Calif. Unions Already Spent $14 Million In Elections

-By Warner Todd Huston

The L.A. Times recently reported that in California unions have already spent $14 million to defeat Republicans in California’s coming elections. This is what any Republican has to face anywhere in the country, though not always at such a high spending rate.

The fact is that when Republicans run for office they face not only the campaign coffers of their Democrat opponent, but they also face the millions of dollars that public employee unions and other far left-wing advocacy groups will spend against them. Rarely do Republicans find much support from high-spending outside forces in anywhere near the same numbers that Democrats command.

While many of Californian’s Democrats have yet to put much of their campaign cash into the race, unions have more than made up for that lack of spending.
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Calif. Unions Already Spent $14 Million In Elections”


Obama, Sec. of Labor to Appear by AFL-CIO Prez at Labor Day Rally

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s been announced that President Obama will be attending the AFL-CIO’s Labor Day rally in Milwaukee, Wisconsin next month. Along for the ride will be Sec. of Labor Hilda Solis.

This is one more effort of the Obama administration to shore up Big Labor’s support coming into the midterm election campaign season.

Naturally Obama is still sounding his horn for the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA) as well as pushing his healthcare ideas.
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Obama, Sec. of Labor to Appear by AFL-CIO Prez at Labor Day Rally”


The Arrogance of The Public Employee Union Member

-By Warner Todd Huston

In a recent story detailing the efforts of 3,000 postal employee union members marching against USPS management in Detroit, one quote by a union member stuck me as wholly emblematic of the arrogance of government employee union members and it shows the disconnect between the real world and the cushy world of government workers.

As the 3,000 postal workers marched against proposed cuts in the U.S. Post office, tucked at the bottom of the Detroit Free Press piece was a quote by post office employee Kim Sauceda, of Tallevast, Florida.

“People have gone from being very confident and sure that this is a lifetime career to now not being so sure.”

Notice how this government employee imagined that her position with the USPS is supposed to be a never ending, permanent job? This shocking sense of entitlement does not exist outside of public employees unions.
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The Arrogance of The Public Employee Union Member”


Miss. School: Only White Students can be Class Prez, Only Blacks Vice Prez

-By Warner Todd Huston

In Mississippi, Nettleton Middle School is finally doing away with its policy of portioning school class officer positions by race. As the policy stood before this month, the student officer positions were set up so that if you wanted to run for eighth grade class president you had to be white while if you wanted to be vice-president, why you had to be black.

Before you get the wrong idea, here, this is a 30-year holdover policy meant to assure that both blacks and whites were represented on the school student council in Nettleton. It isn’t a new policy by any means.

This year when the memo went home to parents about the racial requirements to run for class officer positions, though, the school district was questioned on the efficacy of the practice. So, after 30 years the board finally decided to get rid of the old policy. Superintendent Russell Taylor released a statement explaining the decision made at an “emergency session” of the school board.
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Miss. School: Only White Students can be Class Prez, Only Blacks Vice Prez”


State Pensions are Unsustainable, Taxpayers Left with Huge Bill

-By Warner Todd Huston

Once again Bill Zettler has a great piece on the mess that is public employee pensions in Illinois. He makes an extremely relevant point asking the question of why the taxpayers are stuck paying off government worker’s pensions to the tune of billions while the employees themselves only have to pay a measly 8% contribution to their own funds?

In the private sector, Zettler points out, pension contributions by the workers rarely dip below 11% but these government workers are asked to contribute a scant 8% for theirs leaving the taxpayers on the hook for most of the rest of the payouts.

Why is that? Well it’s because pliant politicians that have pockets full of public employee union members donations have fixed the contributions at the low 8% level.

This needs to change.
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State Pensions are Unsustainable, Taxpayers Left with Huge Bill”


AFL-CIO Joins Communists, La Raza, ACLU, Other Unions in Voter Registration Drive

-By Warner Todd Huston

Looks like the AFL-CIO is no longer even trying to hide the fact that it no longer sports a traditionally American political outlook. The labor union has announced that it is joining a voter registration drive called One Nation Working Together. This coalition is filled with some of the most extremely leftist groups in America today including the ACLU, Enviro extremists, La Raza, Code Pink, various anti-war groups, and the Communist Party USA.

This new move by the AFL-CIO finds hearty support from the People’s World newspaper, a publication dedicated to communism and the “direct descendent” of the communist Daily Worker newspaper.

The AFL-CIO joins the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), The Center for American Progress, Green For All, USAction, and many others. The effort is being headed by United for Peace and Justice.
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AFL-CIO Joins Communists, La Raza, ACLU, Other Unions in Voter Registration Drive”


AFL-CIO Leader Attacks Palin

-By Warner Todd Huston

AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka spoke before the union’s Biennial Convention in Anchorage, Alaska today. In that speech Trumka called Governor Palin a new Joe McCarthy and says she has come “close to calling for violence.” He also objected to Palin’s use of the phrase “union thugs” in her comments and Internet postings.

Transcript of Trumka’s Palin comments

Sarah Palin?

She used to have a job, your governor…. You knew her…. Or thought you did…. I know I thought I did. She seemed like a decent person, an outdoorswoman. Her husband’s a steelworker. She seemed to take some OK stands for working families.

And then things got weird. After she tied herself to John McCain and they lost, she blew off Alaska. I guess she figured she’d trade up…shoot for a national stage. Alaska was too far from the FOX TV spotlight.

I bet most of you, on a clear day, can see her hypocrisy from your house.

I think Sarah Palin quit so she wouldn’t have to be accountable… so she wouldn’t have a record that could be scrutinized…

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AFL-CIO Leader Attacks Palin”


Missouri Grade School: Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ Song is ‘Insensitive’

-By Warner Todd Huston

Fox News Radio’s Todd Sterns reported that a Missouri elementary school tried to ban the singing of “Happy Birthday To You” in order to be “sensitive” about those students that might find singing in public to be “offensive.”

In a letter sent home to parents, school Principal Jodi Davidson (pictured) explained that the ban on the venerable song was because, “singing is not permitted due to the sensitivity of all student beliefs.”

As soon as outraged parents began to complain, our supersensitive principal reversed course and on August 23 sent a letter rescinding the ban.

Catch this lie being told by Principal Davidson to cover for her original politically correct decision:
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Missouri Grade School: Singing ‘Happy Birthday’ Song is ‘Insensitive’”


UAW Joins Push For ‘Green Jobs’

-By Warner Todd Huston

The United Auto Workers has announced that it will join a coalition of unions called the BlueGreen Alliance in an effort to push “green jobs.”

I was amused by what BlueGreen Alliance founder Leo Gerard said of this addition to the group.

“The American auto industry is poised to lead the world in the production of cleaner, more fuel-efficient cars and advanced vehicle technologies,” said Leo W. Gerard, International President of the United Steelworkers, a founder of the BlueGreen Alliance. “The members of UAW, working people who make America’s vehicles, are a welcome addition to our effort to create millions of good jobs while protecting the environment for future generations.”

Notice how he lumps his union pals in with those creating those new “advanced vehicle technologies.” The unions don’t have as much to do with creating that new technology as it does in merely building them after they’ve been designed. He takes a bit more credit than he deserves.

Still, the main problem with this alliance isn’t that they are taking too much credit for other people’s work, it’s that the idea of “green jobs” is a farce in the first place.
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UAW Joins Push For ‘Green Jobs’”


Now Democrats Want Another $34 Billion to Bailout Teamsters Pension

-By Warner Todd Huston

When will Obama’s gifts to unions (at the expense of the taxpayers) ever end? On the heels of a $26.1 billion teacher union bailout, now Democrats are attempting to get Congress to give $34 billion of the taxpayer’s money to the Teamsters because that union has mishandled its pension funds.

Senators Robert Casey (D., Pa.) and Rep. Earl Pomeroy (D., N.D.) are now pushing the bill that will bailout the Teamsters pension fund by altering the U.S. Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. which currently charges insurance rates to the funds it helps to solvency. Under new rules the help the PBGC offers troubled pension funds will now just end up coming out of federal funds.

As Kevin D. Williamson of National Review informs us, as the PBGC law stands now the obligations that PBGC takes on to help “orphan pensions” are not obligations of the U.S. government. “Casey-Pomeroy would reverse that,” Williamson tells us, “mandating that “‘obligations of the corporation that are financed by the [fifth fund] shall be obligations of the United States.'” Yep, another gigantic bailout.
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Now Democrats Want Another $34 Billion to Bailout Teamsters Pension”


Obama’s Union Bailout: A Good Crisis Going to Waste

-By Warner Todd Huston

Even the New York Times can’t ignore the fact that Obama’s latest union bailout cash isn’t going to help anyone keep their jobs, and The New York Times is really good at ignoring things that make Democrats look bad.

A few weeks ago Nancy Pelosi called the House of Representatives back into a special session because there was a crisis in education, don’t you know. It was a crisis that she didn’t want to go to waste, naturally. As Speaker of the House she had the power — one likely to evaporate with the 2010 elections — to help Barack Obama give his union pals another $26.1 billion of the taxpayer’s money and she couldn’t resist the urge to fill pockets with other’s people’s money at least one more time.

Early in August, Pelosi triumphantly announced on her Twitter feed, “I will be calling the House back into session early next week to save teachers’ jobs and help seniors & children.”

We’re helping old people, it’s for the children, we are saving teacher’s jobs. It’s a crisis that we can’t ignore, darn it! Yes, Rahm, it’s also a crisis that we can’t let go to waste.
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Obama’s Union Bailout: A Good Crisis Going to Waste”


How Teachers Unions Abuse Non-Union Teacher Paychecks

From the Independent Teachers for Colorado blog…

Check out this new Independent Teachers video about what happens when a non-union school employee who is forced to opt out of paying union fees every year misses the deadline because of family medical emergencies:

Due to family medical hardships, non-union Pueblo school employee Becky Robertson missed an annual deadline to opt out of union fee paycheck deductions. The union rejected her appeal. Though she had chosen not to be a union member, Becky ended up paying the union hundreds of dollars that could have been used for medical bills and other expenses. Why do Colorado laws allow this type of abuse to continue?


For the Third Time Obama Gives Unions A Break From Transparency Rules

-By Warner Todd Huston

The Obama administration and the Democrat Party has yet again instituted new rules to allow unions to get out of having to report their financial doings to the federal government by again rolling back reporting requirements.

Obviously as far as Obama is concerned “transparency” is one of those things that only enemies should be forced to observe. If you are an Obama friend, no transparency is required.

It is interesting to note the language that Democrats used to excuse their newest roll back of transparency requirements, too (my bold).
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For the Third Time Obama Gives Unions A Break From Transparency Rules”


Union Member Fired by Union for… Organizing a Union?

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now, this story is a bit confusing (he says tongue in cheek). We have our friend Mr. Jim Callaghan who works — or used to work, anyway — for the United Federation of Teachers, America’s biggest teachers union. Yet, this happy union organizer was fired by the UFT this week. Why was he fired? Because he was organizing a union.

Ah, but it’s not as cut and dried as it seems because Mr. Callaghan wasn’t just organizing any old union, he was trying to organize a new union comprised of the nonunion workers at the UFT headquarters.

So let’s get this straight. Mr. Callaghan was a union member working for the union at its headquarters and he was fired for trying to organize the nonunion workers that work at the union headquarters?
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Union Member Fired by Union for… Organizing a Union?”


Union To Boycott Newspaper for Exposing Union Failures

-By Warner Todd Huston

Now usually when someone points out that one has done something badly or has failed in something, the average person would look at those accusations and assess where they went wrong in order to correct the situation for the future. Not unions, though. Unions boycott those that point out union failures. Such is the case in Los Angeles as union teachers are organizing a boycott of the L.A. Times for daring to point out that kids in the L.A. school district are all too often failing miserably.

In a series of recent articles the Times used student test scores to estimate the effectiveness of L.A.’s teachers. This infuriated the union.
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Union To Boycott Newspaper for Exposing Union Failures”


Even The Brits Realize Pensions Are Too High

-By Warner Todd Huston

Long ago the British stopped being a capitalist country and adopted instead a quasi-socialist system. But even they are beginning to realize that people cannot retire at 65 (or even younger) and live in luxury for another 20 or so years afterward all on the public dime. This month the Cameron government took another small and politically difficult step toward addressing the mounting pension crisis in England.

News of the newest fix to the British pension system is being sold to the public by the media as an alarming “25% cut in benefits” for pensioners. But the fact is that these pensions were too high for a long time and this new scheme was inevitable due to the falling number of workers, the rising number of retirees, and the longer life spans that retirees now enjoy — a situation nearly every western nation is confronting.
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Even The Brits Realize Pensions Are Too High”


Calif. Teachers Unions Endangering Kid’s Lives

-By Warner Todd Huston

Reason Magazine explores the appalling situation in California where teachers unions were able to strongarm the legislature to deny teacher training for the use of Diastat, an anti-seizure drug meant to keep kids afflicted with epileptic conditions from dying in school.

The drug has been approved by the federal government to be administered by non-medical personnel through the delivery system approved and widely distributed, but teachers unions opposed this safe delivery system and the brief teacher training program. The unions claimed it was because they were trying to make sure that kids were “safe,” but the real reason is that the unions were just trying to increase the number of union member’s jobs in schools. Far from helping save kid’s live, the unions were trying to create jobs for themselves.

You see, the unions feared that if this drug were approved to be administered to afflicted kids by non-medical personnel then schools might fire school nurses. It isn’t about kid’s health. It’s about union jobs.


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Calif. Teachers Unions Endangering Kid’s Lives”


New Chicago Teachers Union Head is Same-Old-Same-Old

-By Warner Todd Huston

New Chicago public teachers union chief Karen Lewis could have come into office as a visionary that would bring some sanity to teachers union bloated demands in this era of the worst economy since the Great Depression. She could have seen the good sense of lowering expectations. She could have taken the stance of refusing to take pay raises for Chicago’s teachers as a motion of good faith in negotiating. Unfortunately, Lewis has proven herself to void of vision and stuck in the 1990s by continuing obscene union demands of constant raises and ever greater perks for union members.

In a day when unions are losing the last shred of good will that they once enjoyed in the public, Karen Lewis stood stiff-necked and refused to compromise with Chicago School head Ron Huberman. Lewis rejected giving up an automatic 4% raise in exchange for preventing layoffs.

She’d rather grab for the cash than save teacher’s jobs.
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New Chicago Teachers Union Head is Same-Old-Same-Old”


$26.1 Billion Union Bailout Went to States that Didn’t Need it

-By Warner Todd Huston

As I mentioned in a previous discussion on the Democrats $26.1 billion bailout for unions that Speaker Pelosi pushed through Congress at the last minute this summer, there was no need for the money for the stated purpose of “saving teachers” jobs. After all many states still had $30 billion of the previous stimulus that has yet to be used and others already have fully funded payrolls for at least this year.

Chris Moody confirmed my claim in his Daily Caller column today. He found that states like Arkansas, North Dakota, Tennessee, Alaska and others didn’t need this new “stimulus for their educational sector. They’ve got plenty already.

Not only that but Moody notes that none of this new money will even reach the schools until a month after school starts all across the land. So, how this new money will save anything after the tough decisions have already been made and the school year fairly begun is a bit hard to understand.
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$26.1 Billion Union Bailout Went to States that Didn’t Need it”


Pensions That Exceed Base Pay, Blame Unions

-By Warner Todd Huston

For the New York Daily News Eileen Norcross and Todd Zywicki penned a piece taking public employees pensions to task for being “too rich for America’s blood.” Of course, they rightly blame unions and compliant politicians for the disaster.

The do, however, give the actual public employees a pass. On one hand you might think that the employees are practically innocent, but you can;t avoid the simple truth that they allowed their unions to run amuck. In fact, the members insisted that the unions grab all they could whether it was good for the nation or not.

The writers focus on cops and firemen and still deny that these workers had any part in the mess. But as public servants, cops and firemen especially should have realized that they were going badly off track and were not serving the public but raping them.
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Pensions That Exceed Base Pay, Blame Unions”


Win The Lottery, Work for the Government

-By Warner Todd Huston

It’s settled. People that play the lottery should lay down their scratchoff coins and take up an employment application to work for the government. After all, winning the lottery is a one-in-a-million proposition but if you get a job with the government your hitting the lottery seems to be a sure thing.

USA Today is reporting that federal workers are earning double their private sector counterparts these days. So, you see, all you have to do to get rich, apparently, is to go to work for government.

The reports tells us that federal workers have been the lucky recipients of bigger than average pay and benefit increases than those of the private sector for the last nine years in a row. It also finds that “the compensation gap between federal and private workers has doubled in the past decade.”
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Win The Lottery, Work for the Government”


AFL-CIO Prez Says We Don’t Have Any Deficit Problem??

President of the AFL-CIO Richard Trumka says we “don’t have a deficit crisis” in this country. Obama has spent us trillions into debt and this hack claims we don’t have a deficit problem?

We are approaching 100% of federal debt to GDP, and this union thug says we have no deficit problem?

Click image to enlarge…

Why anyone thinks that this man has any credibility is beyond me.


$26.1 Billion Union Bailout Bill Passes

-By Warner Todd Huston

Pay close attention, Delaware. Your Congressman, Mike Castle, just voted for the $26.1 billion union bailout. Castle was one of only two Republicans to vote yes on this bloated union pay off (the other was Louisiana’s Cao).

On a 247 to 161 vote, the House passed the $26.1 billion Education Jobs and Medicaid Assistance Act. Democrats claimed that it would “save” the jobs of teachers, police and firemen across the country. In truth this is just a union payoff.

AFL-CIO union chief Richard Trumka was thrilled with Tuesday afternoon’s vote. “Today’s vote means that hundreds of thousands of teachers, firefighters and public safety officers will keep their jobs,” Trumka claimed. “It will prevent layoffs and provide aid to struggling state and local governments so that critical services aren’t cut … With today’s vote, House Republicans showed they value Wall Street and tax cuts for the rich over teachers, police and firefighters. This is yet another example in the laundry list of anti-jobs votes they’ve taken.”

Why the states needed this new money is hard to understand. They still have $30 billion in the last teachers bailout that has yet to be allocated. Well, maybe it isn’t so hard to understand when you realize that unions will be the biggest recipient of this money and we are just ahead of an election. Now Democrats can tout their payoff to said unions to pander for votes.

In fact, it is obvious that this was a union payoff in another way. The House was already on recess for the Summer when the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) pushed Speaker Pelosi to reconvene the House in order to push this massive payoff.

In return, the unions promised to kick their campaigning for Democrats into high gear in the coming months.

No, this wasn’t much of a back-room, sweetheart deal between pliant Democrats and grasping unions, was it?

So come on, Delaware, vote ChristineO’Donnell in November. Let’s get rid of the corrupt bargains for which Mike Castle is famous.

Rep. Michelle Bachman had a few words about this raw deal today, too…


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$26.1 Billion Union Bailout Bill Passes”


Outrageous Pensions Turning Ill. Teachers into Millionaires

-By Warner Todd Huston

Over at Champion News Bill Zettler has been doing a fantastic job of following and chronicling the completely out of control pensions of Illinois public employees and this week he asks why Governor Quinn wants to raise taxes just to make millionaires of retiring teachers.

Zettler found two teachers that will be making in excess of a million dollars in pension payouts.

Check out this obscene total:
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Outrageous Pensions Turning Ill. Teachers into Millionaires”


As Fellows Lose Jobs Union Fights For Stiffer Drug Benefits: Free Viagra

-By Warner Todd Huston

Unions have for years been figuring out new ways to screw employers and in Madison, Wisconsin a teacher’s union is looking for yet another way to slam it to the taxpayers by insisting that they get a free Viagra drug benefit.

In this bad economy, with states going bankrupt right and left, with teachers being laid off all across the country are Wisconsin’s teachers getting serious about negotiations and thankful they have a job at all? Apparently not, because in this dismal employment environment these teachers are trying to get free sex enhancement drugs.

The amorous union has demanded that a judge order the administration to reinstate the Viagra drug benefit that was sliced from the budget in 2005 to save money. And this demand comes at the same time that 482 teachers in Milwaukee have received layoff notices.
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As Fellows Lose Jobs Union Fights For Stiffer Drug Benefits: Free Viagra”


Looks Like I’ll Be on Fox Business Channel at 3PM Central Today

-By Warner Todd Huston

As of right now I’ll be live on FoxNews Business Channel’s “Money Rocks” today at 3pm CT. We’re talking the Illinois pension mess.

Of course, you know how TV is. I may get down there and get all ready and they may bump my segment. So, we can only cross our fingers and hope it all goes according to plan.

**UPDATE**

Well, I just got back from the studio and the Show went well. Live video to New York for about three minutes duration.

I have to say that TV always makes me laugh.

Here is how it goes: I get contacted anywhere from 9AM to 11AM. I call back. They tell me what the show is and the topic and maybe ask for a few facts to be emailed back to them. They send a limo. I get in for the 1 hour trip to Chicago. I get makeup and wait for my spot. I get on the air for two to five minutes. I get back in the limo for another hour or so trip back home.

Yep, all that for about two to five minutes of live video. All that expense for two to five minutes.

What a racket, eh?

But I always enjoy it, anyway.


AFL-CIO Chief Pleading for Union Support of Dems in Nov.

-By Warner Todd Huston

The AFL-CIO plans to spend another $50 million coming to the aid of Democrats during this campaign season for the 2010 midterms. But all is not well in uniondom as many unions are very, very unhappy with various and sundry Democrat candidates across the country.

Still, AFL-CIO chief Richard Trumka has issued a call to arms for the Democrats anyway. “We know you’re angry,” Trumka said to his membership. “We know you’re frustrated. We know we haven’t achieved everything that we worked for. But we’ve made progress, and we have to keep it going.”

Unions are a smaller political constituency than ever before, however, with only about 12% of America’s workforce being unionized. Despite the hundreds of millions that unions gave Democrats in the 2008 election cycle, their diminished numbers may have made some small dent in the once Pavlovian response that Democrat politicians had to the union beck-and-call. Despite the money, the votes are not there like they once were.
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AFL-CIO Chief Pleading for Union Support of Dems in Nov.”


Even The Left Getting Tired of Teachers Unions?

-By Warner Todd Huston

An interesting article appeared in the Chicago Tribune lamenting the fact that teachers unions are standing in the way of good education for our kids by constantly and in knee-jerk fashion opposing school reform efforts all across the country.

Penned by the Tribune’s Leonard Pitts, no arch righty he, the piece scolds teachers unions and postulates that we may be at the edge of a new day in education where the whining of backwards and uncaring teachers unions may be properly ignored as school districts, backed by parents and voters, launch into a new wave of reforms that will finally have a positive affect on America’s schools that have been failing for decades.
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Even The Left Getting Tired of Teachers Unions?”


National Education Association Orders Members to Read Communist Guide Book

-By Warner Todd Huston

The National Education Association (NEA) is the premier teachers union group in the country. As such it is instructive to learn the sort of reading material that the biggest of all teachers unions tells its own members to study so that they can more adequately represent teachers in America today.

A look at the NEA website reveals a shocking recommendation to its members. The union that represents the teachers that we send our children to every school day suggests that its members read the communist-like manifesto of famed left-wing agitator Saul Alinsky.

That’s right, the NEA wants its members, America’s teachers, to become programmed by the ideas and policy prescriptions in a communist manifesto.
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National Education Association Orders Members to Read Communist Guide Book”


NY Carpenters Union Boss Pleads Guilty to Racketeering

-By Warner Todd Huston

Remember the good old days? Remember the days when union thugs were just normal, everyday, criminals, creeps, and crooks? Well, they still are, at least in some corners of uniondom.

After years of fighting criminal charges, the former head of the union that represents carpenters in New York City pleaded guilty on Wednesday to taking part in a racketeering scheme stretching back over a decade, the authorities said.

The former leader, Michael J. Forde, was accused along with nine other union officials and contractors of stealing millions of dollars from the union and its benefit funds.

The men were named last year in a 29-count indictment that charged that in exchange for bribes, Mr. Forde and the others allowed contractors to pay union members cash wages below union scale with no benefits, to hire illegal and nonunion workers, and to skip benefit contributions.

Unfortunately the quaint days of mere criminality are in the past. Now unions are in charge of government and increasingly getting the benefit of the help their brethren in politics can give them. As Mark Hemingway of the Washington Examiner reminds us:
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NY Carpenters Union Boss Pleads Guilty to Racketeering”