-By Warner Todd Huston
Do you get paid to sleep on the job? The union employees of New York’s Metropolitan Transit Authority apparently do. And if caught sleeping on the job, the punishment seems to be just a slap on the wrist, a wink and a nod, and business as usual afterward. All at $33 dollars an hour of the taxpayer’s money.
Must be nice “work” if you can get it?
Arnold Ahlert tells us of parking lots filled with MTA employee’s cars many of which contain pillows and blankets, supervisors locking themselves in offices for a soothing nap, and unions fighting to prevent any attempt to stop the outrageous practice of union members sleeping on the job.
Ahlert is yet another voice echoing our contention that unions are antithetical to good government.
Public service employee unions suffused with the same sense of self-entitlement, are crushing state and local governments around the country. Early retirement, often at fifty years of age, coupled with lifetime pensions and health care benefits, are blowing budgetary holes so big, that bankruptcy may end up being the only viable option for hundreds of municipalities.
He goes on to say that public employees unions have come to a “screw everyone else, give me mine” mentality that is destroying our various governments.
These unions are filled with “hacks,” Ahlert says.
Hacks who aren’t even fired for sleeping on the job. Hacks who consider it an affront to their dignity to accept a job freeze or even a modest contribution to their health and retirement costs, despite a severe recession which has put eight million of their fellow Americans out of work in the private sector — even as the public sector has been adding jobs. Or are we their “fellow Americans?” Never before has there been a greater disconnect within the American middle class than there is right now. Public service employees have generated a level of contempt so pervasive, many Americans consider them enemies. And if one defines an enemy as someone who would do harm to you and yours, such a sentiment is understandable. How many Americans would kill to make $33-an-hour, retire in their fifties, and get lifetime health benefits — along with pensions bloated up by working overtime hours in the last few years of employment? How many of those same Americans would never dream of sleeping on a job like that?
Ahlert also ties the whole mess to a single party, and rightfully so. He notes that public employees unions are almost 100% Democrat. He cites a news piece that revealed the percentages of Democrats in various unions as proof.
- National Education Assoc. (NEA) = 90%
- Service Employees International Union (SEIU) = 94%
- American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) = 98%
- United Auto Workers = %99
- Teamsters = 97%
It is pretty plain why this Democrat heavy situation exists. Democrats bend over backward to accede to the union’s every demand regardless of the efficacy of such kowtowing. And it has been Democrats responsible for the mess so many of our government budgets have fallen to.
It should be noted that public employees unions have not been a long-time feature of American political life. Public employee unions didn’t even exist before the early 60s when they began to organize thanks to the then new and favorable laws created by Democrats in Washington D.C., New York and other power spots.
Previous politicians realized that a public employee union was a dangerous idea, but the new generation of Democrats of the early 1960s only saw the power and political campaign contributions that they could gain from allowing public employees to organize. Democrat’s personal greed won out against good public policy.
And that is the story of public employees unions. Personal greed, powermongering, billions in campaign donations from unions to Democrats and a complete disregard for what is best for the voters and good government.
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“The only end of writing is to enable the reader better to enjoy life, or better to endure it.”
–Samuel Johnson
Warner Todd Huston is a Chicago based freelance writer. He has been writing opinion editorials and social criticism since early 2001 and before that he wrote articles on U.S. history for several small American magazines. His political columns are featured on many websites such as Andrew Breitbart’s BigGovernment.com, BigHollywood.com, and BigJournalism.com, as well as RightWingNews.com, CanadaFreePress.com, StoptheACLU.com, AmericanDailyReview.com, among many, many others. Mr. Huston is also endlessly amused that one of his articles formed the basis of an article in Germany’s Der Spiegel Magazine in 2008.
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