Letter: Wisconsin dispute solely about union power
This is in reference to a letter describing the actions of the Wisconsin governor as fighting against the middle class. This battle is better described as a battle between government unions and working class citizens.
First a few facts:
—This is about union power and their political agenda and not teachers, firemen or police.
—Government workers make about twice the money of citizens in private industry for like and even more complex work. Your friends and neighbors foot the bill.
—This battle is taking place across the country because the states and the federal government are broke.
—When faced with this fact, the union answer is to raise taxes on the middle class or shut down the company as they did to GM or lay off government workers. They never utter a word about what is good for the country.
—All federal workers’ unions are forbidden to negotiate benefits. Did you know this? The same thing Gov. Walker wants.
—When unions negotiate with legislators to whom they give huge amounts of money, who protects the taxpayer?
—Who ends up paying for these extraordinary benefits?
—The union takes money from the workers whether workers agree with them or not.
—This money (in the hundreds of millions) is used to support candidates that many union workers do not like.
—If the unions cared a fig for workers they would use this expropriated money for worker benefits instead of cushy union salaries, extravagant trips, entertaining and paying off Democratic lawmakers.
—Average citizens end up paying for $100,000 pensions and Cadillac health care for sanitation workers, police, postal workers, air traffic controllers and the like. How many Americans have these benefits after 20 years?
And what kind of results do we get for our money thrown into education? A slowly decaying school system which is made worse by the lack of concern by the union for the children because of restrictive work rules, tenure, lack of accountability, lack of competition, and no reward for exemplary service by the good teachers. Harvard University, arguably one of the most liberal institutions in America, stated unequivocally that the best action we could take to improve our schools is to get rid of the teachers’ unions. Governor Walker should be looked at as a savior of teachers’ jobs. As an aside, if you watched the demonstrations, how many of the people protesting looked like teachers?
Warren R. Tyler
Port Haywood, Va.