Ruling: Calif. City Can Void Union Contracts in Bankruptcy

-By Warner Todd Huston

Maybe the gravy train is finally beginning to grind to a halt at long last? Maybe the thievery by unions that is bankrupting governments all across the nation is starting to show signs of abating? If this court ruling in Vallejo, California is any indication, we just might be starting to see some common sense at last endangering the practice of heaping undeserved and unsustainable union benefits on government workers.

On March 13 U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Michael McManus held that union contracts “negotiated” by city worker’s unions can be voided by Vallejo if the city enters into bankruptcy proceedings. The judge said that city workers do not have the same protections that Congress bestowed upon union workers in private companies and that as public workers they cannot expect their full contracts to be forcibly upheld by courts during bankruptcy.

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Ruling: Calif. City Can Void Union Contracts in Bankruptcy”


Obama: A Study in Presidential Arrogance

-By Warner Todd Huston

The whole world was supposed to fall at his feet. He was supposed to spend the next four to eight years (or four to ten as he once said during the late campaign) just making airy pronouncements while everyone danced lemming-like to his tune of hope-n-change. It was supposed to be easy. Heck, The One himself even pronounced that he enjoyed being president. “And it turns out I’m very good at it,” he assured everyone during a luncheon with TV anchors a few weeks ago.

Obama simply didn’t imagine that he had to worry too much about those nagging details like making sure his nominees were vetted and had paid their taxes. He didn’t think that those silly 8,500 earmarks in his omnibus budget needed eliminating like he kept talking about in the campaign. For that matter, he didn’t even realize he was supposed to become involved in creating that stimulus bill. And foreign policy? Why our enemies were supposed to want him to teach the world to sing in perfect harmony while our allies were supposed to simply take it all on faith that we still love them like bosom buddies. Move along. Nothing to see here.

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Obama: A Study in Presidential Arrogance”


Teamster President Denies Secret Ballot is Basic Tenet of Democracy

-By Warner Todd Huston

James P. Hoffa tried his hand at some spin against opponents of the Orwellian named Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) last week, denying that a secret ballot is a basic tenet of democracy.

“Since when is the secret ballot a basic tenet of democracy,” Hoffa is quoted as saying in a Teamsters press release.

How does he justify this idiotic claim? Because, you see, the Soviet Union had a secret ballot “but those weren’t democratic,” Hoffa reminds us. A facile comparison, for sure.

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Teamster President Denies Secret Ballot is Basic Tenet of Democracy”


Illinois Republicans Can’t Stop Eating Their Own

-By Warner Todd Huston

There is a website in Illinois called Illinois Review that often has some of the best coverage of Illinois Republican happenings. It’s usually a good source for GOP info statewide. But today’s entry is just another example of Illinois Republicans eating their own. And in an unfortunate turn of events, it involves me.

Over the past weekend I was a visitor at a planning session for the Republican candidate aiming to take Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s 5th Congressional District seat. I wrote about my impression of the meeting and headlined it Planning to Turn Rahm Emanuel’s Seat Red.

But, Illinois Review got its tinfoil hat screwed down a little to tight and revealed a bit of arrogance that pervades so much of the Illinois Republican Party. This time imagining that Illinois Review was more important than RedState,com and deserved special attention.

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Illinois Republicans Can’t Stop Eating Their Own”


Union’s Card Check is the New Jim Crow Poll Tax

-By Warner Todd Huston

One of the most odious aspects of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) is the card check feature. This feature gives unions the “option” to supplant a secret ballot election held among workers for instituting a union with a publicly signed card that announces the voter’s intentions for all to see. In this way, unions clam, “elections” will be easier. Unions also point out that the language of the act still makes provision for the normal secret ballot election should all involved still so desire.

Because the act does not specifically say in plain language that the secret ballot will necessarily be eliminated in all cases, union activists and apologists claim that fears of the elimination of the ages old democratic practice of the secret ballot to assure a fair election isn’t being eliminated. They claim that opponents of this act are merely engaging in hyperbole and fearmongering by claiming the secret ballot will be a thing of the past if the EFCA is passed.

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Union’s Card Check is the New Jim Crow Poll Tax”


Planning to Turn Rahm Emanuel’s Seat Red

-By Warner Todd Huston

On Saturday afternoon, in the midst of Chicago’s famous St. Patrick’s Day celebration with its tradition of turning of the Chicago River green, a cadre of concerned Republicans met to plan a way to capture the Congressional seat of Chicago’s 5th District, the one being vacated by Obama Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel.

The candidate charged with this task is Rosanna Pulido and she only has about three weeks to do it. The special election for Emanuel’s seat is to be held as soon as April 7th.

Her supporters and other interested parties (me included) met at the top of a Michigan Avenue high rise in the comfortable setting of a decades old executive dining room of a Chicago insurance company. The rich wood decor was meant to invoke an old Irish pub, but carousing wasn’t on the schedule that day. Planning a political campaign was, however.

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Planning to Turn Rahm Emanuel’s Seat Red”

Obama’s Nominee to Justice Dept. Was a Terrorist’s Lawyer

-By Warner Todd Huston

On March 9, the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on one of Barack Obama’s latest nominees. This time it was to assess the suitability of Tony West, Obama’s nominee for the assistant attorney general in charge of the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Division. Things went “smoothly” according to the San Jose Mercury News, also publishing a nice bio of West. The Washington Post merely mentioned the hearing was “notable.” Similarly the East Bay Express simply makes mention of the hearing having occurred. Apparently there was nothing of interest in West’s nomination.

Curiously enough, though, not one of these brief reports mention that Tony West was “American Taliban” terrorist John Walker Lindh’s defense lawyer. Another key bit of info left out of these announcements was that Tony West raised $65 million for Obama’s presidential campaign. Money well spent if it gets a cushy government job, I suppose.

Continue reading Obama’s Nominee to Justice Dept. Was a Terrorist’s Lawyer”


Scandal on Scandal — Another One for Calif. Union

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times has done it again; reported on another California Service Employees International Union (SEIU) corruption scandal. SEIU California has had so many corruption scandals that it boggles the mind and they all center around union bosses double dipping salaries and misusing purported charities to enrich themselves, as well as getting family members into the game with pseudo jobs at these false-front charities. This report is no exception to that mode of business-as-usual for the powerful state employees union.

This time SEIU chief James Bryant has been found making more salary from the supposed charity he heads out of his home than the city job he is supposed to be working at. The union also funnels money his way and he has given his son a “job” that the union backed charity is funding.

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Scandal on Scandal — Another One for Calif. Union”


Former Union Leader Opposes Card Check Bill

-By Warner Todd Huston

The City Wire of Fort Smith, Arkansas, published a piece giving a former union leader space to announce that he opposes the elimination of the secret ballot that is the card check feature of the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA).

His reasoning is spot on with why card check is a bad idea that will materially hurt American workers.

And then there is Neal Catlett, a former president of the union representing workers at Whirlpool’s Fort Smith plant who has more than 20 years of leadership experience in the local union.

Catlett, now retired from Whirlpool, opposes card check. He told The City Wire that he has seen plenty of “nonsense” among Whirlpool leaders and union leaders to know that anything other than a secret ballot will lead to intimidation, coercion and corruption on all sides.

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Former Union Leader Opposes Card Check Bill”


Brits Officials Can’t Get Obama Folks on Phone, U.S. Media Not Picking Up Either

-By Warner Todd Huston

If the snub of British PM Gordon Brown at the hands of President Obama and his wife weren’t enough, now British Cabinet Secretary Sir Gus O’Donnell is saying that Downing Street is finding it “unbelievably difficult” to get hold of officials from Obama’s administration. British officials can’t seem to ever get past the administration’s answer machines as they call here to try and coordinate plans for the coming G20 summit.

In frustration O’Donnell said that that when he tries to get in touch with key members of Obama’s Treasury Department “there is nobody there.” The phones ring and nobody answers or they get messages and that is all. “You cannot believe how difficult it is,” O’Donnell told participants at a civil service conference.

While the Obama Administration ducks the Brit’s phone calls, the U.S. media also seems to be ignoring this story as they’ve widely ignored several of the stories that detail the new administration’s offhanded treatment of our closest ally.

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Brits Officials Can’t Get Obama Folks on Phone, U.S. Media Not Picking Up Either”


Dems Push Another Fake ‘Fair’ Bill That Will Kill Online Science Research Publishing

-By Warner Todd Huston

Why are Democrats such liars? I know that sounds harsh, but this penchant for labeling a law, act, or bill with a lie as a title is gallingly Orwellian and it’s getting tiresome. We have the “Employee Free Choice Act” that takes away employee choice, the “Freedom of Choice Act” that takes away the freedom NOT to chose abortion, and now we have the “Fair Copyright in Research Works Act” that takes away the public’s fair access to scientific research papers without having to first spend a ton of money to access it.

In all the three laws above noted, we have either “free,” “Freedom,” or “fair” in the bill title and yet not one of these pieces of legislation is free, fair or assures any freedoms — in fact, quite the opposite. It’s like calling a crap sandwich corned beef on rye! It’s getting so that all we have to do is read a bill’s title and imagine the direct opposite effect to learn what the bill is about.

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Dems Push Another Fake ‘Fair’ Bill That Will Kill Online Science Research Publishing”


Big Unions Angle to Eliminate Small Ones

-By Warner Todd Huston

We’ve talked about it several times here on the blog; the hostile takeover of smaller unions. It has been Andy Stern’s main modus operandi (President of the Service Employees International Union or SEIU). The idea is to roll into the territory of a local, smaller union, make back room deals with the employers to get their assistance, and then lead a forced take over of that smaller union eventually to vote it out of existence. Thereby the little unions that might stand in the way of the mega unions are eliminated and the mega unions now controlling everything from the top down get more even more massive.

It’s a perfectly legitimate strategy, of course… except for the fact that it makes the lie to every purported “principle” that unions claim to have. Local control becomes dashed and democracy summarily eliminate, yet local control and democratic process are the central themes of unionism. Without them they are little different than the supposedly evil corporate maters bent on domination that union claim their employers are. If a union member cannot feel that his local representatives are actually there for him then that impersonal attitude is no different than uncaring masters of industry.

Yet, this strong-arm takeovers of smaller unions is the current rage among big unions. And it is being noticed.

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Big Unions Angle to Eliminate Small Ones”


Dems to Take up Card Check on Tuesday

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Senate has secret elections for its leaders. The House of Representatives also uses a closed ballot, one not open to public view, for its own members. We all, you and I, have a secret ballot when we vote for president or for our local officials at our local polling place. It’s one of the oldest aspects of the democratic system.

Yet, Democrats want to take that oldest part of the democratic process away from 105 million Americans.

For their support in the last election Democrats are poised to launch an effort to force a payback to Big Unions through Congress, perhaps as early as Tuesday. That payback will be in the form of the woefully misnamed “Employee Free Choice Act” — which is neither free nor any choice. In this legislation, unions can dispense with the ages old secret ballot for union members and force them to sign public cards revealing their personal vote to everyone. Naturally, when a voter’s choice is known to everyone, pressure will be greater to conform and the conscience of the union member can easily take a back seat to that of getting along with union bosses.

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Dems to Take up Card Check on Tuesday”


Harry Reid Proposes Power Grid Take Over By Feds

-By Warner Todd Huston

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D, NV) has just proposed that the federal government should take over the power grid in the country so that it might string power lines all across the land. At least that would be the outcome if his new proposal comes to fruition.

Reid wants created by federal fiat new “special power lines to carry renewable energy.” Further, he proposes that these “special power lines” be placed where the federal government says they should be placed. He says that to do this the Federal government would “be able override states” in the placement of these power lines.

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Harry Reid Proposes Power Grid Take Over By Feds”


Union Opposes Rail Safety Suggestion, Instead Offers to Enlarge Membership

-By Warner Todd Huston

The United Transportation Union is coming out against a rail safety measure suggestion because, the union claims, the idea violates the “privacy” of union employees. Instead of agreeing to the safety measure, however, the union used a recent accident that killed 25 train passengers as an excuse to try and force companies to double the number of train operators, thereby enlarging union membership.

Put succinctly, while the government and rail companies are looking for ways to improve safety and prevent future loss of lives, the union is trying to make more money and gain more members.

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Union Opposes Rail Safety Suggestion, Instead Offers to Enlarge Membership”


Union Execs Meet at Swanky Resort Hotel

-By Warner Todd Huston

As union members lose their jobs all across the country, the AFL-CIO executive council met at a luxury hotel in Miami Beach, Florida this week.

The union bigwigs met at the Fontainebleau where the cheapest room rings up at $400 dollars a night.

Were I a union member, I might take exception to such extravagance for union bosses. Especially in an economy like this.

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Union Execs Meet at Swanky Resort Hotel”


UPDATE on Unions a Hatin’ Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

On February 25, we noted a story by Ben Smith of Politico about the newest troubles in the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and its President Andy Stern. Stern is attempting yet another hostile take over of yet another union in his attempt to gain iron-fisted rule of all unions in the country — no less than that is his ultimate goal.

It looks like Politico has another note in that battle.

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UPDATE on Unions a Hatin’ Unions”


More on the Flailing Inner Workings of Illinois GOP

-By Warner Todd Huston

I know, I know… it’s getting sickening to see the Illinois GOP flopping around like a dying mackerel, but if we don’t air this garbage it’ll never come out in the wash. These examples of the fecklessness of the Illinois GOP is the reason the party cannot capitalize on the most corrupt opponents in the Union; Illinois Democrats.

Anyway, this time we have the sort of double dealing and flip flopping that simply makes a candidate look foolish. You all have seen my discussions of SB600, the bill that will resurrect the policy of elections for party leadership positions of the state GOP central committee. You also may remember that the power players currently controlling the party want to prevent the rank and file from having the opportunity to vote them into or out of power.

Well, here is the next part of this twisted and disheartening saga. We have a State Senator, Bill Brady (R, 44th Dist), that has already run for governor without success. He was bested the last time by long-time party operative Judy Baar Topinka (last state treasurer) who got the party nod through the primary — and from the party leadership before hand — to face the criminal Rod Blagojevich in the race for governor. Since he lost to Topinka, Brady will be running for governor again for the 2010 elections.

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More on the Flailing Inner Workings of Illinois GOP”


An Internet Economy or “Ecommony?” Growing pushback against ‘Information wants to be free’

-By Scott Cleland

The recession has created new urgency for multiple content industries to find a better way to protect and monetize their property/content in the digital world. The dot-com bubble ethos that “information wants to be free” is like a gross mold destroying the incentives to create valuable content and distribute it digitally. (Be sure not to miss the shocking analysis at the end of this e-mail comparing revenue generation per user in the digital “ecommony” versus the real economy.)

The first point of this e-mail is to connect-the-dots about why several content industries are currently in the news, actively pushing back against the “ecommony” anti-business model, where content owners are expected to essentially give away their valuable content to the open Internet/digital commons without the requirement of permission or payment.
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An Internet Economy or “Ecommony?” Growing pushback against ‘Information wants to be free’”


More on Where Our Schools go Wrong

-By Warner Todd Huston

U.S. colleges are demanding. That’s right they are sternly demanding. You see, they are all upset that the Japanese government is not promoting study abroad for its citizens and they are demanding that the Japanese government get more of its citizens to pony up the cash for a U.S. college degree and if the people won’t do it, why these U.S. colleges demand that the government do it in their stead.

And this demand proves once again just how unAmerican U.S. colleges are.

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More on Where Our Schools go Wrong”

Colo. High School Suspends Marine Drill Team Member Over Fake Guns

-By Warner Todd Huston

Another Example of How Liberals Destroy This Country

We often call them “our best and brightest.” They are the men and women of our armed forces, all volunteers putting their lives on the line to defend our nation. Some of our most able and trustworthy leaders have come from their ranks. In times of need their sacrifice is cause for us to well with pride and their inevitable loss cause to shed a tear of gratitude. We encourage our young people to consider this life of sacrifice to our country and when at a young age they so choose the life of a soldier, almost without fail we find such young folks to be the cream of our society. Polite. Earnest. Intelligent. Hard working.

So why are the administrators in the Aurora, Colorado public school system harassing and punishing one of those very young people that we should be celebrating? With actions such as this, liberals are not only destroying our schools but also our traditions and our very social fabric.

High school senior Marie Morrow, 17, of Cherokee Trail High School is serving an illicitly sentenced 10-day suspension and her expulsion from school is on the line within the month. Miss Morrow is a team leader of the Young Marines youth leadership group and participates in the group’s drill team.

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Obama Order Allows Unions to Drive Up Cost of Gov’t Contracts

-By Warner Todd Huston

The newest in his series Executive Orders that are little else but sops to unions was uncorked in Washington on Friday, February 6. This one ordered the use of union labor for large-scale federal construction projects, eliminating 84 percent of the American contractors that are not unionized.

Not only would this bill force unions on government projects, but the resulting rise in the costs of those projects would be incredible. This executive order — a re-establishment of a Clinton era order — will force federal projects to accept labor agreements and the resulting higher wages, benefits and collective-bargaining that comes with that.

Naturally, the unions love this order. But the exorbitant costs that will be forced upon federal projects will be a bitter pill to taxpayers.

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Unions’ Incestuous Relationship to Government Means BAD Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

Lisa Jones of the web news site The Examiner has a great piece that exemplifies what I have been saying for a long time: unions are antithetical to good government.

Jones details a story of the incestuous relationship between anti-democratic union thugs and the city government in Denver, Colorado. Her sad tale of inside dealing and graft concerns the story of a law firm that promulgates the interests of Big Labor and members of Denver government that tends to make a mockery of the people’s interests by using subterfuge and lies to further the goals of Big Labor over that of the people.

One part of her story is quite egregious. It reveals a Councilman that got away with violating the law while running for the city council because of his support from insiders connected with the law firm Isaacson Rosenbaum. Apparently while running for a council seat in the 3rd District, Paul Lopez was in violation of residency requirements.

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Obama Gearing up for Union Payoffs

-By Warner Todd Huston

Last week, president Obama signed several executive orders that he claimed would “level the playing field” for the unions. By that he means, of course, that he expects to take away more power from business and the individual as a payoff to big unions.

As the AP reported, Obama signed three orders that materially affects the business sector.

Require federal contractors to offer jobs to current workers when contracts change.

Reverse a Bush administration order requiring federal contractors to post notice that workers can limit financial support of unions serving as their exclusive bargaining representatives.

Prevent federal contractors from being reimbursed for expenses meant to influence workers deciding whether to form a union and engage in collective bargaining.

Now, Obama claims this is going to “help” workers, right? So, how does removing information from workers “help” them? As the second order above indicates, Obama has helped union thugs hide the facts from workers so that workers are left in the dark about their rights.

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The Growing Privacy-Publicacy Fault-line — The Tension Underneath World Data Privacy Day

-By Scott Cleland

Given that January 28 was World Data Privacy Day, its instructive to examine why there is such increasing tension underneath the surface of the Internet over the issue of privacy. I believe there is a growing “fault line” between two opposing tectonic forces — one that believes in online privacy and the other which believes in the opposite — online publicacy.

I coined the term “publicacy” in my July 2008 House testimony on online privacy because Internet technology has created the need for an antonym to describe the opposite of privacy. Many in the Web 2.0 community believe in the “publicacy ethos” where if technology innovation can make information public, it should be public and that there should be no permission or payment required to access, use or remix this new “public”‘ information.
Continue reading “The Growing Privacy-Publicacy Fault-line — The Tension Underneath World Data Privacy Day”

It’s About The Change Yet Lobbyists and Tax Cheats Abound in New Administration

-By Warner Todd Huston

From the early days of his campaign, Obama made with the flourish that, should he be elected, lobbyists would not be welcome in his new tone Washington, his Washington of change and hope. Soon after the election, Obama’s spokesman John Podesta made a great show of announcing that Obama was insisting on the “strictest ethics rules ever applied” to his ongoing choices for members of his administration and his transition team.

In the early November news conference, Podesta proudly proclaimed that Obama was so interested in distancing himself from the old, business-as-usual Washington that they didn’t care if they were excluding people of long Washington experience with their supposed strict ethics rules. Podesta sternly told reporters, “I’ve heard the complaint that we’re leaving all these extra people on the side, that we’re leaving all the people that know everything out in the cold. So be it. That’s a commitment that is one the American people expect and one the President-elect made.”

Yet within weeks it became clear that this new ethical standard was merely so much window dressing. Now, lobbyists abound in Obama’s administration and have since day one. Not only that, but tax cheats seem to be particularly drawn to the new president.

Continue reading “It’s About The Change Yet Lobbyists and Tax Cheats Abound in New Administration”

US Professors Attacking Israel and YOUR Tax $$ Fund It

-By Warner Todd Huston

Sadly, we are used to the anti-Semitism of Europe. After all, that is where anti-Semitism has historically thrived in a most virulent form and does still today. We are also used to the Jew hatred of the illiterati of Europe’s universities having seen so often the petitions they’ve raised to denounce Israel and give succor to Hamas and Fatah — and any other terrorist group that comes down the pike, for that matter. Of course, this infection of hate, racism and self-destructive terror worship is increasingly appearing at our own universities in the U.S. Nothing is more representative of that than the example of the “U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel” recently emanating out of several California Universities.

Sponsored by several radical Muslimists that claim at being professors in a handful of California universities, this petition is one of the first of it’s kind here in the U.S. A disgusting milestone on the road to the Islamization of our tax payer funded institutions of higher learning. It is also an effort that pushes an extreme anti-intellectualism in our schools.

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Unions Gain Heavy Among Government Workers

-By Warner Todd Huston

As we reported a few days ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported its newest stats on union membership for 2008. These stats show that union membership has increased for the second straight year. But where it has increased is of key importance.

The report shows a gain of 428,000 members, the largest in the last 25 years and since such statistics have been gathered. Alarmingly, a rising number of union workers are employed by government.

The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.8 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private industry workers (7.6 percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 42.2 percent. This group includes many workers in several heavily unionized occupations, such as teachers, police officers, and fire fighters. Private sector industries with high unionization rates include transportation and utilities (22.2 per-cent), telecommunications (19.3 percent), and construction (15.6 per-cent). In 2008, unionization rates were relatively low in financial activities (1.8 percent) and professional and business services (2.1 percent).

This was a rise from numbers seen in 2007 and previous, as well. State and local government worker unions are steadily on the rise and therein lies the danger to good government. The singular problem with unions and government is that unions do not make for good government.

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Pittsburgh Schools: Superbowl More Important Than Teaching

-By Warner Todd Huston

Adding yet another chapter in that ever growing book The Decline and Fall of American Education now being written by our teacher’s unions and failed administrations nation wide, Pittsburgh Public Schools will be delayed two hours this Monday. It is assumed, it appears, that teachers will be too tired to make it in on time because of partying for the Superbowl the night before. It is also obviously assumed that parents will be irresponsible enough to allow their kids to stay up past bedtime for a mere football game.

Schools Superintendent Mark Roosevelt has announced the 2 hour delay noting that it is being implemented as a “safety precaution,” whatever that is supposed to mean? For its part, the teachers union said that these delays in the past, usually initiated because of foul weather, have only applied to students and not teachers. This time, though, it applies to the teachers and staff, too. Why? Well, it’s a union payback for that one day they all came to school even though foul weather made the administration cancel school that day, of course.

Continue reading “Pittsburgh Schools: Superbowl More Important Than Teaching”