-By Warner Todd Huston
Here is a perfect example of why unions should be outlawed for all government workers. And I do mean all government workers. A new study finds that we, the American taxpayer, are ripped off to the tune of $23.5 million a year in tax money that goes to pay IRS union members to do union work while they are on the clock and supposed to be working for we, the people.
That’s right, you the taxpayer are paying IRS workers not to do IRS work. You are paying IRS employees to do nothing productive.
This is called “official time” (sometimes it’s called “union time”) and it is paid to IRS employees who are officers in the government union. These union officers carry out union work on the clock, during the time they are supposed to be doing work for the IRS.
Some of the activities these thieves engage in are things such as organizing union meetings, talking to other union members about union matters, or going on union-sponsored training events that aren’t training for IRS work but is instead training for union issues. And you are paying them a salary to do all this.
As the National Right to Work Committee reported in May, “The fact is that there are numerous federal employees, who are also union officials, work ZERO hours for the federal government, yet are paid full-time, given bonuses, raises, paid vacations, and promotions.”
A recent editorial at the Washington Times pointed out that these union officers rip off the national treasury for millions every year. “IRS employees spent 573,319 hours in 2012 working on union business,” the editorial revealed.
These employees charged $687,400 in travel to the taxpayers. In May 2012, for one example, union stewards flew at taxpayer expense to Las Vegas for union “training.” These “training” events, put on by the union, are expensive. In 2010 an IRS “training” convention cost $4.1 million. “Instructional” videos, parodies of “Star Trek” episodes, were created to “instruct” agency employees. The union naturally wants greater benefits, bigger salaries and more handsome bonuses, and somebody has to lobby Congress to get them. So Congress pays the union to do it.
Naturally 94 percent of these IRS employees’ political contributions go to Democrat candidates and Democrat Party apparatchiks.
Why is that latter point important? Because all this isn’t just a mere corruption. In fact, because Democrats have allowed it to be, this waste of tax dollars, this rip off of the people is actually enshrined in law.
As The IRS union’s National President Colleen M. Kelley recently noted, “By statute, official time cannot be used for any purpose not directly related to the representation of bargaining unit employees in matters concerning conditions of employment, such as bargaining contracts or agreements. Official time cannot be used for internal union activities or for any political purpose.”
So, by law taxpayers are forced to pay the salaries of people who do no work for the American people
But, you may say, so what? It’s just the IRS, here. The amount these few employees are paid is no big deal.
Ah, but the fact is it isn’t just the IRS union that does this. In fact, it isn’t just the federal government that does this. The truth is that this “official” or “union” time is paid to employees at every level of government from Washington to your state government to your county and city governments.
You tax payers are having your tax dollars wasted to the tune of hundreds of billions a year all across the country in money paid to members of government unions, money given to them to not work a second for the very tax payers being forced to pay for this outrageous waste. And this disgusting waste is actually enshrined in the law. We aren’t just being ripped off, we are being ripped off as a matter of law!
This is exactly why there should be no such thing as a government union. President Franklin Roosevelt was right when he said that it was “unthinkable and intolerable” to have a government union.
No government employee at any level should be allowed to be in a union. Unions are antithetical to 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
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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, Wizbang.com, among many, many others. Huston has also appeared on Fox News, Fox Business Network, CNN, and many local TV shows as well as numerous talk radio shows throughout the country.
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