Wis. Assembly passes bill taking away union rights
MADISON, Wis. (AP) - Republicans in the Wisconsin Assembly took the first significant action on their plan to strip collective bargaining rights from most public workers, abruptly passing the measure early Friday morning before sleep-deprived Democrats realized what was happening.
The vote ended three straight days of punishing debate in the Assembly. But the political standoff over the bill - and the monumental protests at the state Capitol against it - appear far from over.
The Assembly’s vote sent the bill on to the Senate, but minority Democrats in that house have fled to Illinois to prevent a vote. No one knows when they will return from hiding. Republicans who control the chamber sent state troopers out looking for them at their homes on Thursday, but they turned up nothing.
Full Story Here:
Wis. Assembly passes bill taking away union rights
Let’s take a look at UNIONS, and a few other items that were considered to be a good thing in their time.
The best example of a Union that was needed is this: The Trucking industry.
Many years ago the trucking industry needed to be unionized. Drivers were expected to load and maintain the trucks they drove, and after loading they were expected to drive that truck to a destination, unload it, reload it and get back to the home terminal ASAP. And it didn’t matter if it all to 10 hours or 110 hours.
But Fred, ‘That’s just part of the job’, you say?
These drivers were expected to do all of this for very low wages and to do so with NO rest, NO break, and by God, don’t you dare be late with the freight. If you were, some other poor wretch was going to be making the next run while you were out looking for a new job.
Enter The Teamsters Union
In it’s inception the Teamsters was a good thing. They fought for the members, for the drivers and dock workers. The forced the employers to pay a fair wage and helped to get federal laws passed that regulated the number of hours a driver could be on duty, or driving, before that driver was required to take a mandatory 8 hour break, and to limit the number of total hours a driver could be ON DUTY for a 7 day period.
That was some good brought on by a Union. Then, the Teamsters were shown to be the crooks and thieves that they are still rumored to be to this very day.
The same can be said for most any labor union, they were, once upon a time, a much needed and useful entity. Then they all outlived their usefulness.
Let’s take a look at another item that was once considered to be harmless, and in many cases, touted as beneficial;
Cocaine
Its possession, cultivation, and distribution are illegal for non-medicinal and non-government sanctioned purposes in virtually all parts of the world. Although its free commercialization is illegal and has been severely penalized in virtually all countries, its use worldwide remains widespread in many social, cultural, and personal settings. SOURCE
Most people today KNOW that cocaine is a bad thing, it is highly addictive, it’s terribly expensive and there is NO good that can come from it’s use in it’s raw form in a social or recreational setting.
But did you know that in the late 1800′s and early 1900′s cocaine was a very accepted drug, and was thought to be beneficial to the user? Many over the counter products contained cocaine or opium and were sold as a cure-all with NO limits on how much you could buy and NO limits or dosage set for it’s consumption.
Surprising as it sounds, Coca Cola gets its name from one of its original ingredients - cocaine. And although the drug’s now illegal, this wasn’t always the case. But how did it become popular, what led to its downfall, and how does Coca Cola come in to it? SOURCE
And so it went, cocaine and opium were shown to have outlived their usefulness in the public domain.
Another group that was once believed to be useful and needed?
The Ku Klux Klan
Klan groups spread throughout the South as an insurgent movement during the Reconstruction era in the United States. As a secret vigilante group, the Klan focused its anger reacted against Radical Republicans and sought to restore white supremacy by threats and violence, including murder, against black and white Republicans. In 1870 and 1871 the federal government passed the Force Acts, which were used to prosecute Klan crimes. SOURCE
I am a serious student of history, I know what the Klan became, I know that in their evolution they became a HATE group and vile racists, but in their inception the Klan was a worthy organization. Their original intent was to stop the Yankee Carpetbaggers and EVIL Republicans from further punishing the Southern states.
Strange isn’t it? The Klan fought Republicans. They (The Klan) were then, and for the most part remain today as Democratic supporters. Much like the UNIONS of today.
What I find even more strange is the fact that so many Black Americans still, to this day, identify with the Democratic party and consider themselves to be Democrats.
Another practice once thought to be good for the human animal:
Bloodletting
Bloodletting (or blood-letting) is the withdrawal of often considerable quantities of blood from a patient to cure or prevent illness and disease. Bloodletting was based on an ancient system of medicine in which blood and other bodily fluid were considered to be “humors” whose proper balance maintained health. It was the most common medical practice performed by doctors from antiquity up to the late 19th century, a time span of almost 2,000 years. The practice has been abandoned for all except a few very specific conditions. SOURCE
The similarities between Unions, cocaine, Democrats, the Klan and bloodsuckers is amazing!
Union support now reaches to the highest office in the land. Barack Hussein Obama, community organizer and union supporter par excellence, has chosen sides, and his side is with the libbers, Democrat, socialists and Unions, everything that is intent on destroying freedom in America.
There is a commonality between Labor Unions, The Klan, cocaine, blood suckers and the Democratic party, although blood suckers and Dems may well be one in the same, but I digress.
The above stresses examples of things that have survived long beyond their useful shelf life. They are things that need to be permanently removed from this land and allowed to slip into the abyss of anonymity and irrelevance.
A few other things that all of the above have in common? They seek to bleed you dry, literally and figuratively, they all want to control your thoughts and every action of your life.
Labor Unions, ALL Labor Unions, must be BUSTED. If you think the Unions are a good thing, just take a look at Detroit and then examine the condition of the educational system we have here in America.
Bloodsuckers indeed. lol Great post Fred.
My son-in-law is a Teamster. He has been trying to stop the corruption and graft in the union, but with Hoffa leading it, forget it.
You are so right on this!
Hi, Fred, I’ve been absent for quite a while but this note on unions stirred me. You are right on about unions. I agree, as you say, at their inception they are useful and needed, but when they accomplish their goals and they are then worn out and no longer of any value. However, the union leadership becomes ingrained, greedy and on the “tit” and they just continue to demand more and more. I literally seethe at the following reality. On the confiscation of GM and Chrysler by Obama, the UAW union that caused the downfall of the two companies, was given the majority of GM stock and the Italians were awarded Chrysler. Now that GM is making some money, the union members are raking off big bonuses and forgetting to repay the taxpayers. A typical union ripoff, brazen plunder. How many, many thousands of thrifty, hardworking Americans had their GM and Chrysler retirement stock and dealerships literally stolen by the Obama Regime. Oh well, as our country crumbles into ruin, He is busy, when not on vacation, with weekly partying in the White House. Of late, the Motown Sound and Black History Month….you know.
This may be a little off track but, think you’ll see where I am going in a minute…….I worked as a cop in a city in Michigan where the main industry was a Fisher Body Plant. I always worked the mid-night shift. At break time during the night, you would see cars take off from the parking lot at Fisher and head to the nearest bar - that just happened to have a drive in window. We’d watch them load up cases of beer, or beverage of choice, and head back to the Fisher Plant. There on private property they drank and whatever till they had to be back on the line. Several times during the week we would be called to deal with an employee in the factory that was intoxicxated or high, and we would go in and depending on circumstances - make an arrest.
The ‘Boss’ would fire them/suspend them in front of us. Later in the week we would be back to take care of another intoxicated person, and the one we arrested a few days previously would be back on the line. Why the ‘boss’ would sheepishly say hey it’s the unions……..heck he was the union too. We only took the worst ones out…..but it didn’t take me long to figure out I did not want to buy an American made vehicle based on the condition I had seen of the emplyees.
Now I realize this may really irritate some of your people here - but it’s the truth. Today I drive a KIA and it’s American made too, Right here is the U.S. I know they also have problems, but when they fire someone they mean it. I retired in 1989, from that Department.
Unions had their time and place but they have outlived their usefulness. Wisconsin has taken the first step to stop the public union’s extortion of the taxpayer and I hope that Walker will not cave in to the pressure of the protesters.
dinosaur, what you’re saying about what took place in the auto plants is exactly what my closest friend, who is retired from Ford, says happens. He says it’s virtually impossible to fire anyone for any reason because of the UAW.
Those things the Teamsters fought for in the early days are all now covered by federal laws.
Power corrupts. Whether unions have outlived their usefulness is open to debate, depending on whether you’re part of management or part of the rank and file; but one thing is dead sure certain: public employees should never have been allowed to unionize in the first place.
I like to do what I call “the logical extension.” I wonder about that logical extension here in my newest post.
I’d be curious.
BZ
Sorry for my absence lately. Computer issues!
Hey TF, nice new masthead!
BZ