Government Employees Unions, Have We Allowed Creation of a Monster?

These unions may prevent the nation from enacting changes which are necessary to save our economy.

This column presents a conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions.


Unions in Business vs. Unions in Government-

In the business world there is a self correcting element which does not exist in the government sector. If a company becomes too inefficient, competition from more efficient companies will put them out of business. If a business or industry allows unions to form, become too powerful, and significantly drive up cost of operations, …in a free market, foreign competitors will eventually enter the field and take away their sales. This is evident if one looks at the history of the U.S. Automotive Industry, the U. S. Steel Industry, the U. S. Textile Industry, and many other once flourishing industries of our nation. Along with their demise we also lost millions of jobs which are now being happily performed in China and other far away lands. This happened because of weak, permissive corporate management, the domination of greedy, politically potent unions, and foolish, self perpetuating politicians who enacted legislation first in support of strengthening the stranglehold of the unions, and finally the endorsement of ‘free trade”.

Thus, because of these influences we became non-competitive and were booted from the game. Perhaps that is as it should be.

Now let’s examine what happens when strong unions organize the millions of federal, state, county, and municipal workers across our nation. When the unions realized they had killed their “golden goose”, the industrial sector, they began to aggressively move into the public sector. During the past twenty years unions have realized unprecedented growth in membership….all in the government arena. Unions such as SEIU (Service Employees International Union), The Teamsters, AFGE (American Federation of Government Employees), AFSCME (American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees) and other unions have enrolled a huge majority of all government workers, and are reaping huge stacks of money paid to them as dues. A portion of this money is used to purchase political influence at all levels of government.

This creates a constant upward pressure on the cost of government as they use their power to gain increased salaries and benefits for their membership…..at the expense of the taxpaying public. The problem with this situation is that unlike what happens in business, in the public sector there is no competitive, corrective factor. As government grows it bites deeper and deeper into the disposable income of the general public, reducing purchasing power and quality of life. Potentially, the only corrective measure is the eventual failure of the entire economic system…and thus the failure of government.

Have We Allowed a New, Destructive Monster to Form?

This offers a basic question for debate. If the electorate does put a body of fiscally conservative legislators into power as concerns over the rising cost of governments, will these new officials be able to enact the needed corrective legislation in the face of resistance from the government employees unions? These unions now have the power to completely shut down our nation. They can shut down transportation, public safety, schools, hospitals, maintenance of all public properties, and many other critical functions in every county and city of the United States.

An example of the result of government control by unions can be found in the current crisis in Greece, who is a member of the European Union. The country is in bankruptcy, with their annual deficits running over 12%, and their problems are threatening the European Common Market. When the government has tried to institute the necessary reforms, the powerful government unions in Greece have risen in protest and created chaos in the country. As a result, government officials have been slow to make moves which are direly needed. Other nations in Europe are threatening reprisals against Greece if their government does not take action to cut costs.

These government unions are so powerful within the Greek nation that it may require a complete failure of the nation before they can be rooted out or forced to loosen their grip on the Greek Government, Greek Economy, and Greek People. I hope we are not in the process of repeating this story in the USA.

It appears that severe cuts will be needed to make up for budget shortfalls in the upcoming budgets for many states and counties across the nation this year. It will be interesting to see what role these powerful US government employee unions play in solving these problems.



Rudiments: Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning –

● Marianna has lost another business…Century Lighting on Jackson Street has closed.

● I was surprised to see that the mini-market in the center of Greenwood has closed. Another victim of the unfettered power of the EPA and FDEP. As you drive around the county note how many of these markets/filling stations have closed in the past year. I would estimate at least fifteen for Jackson County. If each employed five people, that represents 75 jobs which have been lost, as well as the businesses. Across the state it would amount to thousands of jobs. This is done with no public comment, little or no oversight, and little or no resistance. In the name of the “Green God”, the bureaucrats within the EPA can do whatever they can dream up. To “Get it Right” we need to force our legislators to create more oversight and supervision of their actions. We can’t afford them!

● At Tuesday’s Marianna City Commission meeting local businessman Van Kunde of Florida Land and Title made a final appeal to the Commission for a sign variance. His $1400 sign was mistakenly installed six feet too long. Commissioners Roberts and Wise made eloquent appeals for granting the request, but Commissioners Donofro, Milton, and Clay voted to deny the local businesses request. Comments were made during discussion about the need to revise this over-restrictive, ill conceived code. Meanwhile, this local business just wasted $1400 because of our inflexible municipal bureaucracy.

● (Keep my New Years Resolution to say something nice) …Spring will soon be upon us. I look forward to our world changing into a garden of flowering azaleas and dogwoods.

Wisdom from Dick Kranker:
“It is useless for sheep to pass resolutions in favor of vegetarianism while wolves remain of a different opinion.” William Ralph Inge 1860-1954

Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Hatcher Publications.