am at a loss to understand how the owners think they can enforce a unilateral declaration.

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If the Tax On Income Isn’t Troubling Enough…

The proposed Family Medical leave legislation will create an income tax but there’s plenty more wrong with this bill if the tax isn’t enough. Elliott Axelman joins me to discuss the many troubling facets of this awful piece of legislation (HB 628). Original Blog Page Post can be Found Here

Trevor Loudon – Please Save America

Trevor Louden explains why he believes the next election is the last chance Republicans have to save America. He talks about why the GOP needs evangelicals to win, the consequence of a Democrat victory, and who might be on a Republican dream cabinet.

America’s Pension Crisis part 2

ICYMI – part two of our interview with Lawrence J. McQuillan, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute and author of CALIFORNIA DREAMING: Lessons on How to Resolve America’s Public Pension Crisis.    

America’s Pension Crisis

Our guest is Lawrence J. McQuillan, Senior Fellow and Director of the Center on Entrepreneurial Innovation at the Independent Institute and author of  CALIFORNIA DREAMING: Lessons on How to Resolve America’s Public Pension Crisis

GrokTALK! with Jazz Shaw from Hot Air Part II

In part II of our conversation with Jazz Shaw we continue with the pension problems in places like Illinois and how their influence and Democrat power politics can ruin an otherwise perfectly good state–making it almost economically uninhabitable.

GrokTALK! – Jazz Shaw from Hot Air.

Jazz Shaw from Hot Air joins us to talk about Mitt and Evander fighting for charity, the Democrat primary Senate throw-down brewing in Illinois, why size matters (when it comes to cell phones), and unsustainable debt and pension distress were institutionalized in the land of Lincoln.  (Part I of II)  

With Every Purchase of a Chevy Volt….Free House in Detroit!

There is a movement making its way out of the narrative-colon of the Democrat machine; Detroit failed because of Republicans. If Republicans just spent more of other people’s money Detroit would be fine. I can’t recall the last time there were any Republicans running Detroit but if there were they were probably left of former … Read more

GrokTALK! June 1st Guest Segment – JR Hoell

JR Hoell, New Hampshire Republican House rep,  stops by to talk about education, Charter Schools, the New Hampshire budget, Unions, and how we need need to help people understand when government policy is hurting them and their children. Listen Here Download this segment here You can get links to other segments or listen to the … Read more

April 20th GrokTALK! Snippets – Segment Four: Guest – NH Business Owner Josh Youssef

In Segment four we talk with Josh Youssef, local small business owner and former candidate for the New Hampshire State Senate,  about HB 370 (repealing education choice),  State Senator Andrew Hosmer, education in general, what the Teachers Unions are actually after, and more.  (With Dr. Julianne Cooper who sticks around to add to the conversation.) … Read more

Red Rover in Dover

In Norwegian, apparently, Røver means Pirate.  I won’t hold fast to that definition.  I just learned it on Wikipedia, which is about as reliable as a school board in Dover spending your tax dollars to pay lobbyists to push legislation you may not support.  Which is what I mean by pirate.  The Dover school board, like many similar cabals throughout the Granite State, spends your tax dollars on professional lobbyists to promote the “interests” of the “district” up in Concord over your own, though they will always insist these ideas have parity when they do not.

So follow the bouncing ball.

Schools, like any government agency, seek bigger budgets.  Those budgets are paid for with local and state taxes.  The folks who run the school–boards, committees, administrators, the unions and the teachers, want budgets to exapnd to protect their jobs and benefits.  To that end they are funding or promoting the funding of other professionals, with your tax dollars, to go before those with taxing power, including the state Legislature, to support laws and policies that will give them more of your money, and further secure their monopoly on education.

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Public Educators Caught in Massive Cheating Conspiracy

cheating is wrong-Image property of fox television
Image Credit: Fox Television

Public Educators in Atlanta have been caught in a massive cheating conspiracy designed to hide poor reading and math skills.  “The four principle crimes that are charged in the indictment are the statements and writings, false swearings, theft by taking, and influencing witnesses,” Fulton County District Attorney Paul L. Howard, Jr. said.

Racketeering charges are also being filed.

Nearly 200 educators admitted to taking part in the massive scandal: they tampered with students’ standardized tests and corrected answers to inflate scores. Some teachers had pizza parties to erase wrong answers and circle in the right ones. One principal allegedly handled altered tests wearing gloves to avoid leaving her fingerprints.

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Oh WHY did we think that this would be part of those FAA tower closures?

I learned to fly out of the Lawrence Airport in MA and part of the training was to fly in and out of smaller airports.  I learned the radio frequencies to use to announce my entry into the landing / takeoff patter and to toggle the runway lights.  Standard fare as most of the airports in the US are considered “general aviation” fields – small biz jets and prop planes – not having a Tower talk you in was no big deal.  So upon hearing that the FAA was going to close some of these towers of the mid size fields was not a big deal – pilots are trained to deal with this.  But like much of Obama’s response to his own sequester plan (for it was the White House that came up with it), instead of a corporate handling of a 2.4% lowered budget (where true non-essentials are cut out), his Administration has been intent on causing the taxpayers and citizens as much grief as possible (even as his Administration just caused all of us to live 2.4% less due to raising out taxes).  So closing FAA towers is part of that – but WHY these particular 149 Towers?  From Hot Air:

The Federal Aviation Administration on Friday told 149 regional airports across the country it would begin closing their air traffic control towers in April, but said it would spare another 40 towers that had been on the chopping block.

As the post says, this is all about less than 2/3ds of a $Billion out of budget of $58 Billion – small change at the 50,000 foot level.  But take out paper pushers first?  But what is so special about those 40?  Oh, sure:

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