And as for firing them — just try it. They have TENURE. That’s why it’s mostly teachers at the Capitol, rather than sanitation workers or highway guys or bureacrats from the various public agencies — the teachers are the ones who are protected from consequences and can lie their way out of work with impunity.

However, the legislature gave them tenure — just as it gave them collective bargaining “rights,” er, I mean privileges — and the legislature can take it away. If I were a Republican legislator from Wisconsin, I’d be working on the end-tenure bill right now.

Excellent point, njcommuter. This is key. Labor violence should be treated the same way as a “hate crime,” i.e., move to the head of the class for law enforcement and prosecutors.

Unions in effect extort value from others on the barely tacit threat of violence. And that’s got to stop.

In addition, IIRC, the UK made unions financially liable for property damage that occurred during a strike. (Not sure if that’s still the case.) We should do likewise.

I don’t think they can help themselves. Whether unions attract an adoloescent personality type or creates it once they become immersed, their ranks are definitely infested with such.

I think that big government advocates in general totally miss that the people are really tired of being forced into paying for things we don’t want. The unions are going to lose big from the Wisconsin “protests” because they are openly lying to miss work and are openly being supported by the Dems. This is the dumbest thing they could possibly do.

Fire them all and let them take the risks the rest of us do. I have no sympathy for them.

Language warning, but it is entirely appropriate under the circumstances.

Fuck these assholes. I am fucking sick and tired of entitled pieces of shit that think my tax dollars are their fucking birthright.

I have three fucking engineering degrees and almost two decades of private industry experience with outstanding reviews. Where the fuck is my pension? Where the fuck is my retirement medical? Where the fuck is my job security?

I’ll tell you what. I don’t have any job security because HALF MY FUCKING PAY goes to ungrateful assholes like these fucksticks in Wisconsin. HALF MY FUCKING PAY in taxes means I have to get paid TWICE AS MUCH as my competition in India and China, which is why ALL PRIVATE SECTOR TECH JOBS ARE DISAPPEARING.

FUCK THEM.

FIRE THEM ALL. NOW.

As to public employee unions not being part of the problem: if municipal and State governments had been honest about their pension obligations, there would have been an uprising before this. And if the pensions were handled in the responsible way, with the monies set aside by the time of retirement and invested, they would have been raided. By the politicians, if they were under government control, and by the union bosses if they were under union control. Does anyone seriously doubt this? Good.

The unions are a government-sponsored monopoly that can extract money from unwilling workers and pour it into the pockets of people who can buy political favors and media support, and can generally spread it around to their own liking. They are not responsible to the voters. Can you imagine a better place in the economy for the corrupt to gravitate to? Since the 1960s, they’ve been able to determine which mayor gets elected and sometimes which governor gets elected. Often they can pick representatives in Congressional districts, and sometimes even Senators.

I suspect that Brad would be upset if a bishop wielded that much influence. But a Labor Leader, now he’s a good guy!

Probably the best balance between the current situation and simply removing all government support for unions is this: that each union must be recertified annually by majority of workers they claim to represent in a secret ballot run by an unrelated company, be forbidden from bargaining for a closed shop, be forbidden from taking dues from non-members, be required to have a separate ballot item for the dues checkoff, and be required to allow non-members to contribute to and benefit from the strike fund AT THEIR OPTION, with the administration of the fund handled at arm’s length by a financial services company.

The powers of the NLRB should also be curtailed except in the rare case where a strike could cause widespread and irreparable harm.

And laws which give labor violence a privileged position should be struck from the books, and new laws passed wiping out any precedents. Labor violence is violence for financial gain, and should be treated as such.

Let issues such as health care, education, and so forth be hashed out in the states. That way we get to see what works and what doesn’t. Birds of a feather will flock together and people will vote with their feet.

If those outside the southwest dont understand how rapidly the landscape is changing due to the open border, consider this. The Census showed that the overall population of Texas grew 20.6% between 2000 and 2010. (20.9 million to 25.2 million) Non-Hispanic white population grew by 4%. Black population by over 20%. Hispanic population by 42% – in a single decade! Hispanic politicians in Texas are calling for new voting districts to be carved out that are majority hispanic. Screw the melting pot! But everyone else is racist for saying the border ought to be secured.