With Wisconsin recall election exit polling data showing 27% of union members voted for Governor Walker and the last Marquette University poll before the election, indicating the total was closer to 40%, Ed Schultz of MSNBC demanded to know why union members would vote for Scott Walker.
I thought I’d write a response: Ed, as a former member of a public employee union, let me count the reasons:
1. Pro-life issues. 99% of union political contributions go to Democrat Party candidates. Pro-life politicians have become virtually extinct in the Democrat Party. Instead, Democrats at all levels compete with each other to be the candidate who promises the most radical pro-abortion agenda. With this incredible imbalance of contributions, public employee unions have become the major financial source for pro-abortion politicians. Wisconsin Planned Parenthood, of course, endorsed the recall. When I attend pro-life rallies, it is so heartwarming to see people in their green AFSCME t-shirts shouting obscenities at us. The fact is, these days no pro-life candidate of either party, would get a penny in contributions from public employee unions.
2. ObamaCare. Public employee unions, from the national level to the local level all actively supported ObamaCare. The failures of socialized medicine around the world show that Obamacare will hurt union members as well as everyone else who needs medical care in this country. Should not our union dues go to protecting the health insurance coverage we have, not ruining everyone else’s medical care, as well as our own?
3. I believe in the Golden Goose. Yes, public employee union leadership, there really is a golden goose that supplies the public sector with funding. It’s called the private sector. With a diminished and hamstrung private sector, where are our tax revenues going to come from? I may be greedy, but I like to get paid and paid regularly. Soviet style socialism left Eastern Europe in poverty and collapse. Now 20 years later, the democratic socialist governments of Europe are one by one going bankrupt. Even to this day, people risk their lives trying to escape from Cuba, but not into, that socialist wonderland. The public employee union leadership never sees a big government program it will not support. Why does the union leadership love this failed model so much?
4. Democracy. Much talk in union circles about industrial democracy. But oddly enough, during my time as a union member, I never had a vote, no votes on leaders, no votes on candidate endorsements, nothing. I did get a vote on contracts, but by then the contracts were a done deal, it’s an up or down vote. Vote no and get nothing, some choice. Meanwhile, I never saw a budget for our union, no information on union leaders’ salaries, union expenditures, nothing. I saw our own, taxpayer funded employees spend a lot of their work time as well as their own time on union issues. They worked hard and diligently, in fact they did all the union work; any sightings of full time union employees were about as common as Sasquatch sightings. I’m not sure what the paid union leaders actually do. Possibly, they spend their time hanging out at the White House or caddying for Obama on his many golf outings, but they didn’t stop by to meet the rank and file.
5. 2nd Amendment rights. Milwaukee Democrat State Senator Jeff Plale, had a number of union locals back his far more liberal primary opponent in 2010. The proverbial last straw, for some public employee locals, from what I read, was Sen. Plale’s support for concealed carry legislation. While the union leadership finds real or imaged constitutional rights for any all groups who might vote Democrat, gun owners in their mind, have no rights. (I might write a future blog on Senator Plale’s fate).
6. Union Member Conduct. Seeing the videos of the union sponsored demonstrations in Madison last year, sickened me. State Senator Grothman being cornered outside the capitol, surrounded by a mob screaming at him. Who can forget the Milwaukee Teachers Union blocking the doors of a voucher school, when Governor Walker visited, harkening back to the days of Democrat Southern governors standing in the doorways of schools to block integration. But nothing topped union supporters at the State Capitol screaming sexual obscenities at a 14 year old girl who sang the national anthem at a Tea Party rally in 2011. Yup, that’s my union dues at work. People were emotional, instead of trying to calm passions, union leadership did everything they could to stoke the fires of hatred.
7. School Choice. Yet another public employee union low was reached when the Madison Teachers Union blocked a charter school initiative by the Urban League of Greater Madison. Despite the utter failure of Madison schools on minority graduation rates and despite the Urban League initially agreeing that Madison Preparatory Academy would have union teachers, the union forced the school board to deny funding. Any threat to the mother ship of public education and funneling of union dues for the Democrat Party must be crushed. After all they must have reasoned, the disadvantaged kids can still get their G.E.D. in the army or in prison.
8. The list could go on and on, but this blog is long enough. There is not one item on the radical liberal agenda that our public employee union leadership does not support. If the public employee unions would remove their overpaid liberal leadership and go back to focusing on their members’ wages and working conditions, maybe some of us can return to the fold. In conclusion, I was very pleased in seeing almost 40% of union members in Wisconsin agreeing with me. Unions can be good in protecting employee rights and increasing employee wages. But, if the price is destroying unborn babies’ lives, ensuring minority children do not have the same education choice that children of well to do parents have and wrecking the economy of the United States, it is not worth the cost.
So Ed, now you know, thanks for asking.
