George Rebane

The Wisconsin teachers union imbroglio promises to get uglier before it is resolved.  The left is accusing Republicans of launching an “assault on the unions”, as if that were akin to committing some kind of sacrilege.  Given what public sector unions have done to the nation and its several states, it seems appropriate to acknowledge that yes, an assault has finally been launched to curb the corruption and fiscal drain on the public purse that is endemic with these labor organizations.

Their emotional charge that we taxpayers are attacking their families and democratic rights is scurrilous and cynical.  We too have families who have to do with less because they get more.  The union members are state employees who have corrupted our elected officials that now represent their interests in opposition to ours.  For some long years these sinecured union members, in the aggregate, have ceased to deliver value.

And these people know the dimensions of their deficit, and what will happen if Wisconsin goes through with its stated reforms.  They cannot argue their case on merit, merit that would justify their over-generous compensation packages.  Because of this the leftwing is sending in its big guns from all over the land.  Notables from Jesse Jackson to Nancy Pelosi to President Obama are answering the Wisconsin unions’ call to arms.

Given the current financial mess the country is in, I believe that the debate on the continued role of public service employee unions should be joined.  Demonstrably these organizations do not serve the public interest.  They have become what FDR warned the nation about many years ago.  After emptying the public coffers, these unions now threaten ‘job actions’ that will cripple or shut down government functions.

News reports now show videos of ‘doctors’ joining the protesting union members who are there on the basis of ‘sick outs’.  These physicians are committing wholesale fraud by writing out confirmation sheets on the spot that the requestor was absent from his/her job due to illness.  These clipboard medicos are not even asking for IDs from their ‘patients’, all of this so that the protesting union members can get an excused absence and continue collecting pay.  Such behavior is part and parcel of what public service unions have become.

In a recent comment thread I observed that private sector unions employ less than 9% of the workforce, and public sector unions claim fewer than 33% of government employees. The latter have become a pampered minority who no longer understand their charge in the labor markets, but have become an enthusiastic and efficient leech on the body politic.

We in the private sector pay their wages, their benefits, their taxes, their pensions, … .  In the meanwhile their control of the sleazebag politicians has become so complete that they are now nothing but sock puppets in the spirit of Samuel Gompers (private sector union legend) who know only how to scream one demand, “MORE!!”

It is time to quit putting lipstick on this pig and force their challenges into a proper national debate.  In the meantime their continued and ever deeper reach into our pockets should be stopped wherever it is legal to do so.  And where it is not, the legislation on the books should be re-examined by our elected representatives from the perspective of history and serving the public interest.

[21feb2011 update]  The socialists respond in Wisconsin by calling a one-day strike (here).  H/T to RR reader.