Articles tagged as

Unions

A Loud, Proud, ”NAY” On Stroud (Candidate, Hillsborough 21, Merrimack)

In June of 2011, I contacted current House candidate Representative Kathleen Stroud and asked her about her reasoning for not supporting Right to Work (HB474).  She replied with the usual vacuous boilerplate one expects from a politician, but what surprised me was her reasoning’s incoherence and lack of depth.  What I found most off-putting was her pat-me-on-the-head-you-silly-constituent condescension encrusted in the email exchange.  She must have thought that I was an idiot and would simply, unquestioningly bobble-head support her arguments without understanding them.  Well, I’ll share some of her reasoning, and you can decide whether she intended to be condescending by putting forth such discombobulated arguments in order to intentionally confuse, or if she is actually confused.

One of her reasons for not supporting Right To Work is that, “It is being driven by an out-of-state lobby from Virginia; and I do not believe Virginia knows (or cares) what is best for New Hampshire.”

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No “race to the bottom” with THESE Union Leaders!

I look at the rate of increase of compensation for these Union heads and immediately starting thinking:

  • Wow, there’s no “race to the bottom here” in these paychecks!
  • Gee, all of these amounts come from – union members!
  • Gee – have their respective unions grown in membership to warrant such remuneration?
  • (er, no – union membership in the private sector is at an all time low)
  • Have these same union members seen even a 25% increase in THEIR paychecks?
  • And does the regular Joe Union-Member aware that they’ve dinged his paycheck to fatten their’s up this much?

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What About Unions Paying “Their” Fair Share

The left and the unions are obsessed with big corporations and the rich paying ‘Their fair Share,” but when are the great big unions, who can expend billions (4.4 billion from 2006-2011) on political campaigns, (but pay no taxes) going to start paying their fair share? Labor unions are nonprofits, and they rake in millions … Read more

Finally Some School Choice in NH

New Hampshire parents and children should annually celebrate June 27th.  On that day, the NH Legislature enacted SB 372 which helps the children of low and middle income families attend the schools of their choice rather than being trapped in failing and mediocre public schools.

 

On June 27th 251 Republicans and one Democrat overrode Governor Lynch’s veto of SB 372.  The other Democrat legislators joined Governor Lynch in trying to protect the teacher’s unions and the educational establishment which provides Democrats so much campaign support but which has been increasingly failing the children of New Hampshire and the United States for the last 50 years.

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GrokTV Event-Granite State Institute of Politics Republican Gov. Debate – Questions 9 – 12

And now for the third set of four questions (list of previous questions and their links after the jump) from the Granite State Institute of Politics Republican Gov. Debate that was hosted by John Burt, questions asked by Speaker Bill O’Brien and  Alex Talcott , and answered by the Candidates for the Republican nomination for NH Governor, Ovide Lamontagne and Kevin Smith.

Question 9:

“One of the least known aspects of Obamacare is how it seeks to hijack State finances in order to expand insurance coverage particularly in the area of Medicaid. One area it does this in is doubling income elegibility.  That’s the aspect to bring forward the decision. That’s the aspect and the reason for the Supreme Court decision that it is optional to the States.  Can you tell us whether or not NH should take up that option and expand its population?  As part of your answer, can you tell us where Medicaid is going in NH and how NH is going to finally be able to protect its sovereignty from the Federal Government trying to push us to overspending here in NH?”

Question 10:

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The Embrace of Administrative Despotism – A Notable Quote

Our contemporaries are constantly excited by two conflicting passions; they want to be led, and they wish to remain free.  As they can not destroy either the one or the other of these contrary propensities, they strive to satisfy them both at once.  They devise a sole, tutelary, and all powerful from of government, but … Read more

Well, it looks like Teachers Unions are starting to lose more and more….

First in Wisconsin and now in Colorado.  In a post at Townhall:

The Douglas County School District, a suburban community south of Denver, Colorado, has decided to part ways with their teachers’ union in the absence of progress on a new contract which expired June 30th, 2012.

“The Board of Education finds and declares that the Collective Bargaining Agreements between the District and the Unions,” said the district on July 3rd in its formal resolution dissolving the bonds between the union and the district, “which had been effective from July 1, 2011 through and including June 30, 2012, are now expired and of no legal effect whatsoever.”

The dissolution between the district and the union is unprecedented  and sources close to the union tell me that unions are pensively watching, worried that other districts around Colorado and the country could take the same action as Douglas County has.

We can only hope.

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Tyranny Plain and Simple – Public Sector Unions

“Every lazy nation is grave; for those who do not work regard themselves as sovereigns of those who work.” – Montesquieu For those who do not work regard themselves as sovereigns of those who do work.  This could not be more true. It also occurs to me that this also applies to public sector union … Read more

First it didn’t work, then it did, then it didn’t….reliable?

Last weekend, I did a couple of forays from the Marriott Downtown where our event was being held over to the RI Convention Center where the NetRoots Nation event was being held.  Well, in registering, I got a “SWAG bag” – a canvas tote that was chock-a-block with Progressive “stuff”.  Well, earlier today, I desperately needed a pen to take a couple of notes with and I remembered that the bag had just the thing I needed.

Problem was, it acted like the title – and the folks that “supplied” it (heh!)!

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Look For The Union Label (Hint: There’s a Hammer and a Sickle)

Unions being Unions: Angry socialists and communists Union leaders in Wisconsin promise that the fight to destroy capitalism will continue. We knew that, but thanks for sharing.  It’s nice to be able to remind the people who may have forgotten or never knew what your real mission was.  

A Letter of Thanks from A Wisconsin Taxpayer

Scraped from a Milwaukee AM station blog; it is a letter of thanks from a Wisconsin Taxpayer

To all leftists, occupiers, union thugs and malcontents,

Thank you! What an election! We couldn’t have done it without you. Without your tantrums, outbursts and boorish behavior we might have stayed home for this election. Without your filthy, pot smoking hemp -headed minions occupying, dirtying and damaging our Capitol we might have been complacent. Without your obnoxious protests, boycotts and other actions from your union playbook, we might have sat this one out.

But you couldn’t hold back. You couldn’t restrain yourselves and behave like adults. You couldn’t accept the 2010 election results. We sat and watched as you erupted in a juvenile hissy fit that embarrassed Wisconsin. The spectacle you created is what motivated us. And thanks to your pathetic behavior, we won. We turned out. Big time! And now we are organized and energized. Committed. “All in”. And we aren’t going away. We now have our own organizations (no dues required), an army of volunteers and the means to communicate. And countless new sources of funding, including a donor base from all 50 states. And we have “iverifythe recall” to ferret out your infiltrators in our future local elections.

So thank you little boy Tate, Graeme Zielinski, Fred “Loonie” Levenhagen, Ismael Ozanne, Maryanne Sumi, Noble Ray, Charles Tubbs, Joanne Kloppenberg, Segway Boy, John Chisolm, public employee union members, UW TA’s, WEAC, SEIU, MTI, AFSCME Council 24 in Union Grove and WI prison guards,. Thanks for the death threats, the intimidation, the bullying, belligerence, thuggery and goonish behavior. The lack of ethics and the failure to enforce rules and laws. Thank you for putting your selfish, greedy motives on display for all taxpayers to see.

Your antics might have made you feel good but they didn’t make you look good. They sickened the rest of us.

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The unions have been defining “the Middle Class” as themselves – so what happens when members become UMINOs?

UMINOs – Union Members in Name Only (e.g., still belonging to the Union, but no longer paying the dues?)

I saw this a couple of days ago and didn’t blog it then because I got distracted.  However, I think it is a very important turning point in the Union political battles and that it shows a major chink in the vaunted “Solidarity Forever!” that is constantly blasted out in the political and cultural realms.  Frankly, this gives lie to the union yell of “Mighty, Mighty Union!” we hear at protests – the only takeaway from this news is now going to be “Mighty, Mighty Poorer!”.

I think this is rather amusing myself – after all the trouble and money spent by Unions all over the country as Right To Work efforts have become law in several states (alas, not here in NH because of some squishy Republicans not understanding that they were actually keeping their political foes strong and flush with political funds from their members’ dues by not following Gov. Scott Walker’s example in this).  And of course, the most well known state is that of Wisconsin where the Left is going all in AGAIN to try to stop “the destruction of the unions by Republicans!”.

This is just laughable – as they have a much more serious problem (as reported by the Wall Street Journal (paywall) via American Thinker).  Solidarity?  Not so much – given the chance, given the Freedom to Choose (after all, what IS freedom but the ability to choose among alternatives and letting someone choose something that satisfies their own needs and self-interests?), union members are choosing to not pay their union bills (emphasis mine):

Wisconsin membership in the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees-the state’s second-largest public-sector union after the National Education Association, which represents teachers-fell to 28,745 in February from 62,818 in March 2011, according to a person who has viewed AFSCME’s figures. A spokesman for AFSCME declined to comment.

Much of that decline came from AFSCMECouncil 24, which represents Wisconsin state workers, whose membership plunged by two-thirds to 7,100 from 22,300 last year.

A provision of the Walker law that eliminated automatic dues collection hurt union membership. When a public-sector contract expires the state now stops collecting dues from the affected workers’ paychecks unless they say they want the dues taken out, said Peter Davis, general counsel of the Wisconsin Employment Relations Commission.

In many cases, AFSCME dropped members from its rolls after it failed to get them to affirm they want dues collected, said a labor official familiar with AFSCME’s figures. In a smaller number of cases, membership losses were due to worker layoffs.

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NH Unions Using Religious Bigotry to Affect Merrimack School Board Elections?

(Derp- Fixed the title.)

I was recently informed (my source has asked to remain anonymous for good reason) that a teacher from a nearby town was repulsed at the sight of a Joe Kearns for School Board sign on a Merrimack residents lawn.   When asked “why that reaction” she proceeded to explain that her union had told her that Merrimack School Board candidate Joe Kearns was a member of the Christian Coalition.   If the union told her, it must be true, right?  Smart lady like that would have looked that up.

But if she had looked it up she would know that Joe is not a member of the Christian Coalition, and so would her union.  Neither of them did, or neither of them cares to know the truth.  But they did want someone to know the lie.

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An Apology to the NH SEA/SEIU

No one understands the problems of perception like the Democrat Party.  They invest a good deal of time and money into hiding what they are truly up to.  Almost as much time as they spend painting pictures of their opponents for the main stream media to hang on your living room walls.  So we should not be surprised when a prominent member of the New Hampshire SEA, a chapter president with the local SEIU, sees the kind of perception issues he creates when we uncovered months, even years of online comments, posted during office hours, while he was supposed to be performing state business, on the taxpayer dime, from the Department of Environmental Services, where he is employed by you and I.

Perception is a problem but not nearly as much of a problem as reality.

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Taxpayers On The ‘Rack’

Elective Surgery on the taxpayer dime? I have a question for progressives.  If a fetus is just a lump of tissue, isn’t abortion just another form of plastic surgery?

You can’t even find a Democrat willing to admit the procedure is not elective.  It’s woman’s choice, yes?

And if you’ve ever gotten an unwanted earful from some feminis, going on  about what pregnancy can do to a woman’s body,  appearance is a consideration.  That makes it cosmetic, yes?

So if  abortion is the elective, cosmetic, removal of unwanted tissue, and not the termination of a human life, why doesn’t the liberal super-state demand the wholesale taxpayer funding of liposuction, nose jobs, and breast implants?

Sorry, trick question.  If you are a public school teacher in Buffalo New York, boob jobs are already covered by taxpayer dollars.

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Where Diane Lacy, President of NH SEA / SEIU can’t even get simple facts right – and tips hand on the upcoming NH election cycle.

SEIU
SEIU

On WMUR “Closeup” this morning, replacement host James Pindell interviewed Diane Lacy, President of the NH State Employee Association and NH Rep. Will Infantine (R-Manchester) during his first segment).  Well, during the interview, Ms. Lacy shows that either she has no grasp of real facts or is just what many people believe: that the SEIU is just another name for “Progressive Democrats” in that they just make up facts and say them as truth. And keep repeating them, just like NH Progressive Press Sec. Harrell Kirstein and Uber-Progressive Chair Ray “Buckles” Buckley  And are in the tank for Obama, as the national SEIU spent over $70 million, by their own admission, trying to get Obama elected. Lacy concentrated on three things:

  • Unions = Middle Class
  • Republican supported budget hurts union workers (with an assisted jab question from James Pindell)
  • Speaker Bill O’Brien is a Free Stater
  • In fact, NH is overrun by Free Staters (and she has no clue who or how many)!
  • She is making the wedge appeal to the RINOs for support with “hey, THOSE Republicans are not like you – support us!”
  • But she’ll replace those RINOS with union members who will be running for election.
  • And kinda mumbled something that without automatic union due deductions from union member paychecks, e-commerce in NH is dead.

Like this first statement by Diane Lacy:

“Middle Class is under attack here in NH and the way to get to the Middle Class is by taking away their rights.”

This is getting to be old, but let’s walk through this, shall we?

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A New Year for the RLCNH Report

Hot off the presses, it is the Republican Liberty Caucus of New Hampshire’s 2012 inaugural RLCNH Report. It’s a big one this time—here’s a quick overview of all the bills covered:


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Be A Force Multiplier For Freedom

As important now as ever, whatever the results of the New Hampshire primary and beyond, is that Republicans, Conservatives, Libertarians, and Independents coalesce at the state and local level to greet our opponents on the field of battle.  Our opponents are the institutional left and their mobocracy agenda.  To that end I offer a link … Read more

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