The Public Sector union elites have taken over Sacramento. Private sector unions with international pull are doing all sorts of bad things, too, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), which stages protests in front of institutions where none of their employees work.
Unions has their place, they had their time, but that time is no longer with us. The economic recession has exposed the weakness of previous city and state leaders giving their public sector workers just about everything they ask for. Even police and fear received massive benefits following 9-11 so that they would be ready, willing, and revved up to serve their communities in the event of terrible troubles.
Unions do not represent their employees, anymore. They represent their own powerful inner hierarchical structures. Unions represent unions, and the needs of the employees no longer match, but rather they clash, with the interests of their reps.
UTLA nearly scuttled federal funds for the Los Angeles school district. Unions protect perverted teachers with arcane rules and regulations for disciplining or terminating teachers. John Deasy has begun to fight back, but his work is more than cut out for him.
Teachers unions deprive individual teachers of merit pay. The same unions also enable the districts to maintain the same power structures at the expense of the students and the parents. More than any other interest group, the teachers unions resist school choice and vouchers. Some of the union dues even pay for monthly propaganda, which "teaches" teachers that public schools are better than charter schools and private schools. Such assertions cannot be taken serious on any level.
From the prison guards union to the state and national teachers unions, collective bargaining units still bring together large sums of people to force legislators to give them larger sums of cash.
Numbers and intimidation still have a lot of power and force in California politics. Every one of my legislators, state assembly, state senate, and Congress, have received contributions from union interests. How anyone of them can claim to represent the voters who elected them should escape any rational explanation. Legislators represent unions, not people, and that is a breach of trust.
Our leaders should be beholden to only one union: the voters of the state of California.
Because the public and private sector unions compel such influence in Sacramento, they do not have to budge in order to negotiate. The same is certainly true for the SEIU, which sends representatives frequently to challenge leaders in the statehouse. Some of them bluntly dictate to our representatives to do what they want, or else they will pay the price at the next election.
Perhaps more people should think about forming their own organization, one which can counterbalance the broad power of unions, both public and private, in the state of California.
There is no reason why a dedicated group of Californians cannot form their own grassroots association and stand up to these unions. There are plenty of men and women who serve the public, yet they understand that the lavish contracts forced on city leaders is not sustainable. One retired Los Angeles Police Officer applauded Governor Walker's reforms
In a way, a union of a looser dynamic already exists: The Voters of the State of California.
Unions pull together members because they withdraw their dues, whether they want to give them or not. They can then pull them into supporting their massive demonstrations, since most people have a difficult time standing up to the crowd, especially when that same crowd keeps taking your money year after year. Without the money, without the outreach, California voters may find themselves at the mercy of collective bargaining units, whether in the public sector or in the health and service industries.With a commitment to reality, fiscal principles, and a glaring awareness and appreciation of the financial crises in California, citizens can unite against the public sector union lobby and adopt the same reforms which took Wisconsin from recession to recovery without more tax increases or layoffs.