Lousyana Teachers Protest Reform

Lousyana Teachers Protest Reform

My favorite governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, has been cleaning up his state for several years now, cutting costs and making the entire government more efficient. His early training as a management consultant has served the public well as he applied his methods to the government. He brought Louisiana out of the dark ages in medical coverage and instituted severe ethical reforms.

Now, Governor Jindal is being attacked by union and public school teachers who fear his education reforms.

Today, the state’s education committee will act on Jindal’s proposed reforms. He has taken on all the public school teachers’ favorite perks and privileges. The unions don’t like that. His proposal includes a complete revamping of the tenure program (a redundancy in union schools), enhanced monetary compensation based on performance rather than longevity, and expansion of school choice and voucher programs. He also included some tinkering around the edges of pensions, having already made a substantial change in them through an omnibus reform bill which encompassed all government employees, teachers included.

Jindal's own extensive educational accomplishments aside, the teachers cannot validly claim that he “doesn’t understand education and teachers.” One of his major reform positions in government was in the field of education. At age 28, he was appointed president of the University of Louisiana system, the sixteenth largest such system in the United States. During his tenure, formerly skyrocketing tuition fees were stabilized, duplication of effort was cut back, topheavy administration was slashed, instructor hiring was modified in order to include objective standards beyond mere diplomas, and academic standing increased dramatically.

He now proposes to institute the same reforms for elementary and secondary education. Louisiana resembles a great many other states in that huge numbers of teachers are overpaid, underworked, and often unqualified to teach much of anything. But since they are being paid for their terrible performance, the least they could do is show up for school and make a half-hearted attempt at pretending to teach.

Instead, teachers throughout the state, and particularly union members have convinced weak-spined school administrations to cancel classes so that the “teachers” can go to Baton Rouge to protest the proposed changes. This essentially means that public employees are being converted into temporary lobbyists to advance their own miserable cause while stealing time from the students and taxpayers.

How well have they done their jobs as teachers? On national standards, one-third of Louisiana public schools scored below grade-level. Nearly half of public schools in Louisiana scored a D or F even using National Education Association standards. 4th and 8th graders were in the bottom 15% of American students in math and English. Still, these space-wasters are unable to comprehend that they are lucky to have any job at all, let alone one with a near-guarantee of a job for life and disproportionately high pay and benefits for no discernible accomplishment.

Jindal’s education spokesman Aaron Baer said the following: “When one-third of all students are below grade level, the last thing public school employees should be doing is using class time to lobby the state legislature to prevent much-needed reforms. But instead they are joining the education unions who are descending upon Baton Rouge in full force.”

Although I agree with Baer, I also have the horrible thought that the only thing worse than these useless public school teachers being away from their classes is their being in their classes, filling those young minds with lots of nonsense and very little education. I will add that I do indeed know there are some very fine public school teachers, perhaps even many such. But they do not comprise even a strong minority. Jindal’s proposed reforms are being offered precisely to protect and reward those good teachers and to cease rewarding all those bad ones.

My favorite governor, Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, has been cleaning up his state for several years now, cutting costs and making the entire government more efficient. His early training as a management consultant has served the public well as he applied his methods to the government. He brought Louisiana out of the dark ages in medical coverage and instituted severe ethical reforms.

Now, Governor Jindal is being attacked by union and public school teachers who fear his education reforms.

Today, the state’s education committee will act on Jindal’s proposed reforms. He has taken on all the public school teachers’ favorite perks and privileges. The unions don’t like that. His proposal includes a complete revamping of the tenure program (a redundancy in union schools), enhanced monetary compensation based on performance rather than longevity, and expansion of school choice and voucher programs. He also included some tinkering around the edges of pensions, having already made a substantial change in them through an omnibus reform bill which encompassed all government employees, teachers included.

Jindal's own extensive educational accomplishments aside, the teachers cannot validly claim that he “doesn’t understand education and teachers.” One of his major reform positions in government was in the field of education. At age 28, he was appointed president of the University of Louisiana system, the sixteenth largest such system in the United States. During his tenure, formerly skyrocketing tuition fees were stabilized, duplication of effort was cut back, topheavy administration was slashed, instructor hiring was modified in order to include objective standards beyond mere diplomas, and academic standing increased dramatically.

He now proposes to institute the same reforms for elementary and secondary education. Louisiana resembles a great many other states in that huge numbers of teachers are overpaid, underworked, and often unqualified to teach much of anything. But since they are being paid for their terrible performance, the least they could do is show up for school and make a half-hearted attempt at pretending to teach.

Instead, teachers throughout the state, and particularly union members have convinced weak-spined school administrations to cancel classes so that the “teachers” can go to Baton Rouge to protest the proposed changes. This essentially means that public employees are being converted into temporary lobbyists to advance their own miserable cause while stealing time from the students and taxpayers.

How well have they done their jobs as teachers? On national standards, one-third of Louisiana public schools scored below grade-level. Nearly half of public schools in Louisiana scored a D or F even using National Education Association standards. 4th and 8th graders were in the bottom 15% of American students in math and English. Still, these space-wasters are unable to comprehend that they are lucky to have any job at all, let alone one with a near-guarantee of a job for life and disproportionately high pay and benefits for no discernible accomplishment.

Jindal’s education spokesman Aaron Baer said the following: “When one-third of all students are below grade level, the last thing public school employees should be doing is using class time to lobby the state legislature to prevent much-needed reforms. But instead they are joining the education unions who are descending upon Baton Rouge in full force.”

Although I agree with Baer, I also have the horrible thought that the only thing worse than these useless public school teachers being away from their classes is their being in their classes, filling those young minds with lots of nonsense and very little education. I will add that I do indeed know there are some very fine public school teachers, perhaps even many such. But they do not comprise even a strong minority. Jindal’s proposed reforms are being offered precisely to protect and reward those good teachers and to cease rewarding all those bad ones.

Lousyana Teachers Protest Reform

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That’s The Answer. More Teachers.

That’s The Answer. More Teachers.

What is the best thing to do during a weak economy? Hire more public employees. Or so Barack Obama thinks. But he isn’t just talking about those illiterate file clerks or surly bureaucrats who are there to make sure you don’t try to slip anything past the government. He is talking about those molders of our youth—public school teachers. This week, the president called on the nation’s governors to stop cutting education and hire more public school teachers.

And he was willing to sweeten the pot with $25 billion in federal gifts. His litany was heart-rending. “We’ve just got to get more teachers into our classrooms. Over the past four years, school districts across America have lost over 250,000 teachers, educators have been lost. A quarter million educators responsible for millions of our students, all laid off when America has never needed them more.”

Of course anyone who has actually followed the news about public schools over the past few decades knows that what Obama is saying is a combination of wishful thinking, purposeful deception, and pandering to one of his largest campaign contribution groups. Public school teachers are a huge constituency for liberal politicians, and unionized public school teachers are even stronger for the left. But if they were really teaching our kids the things they need to know, there would be little room for complaint.

The school cutbacks have indeed been numerous, but hardly draconian. “Educators” seem to think the proper student-teacher ration is 1:1. For decades before the unions and self-serving educators got into power, student-teacher ratios of 1:15 and even 1:20 were common and somehow students got fine educations. Today, a classroom with 15 students, one teacher and two teacher’s assistants is considered barebones. 250,000 teachers laid off nationwide isn’t even a very significant number.

But Obama would like the public to think that by balancing budgets, laying off teachers and putting teacher-administrators back in the classroom and out of the bloated offices American students will fall into education deficiency disorder. I hate to tell The One, but even before the cuts, American public schools had become a laughingstock in the western world. Overall, our public school students are among the worst educated in the industrialized West (and yes, I know there are exceptions).

Now before anyone jumps on me for being down on teachers, I want to make it clear that I am not. A good teacher is one of civilization’s most valuable assets. And even in our miserable public schools (particularly the urban and near-urban suburban schools), there are teachers struggling against a system which has stacked the deck against them. But when the money runs out, belts have to be tightened and some people have to go. If the system provided for getting rid of the worst teachers based on objective standards, reduction in the number of teachers would actually be a boon.

But it doesn’t. Given unionization, tenure, and an overabundance of labor lawyers, the system is designed to retain the teachers with the longest history of employment at a particular school or school district. Many of them should not have been allowed to teach from day one, but are now nearly untouchable. Obama figures that a good teacher “can increase the income of a classroom by $250,000.” Where he got that figure I haven’t a clue, particularly since it depends in large part on how populous each classroom is. But rather than quibble, I’ll just say he has the right idea, but the wrong facts. The operative word is “good,” and far too many are barely able to attain minimal teaching efficiency.


Last hired, first fired has its merits. But it should be far from the only criterion. A bad teacher with twenty-five years on the job should not be retained over a good teacher with proven objective results who has only been on the job for a year or two. For a frighteningly large number of retained teachers, this includes teachers who are so bad both academically and morally that they are serving out their tenure in “rubber rooms.” Unions and civil rights/labor lawyers have managed to retain the jobs of sexual predators, but can’t see why we should retain good teachers who don’t molest their students.

Says Obama, “other countries are doubling down on education and increasing their investment in teachers.” But the failing American pubic schools already spend more per pupil/per teacher than most of those “other countries” anyway. And that’s before you start counting the crippling burden of teacher pensions. Good teachers are indeed underpaid, but far more bad teachers are overpaid and destructive of true education.

Unlike the federal government, the states cannot balance their budgets and retain expensive deadwood by printing money. Obama knows this, and he keeps holding out those magic wads of cash he’ll give to the states if they’ll just rehire laid-off losers while recruiting new ones. The idea of attaching strings, like teacher competency, termination of bad teachers and reduction of benefits to general public levels before rehiring or newly employing teachers is simply not part of the Obama equation.

And here’s at least part of the reason why: The National Education Association gave $1.2 million to Democratic candidates in 2010, though that was down from the $1.8 million it contributed to Democrats in 2008. In 2012, very early in the election cycle, the NEA has already contributed nearly $250,000 to Democratic candidates (that magic number keeps reappearing, doesn’t it?). Not to be outdone, the American Federation of Teachers has already contributed $637,000 for Democrats in 2012. In 2010, it was $2.3 million, outdoing its 2008 contributions of $2.2 million. Any questions? I’m sure there’s a union public school teacher available to answer them.

What is the best thing to do during a weak economy? Hire more public employees. Or so Barack Obama thinks. But he isn’t just talking about those illiterate file clerks or surly bureaucrats who are there to make sure you don’t try to slip anything past the government. He is talking about those molders of our youth—public school teachers. This week, the president called on the nation’s governors to stop cutting education and hire more public school teachers.

And he was willing to sweeten the pot with $25 billion in federal gifts. His litany was heart-rending. “We’ve just got to get more teachers into our classrooms. Over the past four years, school districts across America have lost over 250,000 teachers, educators have been lost. A quarter million educators responsible for millions of our students, all laid off when America has never needed them more.”

Of course anyone who has actually followed the news about public schools over the past few decades knows that what Obama is saying is a combination of wishful thinking, purposeful deception, and pandering to one of his largest campaign contribution groups. Public school teachers are a huge constituency for liberal politicians, and unionized public school teachers are even stronger for the left. But if they were really teaching our kids the things they need to know, there would be little room for complaint.

The school cutbacks have indeed been numerous, but hardly draconian. “Educators” seem to think the proper student-teacher ration is 1:1. For decades before the unions and self-serving educators got into power, student-teacher ratios of 1:15 and even 1:20 were common and somehow students got fine educations. Today, a classroom with 15 students, one teacher and two teacher’s assistants is considered barebones. 250,000 teachers laid off nationwide isn’t even a very significant number.

But Obama would like the public to think that by balancing budgets, laying off teachers and putting teacher-administrators back in the classroom and out of the bloated offices American students will fall into education deficiency disorder. I hate to tell The One, but even before the cuts, American public schools had become a laughingstock in the western world. Overall, our public school students are among the worst educated in the industrialized West (and yes, I know there are exceptions).

Now before anyone jumps on me for being down on teachers, I want to make it clear that I am not. A good teacher is one of civilization’s most valuable assets. And even in our miserable public schools (particularly the urban and near-urban suburban schools), there are teachers struggling against a system which has stacked the deck against them. But when the money runs out, belts have to be tightened and some people have to go. If the system provided for getting rid of the worst teachers based on objective standards, reduction in the number of teachers would actually be a boon.

But it doesn’t. Given unionization, tenure, and an overabundance of labor lawyers, the system is designed to retain the teachers with the longest history of employment at a particular school or school district. Many of them should not have been allowed to teach from day one, but are now nearly untouchable. Obama figures that a good teacher “can increase the income of a classroom by $250,000.” Where he got that figure I haven’t a clue, particularly since it depends in large part on how populous each classroom is. But rather than quibble, I’ll just say he has the right idea, but the wrong facts. The operative word is “good,” and far too many are barely able to attain minimal teaching efficiency.


Last hired, first fired has its merits. But it should be far from the only criterion. A bad teacher with twenty-five years on the job should not be retained over a good teacher with proven objective results who has only been on the job for a year or two. For a frighteningly large number of retained teachers, this includes teachers who are so bad both academically and morally that they are serving out their tenure in “rubber rooms.” Unions and civil rights/labor lawyers have managed to retain the jobs of sexual predators, but can’t see why we should retain good teachers who don’t molest their students.

Says Obama, “other countries are doubling down on education and increasing their investment in teachers.” But the failing American pubic schools already spend more per pupil/per teacher than most of those “other countries” anyway. And that’s before you start counting the crippling burden of teacher pensions. Good teachers are indeed underpaid, but far more bad teachers are overpaid and destructive of true education.

Unlike the federal government, the states cannot balance their budgets and retain expensive deadwood by printing money. Obama knows this, and he keeps holding out those magic wads of cash he’ll give to the states if they’ll just rehire laid-off losers while recruiting new ones. The idea of attaching strings, like teacher competency, termination of bad teachers and reduction of benefits to general public levels before rehiring or newly employing teachers is simply not part of the Obama equation.

And here’s at least part of the reason why: The National Education Association gave $1.2 million to Democratic candidates in 2010, though that was down from the $1.8 million it contributed to Democrats in 2008. In 2012, very early in the election cycle, the NEA has already contributed nearly $250,000 to Democratic candidates (that magic number keeps reappearing, doesn’t it?). Not to be outdone, the American Federation of Teachers has already contributed $637,000 for Democrats in 2012. In 2010, it was $2.3 million, outdoing its 2008 contributions of $2.2 million. Any questions? I’m sure there’s a union public school teacher available to answer them.

That’s The Answer. More Teachers.

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A Falling-Out Among Thieves?

A Falling-Out Among Thieves?

Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa (the one who isn't among the missing) has threatened the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats that the Teamsters will "hold them accountable" for passing the three free trade agreements that had languished on President Obama's desk for over two years.

How he plans to do that is yet to be determined. Cement overshoes, perhaps? Does he plan on singling out Obama only, or will he need a large cement mixer for the Democrats who voted for the agreements as well? At least now I know why the Fox Movie Channel keeps showing Blood Feud, the TV mini-series about the elder Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy. There hasn't been this much bad blood between the big union and a Democratic administration since 1968.

Hoffa (who prefers to be called James P. Hoffa) did lay out part of his plan. He said "the Teamsters will hold members of Congress accountable at the ballot box for their votes on these damaging trade deals." How democratic. He went on to say: "Our representatives just voted to damage our economy, raise unemployment and lower workers' wages. These trade deals protect the profit of multinationals at the expense of American working families."

Obama, in contrast, signed the bills the moment they were returned to him. He said that the agreements would support tens of thousands of American jobs while protecting the environment, workers' rights and intellectual property rights. Rather than simply remove trade barriers such as tariffs, the agreements require mutual cooperation in raising the standards for labor and the environment in the three contracting nations. They didn't simply open up additional markets in America for the products coming from the three nations (Colombia, Panama, and South Korea) without corresponding concessions. For a more complete discussion of the trade agreements and Obama's belated support for them, go here.

Several think tanks on both the left and right estimate that the free trade agreements will produce about 77,000 new jobs in America and make American products more appealing to the other three nations. Hoffa wasn't going to take that lying down, so he attempted to pander to his Occupy Wall Street counterparts by saying: "This is one of the reasons people are marching in the streets of dozens of American cities. Their government is betraying them, and they're furious."

How real this dispute is remains to be seen. Hoffa may just be trying to shore up support among his own cadres and those of the other big unions. He may very well have spoken with Obama and told him "don't worry, we're just putting on a show, but we're still in the tank for you." After all, who else is his union going to support in 2012? The Republicans? The Blue Dog Democrats? The battle between his father and Bobby Kennedy was much more personal, so Jimmy the Elder's support of Richard Nixon is not likely to repeat itself with Jimmy the Lesser.

Teamsters Union President Jimmy Hoffa (the one who isn't among the missing) has threatened the Obama administration and Congressional Democrats that the Teamsters will "hold them accountable" for passing the three free trade agreements that had languished on President Obama's desk for over two years.

How he plans to do that is yet to be determined. Cement overshoes, perhaps? Does he plan on singling out Obama only, or will he need a large cement mixer for the Democrats who voted for the agreements as well? At least now I know why the Fox Movie Channel keeps showing Blood Feud, the TV mini-series about the elder Hoffa and Bobby Kennedy. There hasn't been this much bad blood between the big union and a Democratic administration since 1968.

Hoffa (who prefers to be called James P. Hoffa) did lay out part of his plan. He said "the Teamsters will hold members of Congress accountable at the ballot box for their votes on these damaging trade deals." How democratic. He went on to say: "Our representatives just voted to damage our economy, raise unemployment and lower workers' wages. These trade deals protect the profit of multinationals at the expense of American working families."

Obama, in contrast, signed the bills the moment they were returned to him. He said that the agreements would support tens of thousands of American jobs while protecting the environment, workers' rights and intellectual property rights. Rather than simply remove trade barriers such as tariffs, the agreements require mutual cooperation in raising the standards for labor and the environment in the three contracting nations. They didn't simply open up additional markets in America for the products coming from the three nations (Colombia, Panama, and South Korea) without corresponding concessions. For a more complete discussion of the trade agreements and Obama's belated support for them, go here.

Several think tanks on both the left and right estimate that the free trade agreements will produce about 77,000 new jobs in America and make American products more appealing to the other three nations. Hoffa wasn't going to take that lying down, so he attempted to pander to his Occupy Wall Street counterparts by saying: "This is one of the reasons people are marching in the streets of dozens of American cities. Their government is betraying them, and they're furious."

How real this dispute is remains to be seen. Hoffa may just be trying to shore up support among his own cadres and those of the other big unions. He may very well have spoken with Obama and told him "don't worry, we're just putting on a show, but we're still in the tank for you." After all, who else is his union going to support in 2012? The Republicans? The Blue Dog Democrats? The battle between his father and Bobby Kennedy was much more personal, so Jimmy the Elder's support of Richard Nixon is not likely to repeat itself with Jimmy the Lesser.

A Falling-Out Among Thieves?

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The House Tells Boeing Not To Fly Away

The House Tells Boeing Not To Fly Away

If things go as planned, the House of Representatives will vote today on slapping down the National Labor Relations Board for its attempt to curry favor with labor by determining where a company can decide to build its plants. The NLRB took it upon itself to pursue a suit against Boeing Corporation for alleged “unfair labor practices.”

In fact, Boeing merely attempted to expand, and made the mistake of expanding into a right to work state—South Carolina. For background on the original House investigations into the matter this past June, go here: Boeing, Boeing, Boeing. Nothing that the House committee has produced has detoured the NLRB juggernaut. In order for Boeing’s actions to be considered an unfair labor practice, the NLRB would have to prove that Boeing’s expansion plant in South Carolina was retaliation for union strikes in closed-shop Washington State. In addition, it would have to show that as a result of Boeing’s actions, union jobs were lost.

Boeing says that it was making a pure business decision. It needed additional space, and given the unavailability of large tracts of land in Washington necessary for major expansion along with the costs of doing business, South Carolina was an ideal choice. Equally importantly, not a single union job was lost in Washington as a result of the expansion. In fact, since the labor dispute, Boeing has expanded the Washington facilities to the maximum extent allowable, and has hired 2,000 more union laborers. The facts are clear and indisputable. Only the philosophy of unionism and government control of private business are at issue.

The Obama administration and its Congressional allies aren’t doing themselves any favors with this NLRB action. South Carolina is an early primary state, and at least one Republican presidential hopeful has already used the NLRB’s action as a campaign issue. Mitt Romney visited the new Boeing plant, and pronounced the NLRB’s action “political payback from the White House to the unions.” He may be the first, but he won’t be the last Republican to latch onto the issue.

Never daunted, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who recently declared war on the Republican Party (those sons-of-bitches), said “the National Labor Relations Act prohibits companies from retaliating against workers who exercise union rights by moving their jobs away.” Trumka failed to explain how Boeing’s expansion of the Washington facilities and adding another 2,000 union employees “moved jobs away.”

In attacking the pending House bill, Trumka said: “This is sweeping legislation that would gut the NLRB and result in serious, harmful changes to jobs and workers’ rights across the country.” Well, it would be sweeping, it could potentially gut the NLRB (that’s a bad thing?), and it would damage the cause of forced unionism. How putting people to work is a harmful change remains a mystery to all but the union bosses and the Obama administration.

Trumka adds that if the bill becomes law, “a company could simply close a plant and move to another state if workers complained of unsafe working conditions or discrimination.” Two things immediately occur to me. First, every state, including South Carolina, has rigid laws against unsafe working conditions and discrimination, so what does the union have to do with it? South Carolina also has whistleblower statutes which prevent companies from retaliating against workers filing legitimate complaints about unsafe working conditions or discrimination. Therefore, what Trumka is actually talking about is cushy union work rules, not safety or discrimination.

Second, I turn his own argument back on him. If the NLRB ultimately prevails, Boeing would be within its rights and good business sense to move its offices and plants to some place more business-friendly like, say, Shanghai. If Boeing did indeed commit a labor violation (which I firmly say it did not), the government telling a company where it can locate its facilities is both unwise and unconstitutional.

This is another back-door, end-run around the Constitution and proper delegation of authority. The President exacerbates the problem by claiming to stay above the fray. Says Obama: “I am reluctant to interfere in a case brought by an independent federal agency.” In other words, he wants his dirty work to be done by somebody else so he can pretend his skirts are clean.

I wish the sponsors of this bill the best of luck. It does have a good chance of passage in the House. But that won’t be the end of it. The Senate is still controlled by pro-labor Democrats and the bill will probably not even get a debate in that chamber, given majority leader Harry Reid’s adeptness at parliamentary roadblocks. What is likely is that the legal battle will go on for years, adding to the very uncertainty that is crippling American investment in American business

If things go as planned, the House of Representatives will vote today on slapping down the National Labor Relations Board for its attempt to curry favor with labor by determining where a company can decide to build its plants. The NLRB took it upon itself to pursue a suit against Boeing Corporation for alleged “unfair labor practices.”

In fact, Boeing merely attempted to expand, and made the mistake of expanding into a right to work state—South Carolina. For background on the original House investigations into the matter this past June, go here: Boeing, Boeing, Boeing. Nothing that the House committee has produced has detoured the NLRB juggernaut. In order for Boeing’s actions to be considered an unfair labor practice, the NLRB would have to prove that Boeing’s expansion plant in South Carolina was retaliation for union strikes in closed-shop Washington State. In addition, it would have to show that as a result of Boeing’s actions, union jobs were lost.

Boeing says that it was making a pure business decision. It needed additional space, and given the unavailability of large tracts of land in Washington necessary for major expansion along with the costs of doing business, South Carolina was an ideal choice. Equally importantly, not a single union job was lost in Washington as a result of the expansion. In fact, since the labor dispute, Boeing has expanded the Washington facilities to the maximum extent allowable, and has hired 2,000 more union laborers. The facts are clear and indisputable. Only the philosophy of unionism and government control of private business are at issue.

The Obama administration and its Congressional allies aren’t doing themselves any favors with this NLRB action. South Carolina is an early primary state, and at least one Republican presidential hopeful has already used the NLRB’s action as a campaign issue. Mitt Romney visited the new Boeing plant, and pronounced the NLRB’s action “political payback from the White House to the unions.” He may be the first, but he won’t be the last Republican to latch onto the issue.

Never daunted, AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, who recently declared war on the Republican Party (those sons-of-bitches), said “the National Labor Relations Act prohibits companies from retaliating against workers who exercise union rights by moving their jobs away.” Trumka failed to explain how Boeing’s expansion of the Washington facilities and adding another 2,000 union employees “moved jobs away.”

In attacking the pending House bill, Trumka said: “This is sweeping legislation that would gut the NLRB and result in serious, harmful changes to jobs and workers’ rights across the country.” Well, it would be sweeping, it could potentially gut the NLRB (that’s a bad thing?), and it would damage the cause of forced unionism. How putting people to work is a harmful change remains a mystery to all but the union bosses and the Obama administration.

Trumka adds that if the bill becomes law, “a company could simply close a plant and move to another state if workers complained of unsafe working conditions or discrimination.” Two things immediately occur to me. First, every state, including South Carolina, has rigid laws against unsafe working conditions and discrimination, so what does the union have to do with it? South Carolina also has whistleblower statutes which prevent companies from retaliating against workers filing legitimate complaints about unsafe working conditions or discrimination. Therefore, what Trumka is actually talking about is cushy union work rules, not safety or discrimination.

Second, I turn his own argument back on him. If the NLRB ultimately prevails, Boeing would be within its rights and good business sense to move its offices and plants to some place more business-friendly like, say, Shanghai. If Boeing did indeed commit a labor violation (which I firmly say it did not), the government telling a company where it can locate its facilities is both unwise and unconstitutional.

This is another back-door, end-run around the Constitution and proper delegation of authority. The President exacerbates the problem by claiming to stay above the fray. Says Obama: “I am reluctant to interfere in a case brought by an independent federal agency.” In other words, he wants his dirty work to be done by somebody else so he can pretend his skirts are clean.

I wish the sponsors of this bill the best of luck. It does have a good chance of passage in the House. But that won’t be the end of it. The Senate is still controlled by pro-labor Democrats and the bill will probably not even get a debate in that chamber, given majority leader Harry Reid’s adeptness at parliamentary roadblocks. What is likely is that the legal battle will go on for years, adding to the very uncertainty that is crippling American investment in American business

The House Tells Boeing Not To Fly Away

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Unions Believe Violence Solves Problems

Unions Believe Violence Solves Problems

What you are seeing is the peaceful picketing that unions would have you believe is as tough as they ever get. Anybody with an IQ higher than an armadillo's knows that this peaceful picture is not how unions are getting their way these days. Public sector unions and their supporters have occupied state capitols and roughed up their opponents. The SEIU has its resident thugs at any meeting where there might be heard a discouraging word.



And that's the gentle part of union thuggery. Let's take a look at a couple of these peaceful strikes. First, there was the United Mine Workers strike. Sure, there were picket lines and stirring speeches. Those covered up the real activities of the union goons. One non-union contractor named Eddie York crossed a UMW picket line and was rewarded for his bravery with a fatal shot to the back of his head.



UMW president Richard Trumka not only failed to discipline any of the strike organizers, but set aside major union forced dues for the defense fund for the eight strikers charged with the murder. Trumka's reward was to be elevated to the presidency of the AFL-CIO. In that position, he has proudly quoted the words of Karl Mark from the Communist Manifesto, advising his workers to rise and rid themselves of their chains (much like former SEIU president Andy Stern). He keeps the Bolshevik violence out of his public speeches, but not out of his union meetings.



Prior to the murder case, a Virginia judge had ruled in a UMW private property damage and criminal threats case that "the evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of the union." The unions have slowly lost their hold over the working public, and their rhetoric convinces no worker to join their unions voluntarily. They have to convince them somehow. If the speeches don't work, the violence which had been on the down trend for several decades has come back in force. Intimidation and actual physical harm to both employers and employees is the order of the day.



The most recent example is the activity which has taken place away from the picket lines shown in the picture accompanying this article. The latest target of organized thug labor is Verizon. Says a spokesman for the Communications Workers of America: "There's nothing wrong, or un-democratic, or un-American about militancy. It's part of our tradition." That was a valid statement nearly a century ago when companies which practiced union-busting used goons of their own. With the advent of the NLRB, state laws, creation of OSHA, and other modern developments, the companies grew up. The unions are still like dangerous, angry, willful and ungrateful children.



There have already been 123 verified destructions of Verizon property, including at the homes of Verizon customers. One picket-line crossing Verizon employee had his arm broken in a very nasty melee. Fellow strikers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers blocked the entrance to the home of a sixty-four year old semi-invalid woman's house after she called Verizon from a neighbor's house to repair her cut phone line. Verizon's security office is receiving hundreds of daily reports of sabotage, threats, or actual violence.



The most famous outrage occurred last week, when John King, an electrical contractor in Toledo (who was doing work for Verizon during the strike) was awakened to the bright lights of his home security system coming on as he heard loud noises in his driveway. He came outside to find a gang of union goons scrawling the word "scab" on his car. He shouted for them to stop, and one of the thugs came up with a gun and shot King in the arm. A few weeks earlier, the union goons had thrown a rock through his shop window inscribed with the word "kill."



The Communications Workers of America (CWA) have a long history of nefarious activities. It used huge sums of forced union dues for thug activities and political action, despite the wording of the National Labor Relations Act. In a landmark case, the union was heavily fined and required to produce records for any union member who requests them concerning how their forced dues were being spent. It turned out that somewhere between 50% an 60% of those dues were being used for non-permitted union activity.



The NLRB and finally the United States Supreme Court ruled that nobody could be forced to be a member of a union, but if they worked in a union shop, they had to pay a percentage of the full member dues for those activities permitted by the Act. In cases that subsequently went to court, CWA had told the protesting employees that their dues would be reduced by no more than 4% to 5%, since that was all that was being spent on union activities disallowed by the Supreme Court ruling.



In fact, when the evidence was produced in court, [pro-Democratic] political activity alone (unpermitted for forced dues for non-members) accounted for 40% to 55% of the union's spending. Huge refunds and penalties have been imposed, but CWA, IBEW, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and a myriad of other unions continue to lie about how their dues are spent.



For your information, the case is Communications Workers of America vs. Beck. Employees who choose not to be members of the union and request an accounting for how their dues are being spent are said to be "filing a Beck statement." They are always told they are giving up all the fabulous benefits of union membership and will still only reduce their dues by a minimal amount. But at least this is just union theft. It's when a "Beck employee" makes too much public noise about the dues that the intimidation and violence follows.



There is a hole in the Act that allows union bigwigs to get away with this highway robbery and violence. Union officials are exempt from personal liability as long as the violence they promote is in the name of "legitimate union objectives." That makes it very hard to tie the rhetoric to the actual physical violence. Jimmy Hoffa made this rule work for him for over a quarter of a century until the union turned on him after his federal convictions on other charges.



Right now, the situation is about as bad as it can be. The Obama campaign desperately needs the support of the unions, and Eric Holder's Justice Department is willfully blind to these union criminal activities. The NLRB is now loaded in favor of socialist hacks who will not take any stand that opposes union activity. Remember that Marx-spouting SEIU past president Andy Stern still holds the record for most overnight stays at the Obama White House.

What you are seeing is the peaceful picketing that unions would have you believe is as tough as they ever get. Anybody with an IQ higher than an armadillo's knows that this peaceful picture is not how unions are getting their way these days. Public sector unions and their supporters have occupied state capitols and roughed up their opponents. The SEIU has its resident thugs at any meeting where there might be heard a discouraging word.



And that's the gentle part of union thuggery. Let's take a look at a couple of these peaceful strikes. First, there was the United Mine Workers strike. Sure, there were picket lines and stirring speeches. Those covered up the real activities of the union goons. One non-union contractor named Eddie York crossed a UMW picket line and was rewarded for his bravery with a fatal shot to the back of his head.



UMW president Richard Trumka not only failed to discipline any of the strike organizers, but set aside major union forced dues for the defense fund for the eight strikers charged with the murder. Trumka's reward was to be elevated to the presidency of the AFL-CIO. In that position, he has proudly quoted the words of Karl Mark from the Communist Manifesto, advising his workers to rise and rid themselves of their chains (much like former SEIU president Andy Stern). He keeps the Bolshevik violence out of his public speeches, but not out of his union meetings.



Prior to the murder case, a Virginia judge had ruled in a UMW private property damage and criminal threats case that "the evidence shows beyond any shadow of a doubt that violent activities are being organized, orchestrated and encouraged by the leadership of the union." The unions have slowly lost their hold over the working public, and their rhetoric convinces no worker to join their unions voluntarily. They have to convince them somehow. If the speeches don't work, the violence which had been on the down trend for several decades has come back in force. Intimidation and actual physical harm to both employers and employees is the order of the day.



The most recent example is the activity which has taken place away from the picket lines shown in the picture accompanying this article. The latest target of organized thug labor is Verizon. Says a spokesman for the Communications Workers of America: "There's nothing wrong, or un-democratic, or un-American about militancy. It's part of our tradition." That was a valid statement nearly a century ago when companies which practiced union-busting used goons of their own. With the advent of the NLRB, state laws, creation of OSHA, and other modern developments, the companies grew up. The unions are still like dangerous, angry, willful and ungrateful children.



There have already been 123 verified destructions of Verizon property, including at the homes of Verizon customers. One picket-line crossing Verizon employee had his arm broken in a very nasty melee. Fellow strikers from the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers blocked the entrance to the home of a sixty-four year old semi-invalid woman's house after she called Verizon from a neighbor's house to repair her cut phone line. Verizon's security office is receiving hundreds of daily reports of sabotage, threats, or actual violence.



The most famous outrage occurred last week, when John King, an electrical contractor in Toledo (who was doing work for Verizon during the strike) was awakened to the bright lights of his home security system coming on as he heard loud noises in his driveway. He came outside to find a gang of union goons scrawling the word "scab" on his car. He shouted for them to stop, and one of the thugs came up with a gun and shot King in the arm. A few weeks earlier, the union goons had thrown a rock through his shop window inscribed with the word "kill."



The Communications Workers of America (CWA) have a long history of nefarious activities. It used huge sums of forced union dues for thug activities and political action, despite the wording of the National Labor Relations Act. In a landmark case, the union was heavily fined and required to produce records for any union member who requests them concerning how their forced dues were being spent. It turned out that somewhere between 50% an 60% of those dues were being used for non-permitted union activity.



The NLRB and finally the United States Supreme Court ruled that nobody could be forced to be a member of a union, but if they worked in a union shop, they had to pay a percentage of the full member dues for those activities permitted by the Act. In cases that subsequently went to court, CWA had told the protesting employees that their dues would be reduced by no more than 4% to 5%, since that was all that was being spent on union activities disallowed by the Supreme Court ruling.



In fact, when the evidence was produced in court, [pro-Democratic] political activity alone (unpermitted for forced dues for non-members) accounted for 40% to 55% of the union's spending. Huge refunds and penalties have been imposed, but CWA, IBEW, the United Food and Commercial Workers Union and a myriad of other unions continue to lie about how their dues are spent.



For your information, the case is Communications Workers of America vs. Beck. Employees who choose not to be members of the union and request an accounting for how their dues are being spent are said to be "filing a Beck statement." They are always told they are giving up all the fabulous benefits of union membership and will still only reduce their dues by a minimal amount. But at least this is just union theft. It's when a "Beck employee" makes too much public noise about the dues that the intimidation and violence follows.



There is a hole in the Act that allows union bigwigs to get away with this highway robbery and violence. Union officials are exempt from personal liability as long as the violence they promote is in the name of "legitimate union objectives." That makes it very hard to tie the rhetoric to the actual physical violence. Jimmy Hoffa made this rule work for him for over a quarter of a century until the union turned on him after his federal convictions on other charges.



Right now, the situation is about as bad as it can be. The Obama campaign desperately needs the support of the unions, and Eric Holder's Justice Department is willfully blind to these union criminal activities. The NLRB is now loaded in favor of socialist hacks who will not take any stand that opposes union activity. Remember that Marx-spouting SEIU past president Andy Stern still holds the record for most overnight stays at the Obama White House.

Unions Believe Violence Solves Problems

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