Battle of Wisconsin threatens unions' political might

While looking around the net this morning for topics ran across this gem from Mark Tapscott, Editor of the Washington Examiner. The Wisconsin public service unions who are supported by Obama and the DNC are looking worse and worse. This is one of those the devil is in the details moments when you learn how much better off financially state union workers are than most of the private sector employees are in Wisconsin.

Battle of Wisconsin threatens unions' political mightExaminer Editorial 02/19/11 8:05 PM

Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker’s proposals for state employee contributions have brought condemnation from the president because they threaten his union-boss constituency.Wisconsin's Republican governor, Scott Walker - elected last November along with GOP majorities in both chambers of the state's legislature -- wants his state's public employees to contribute half the cost of their pensions -- up from zero -- and about one-eighth of the cost of their health insurance premiums.

These contributions are less than the private-sector average, but you wouldn't know it from watching the 25,000 unionists and supporters from around the country who have descended on the capitol building in Madison, carrying signs comparing Walker to Hitler. Madison has become ground zero in the battle for the future of America because there is a lot more at stake than the simple concept that well-paid state employees should share the sacrifices that hard economic times have imposed on the private sector workers who pay their salaries.

Walker's proposals have also brought condemnation from President Obama, because they directly threaten his favored union-boss constituency. Walker wants to let state workers vote each year on which union (if any) they want representing them. He wants the state to stop garnishing workers' wages on the unions' behalf, and to exclude state benefit packages from future negotiations....

...Depending on the school district and the teacher's education level, Wisconsin teachers can expect to make that kind of money and enjoy such benefits after several years of experience. This seems more than reasonable for a job that only runs nine months out of the year.

The strikers are doing so much better than most of Wisconsin's private sector workers that their complaints evince a gross disrespect for taxpayers, who on average make much less. The average single-income family in the state brings in $40,500, and the average worker pays 20 percent of his employee health plan. Wisconsin's state workers are not exploited. Their union has become far too politically powerful and now feels threatened, and that's the real reason union leaders called for the protests. Obama, who as usual has reflexively taken the side of unions, should be ashamed for trying to crush reforms that are long overdue in Wisconsin and virtually every other state in the nation.

Read more at the Washington Examiner

Wisconsin public service unions are indicative of what has evolved from the days when unions stood up for safety of the employees -- now it is for salary and benefits on the backs of the taxpayers and putting cash in Democrat candidate coffers to keep up their lucrative business. Who audits the unions?

Remember those so-called sick teachers that got doctors to go along with the charade?

Thousands of Wisconsin teachers who called in sick last week somehow managed to stagger over to the state capitol building in Madison to participate in protests, forcing many school districts to cancel classes. In various interviews with Wisconsin newspapers, teachers at the capitol expressed frustration with Walker's plans.

When you call in sick in order to go demonstrate it says it all their dedication to a better education for students -- there is no dedication involved except to themselves and how much they can make in benefits and salary on the backs of taxpayers.

Schools had to be canceled because of these teachers who lied about being sick. What does that teach the children they are supposed to be educating? No one told them they had to be teachers but at the salaries they are making for nine months work, we can see why some people chose teaching -- it was for money not for educating children. We have a lot of mediocre teachers in the system that the unions protect. How many of the teachers who called in sick in order to demonstrate fall in that mediocre category?

Look at their salaries:

We went to the Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction to get the salary data for some of the noisiest teachers, and found that
they were making salaries of $67,000, $68,000, $58,000, and $59,000, with benefit packages of $18,000, $20,000, $12,000, and $29,000, respectively

How many people in the private sector of Wisconsin make that much money with those benefits for nine months of work? Those numbers are what is going to take out the public service unions in Wisconsin who called in thugs from SEIU around the Country. State employees in Wisconsin, thanks to the Democrats who ran the state for years are overcompensated, compared to the private sector.

The unions, whose object is to underwrite the election of politicians who care more about them than taxpayers, fear that their days of cutting sweetheart deals may soon be over.

Unions are starting to see their power and influence decrease in states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Ohio after the 2010 elections and are fighting back with the help of Obama and the DNC who is helping organize the protests. If they think it was bad in 2010 just wait until 2012. The vast majority of Americans (64%) to do not believe in public sector unions organization and how they operate. That number was before this happened in Wisconsin.

How many of union members don't even want to belong to the teacher's union and other public service unions but are forced to join? There is a non-union alternative for teachers, Association of American Educators who have state partners in Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, North Carolina, Oregon, Virginia, and Washington and then others states are affiliated including Arizona, Texas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Georgia, Florida, Iowa, Tennessee, and Utah.

The Professional Oklahoma Educators has been increasing their membership over the years as many teachers are tired of the Education Unions who don't have the best interests of students as their agenda. The National Education Association Union is more about getting teachers more pay and benefits and making sure mediocre teachers stay on the job then they are in educating our children. If not, America would have the best schools in the world with the amount of money that has been thrown at the schools and put in the hands of union teachers.

We noted that the demonstrators supporting Governor Walker came in to support him on the weekend instead of taking time off from work. That should tell you something right there. How much work do a lot of these union thugs really do or is their purpose to go around stirring up trouble? Rent a thugs comes to mind.

Found it interesting to see the map of Right to Work states and discover that once again the six red states right in the middle of the Country are all right to Work.  Oklahoma was the last one to join the others in 2001 in an overwhelming victory for Right to Work.  The opponents brought in donations and thugs along with the Clintonites from around the Country but we passed it in big numbers.

Maybe it is time for some more states to join us and put the unions on notice that when union membership is not mandatory, they have to earn the members.  It would also take away that political power of the unions as an arm of the Democrat Party.  Honestly believe this is all about getting money for Democrat political campaigns on the backs of the workers the union leaders profess to support.  Who they support are people like Obama who they know will give them what they ask for in exchange for their political contributions and voter fraud by ACORN and SEIU who are joined at the hip.