Local News

Political Analysis

Have you heard of the GEP? Were you aware we have a three-party system? Are 
you familiar with which one has the most money?
We have the Republicans, affectionately called the GOP (Grand Old Party); 
the Democrats, with no affectionate nickname; and the GEP, the Government 
Employees Party. The GEP is the union's party. GEP membership is made up of 
voters who aren't allowed to either think for themselves or support the 
candidates of their choice. The GEP Party is wrecking America.
Take for instance state employees. How do you think PERS (Public Employees 
Retirement System) is going to pay back the money they robbed from their own 
union members' pensions in order to give hundreds of millions of dollars to 
the campaigns of the elected officials and the potentially elected 
officials they bought to put in their pocket in order to secure their union 
contracts?
Let's look at the history of unions. Back in time unions had great 
intentions. A lot of our industrial workers labored under very unsafe conditions, 
earning low wages and having no legal protection. Unions were successful in 
bringing about many improvements for some of the work force. They've served 
some industries, and brought regulations, so the employees wouldn't be 
exploited. However, now the unions exploit job-creating employers to such an 
extreme that it is destroying our economy. Let's be crystal clear about who pays 
the unions; we the taxpayers and the private sector, that's who. Union 
workers, here's what you aren't being told: the private sector is facing record 
high jobless numbers and yet is footing the bill for unsustainable union 
pensions.
In 2010 the private sector has three million fewer workers; the public 
sector has grown by two million more government jobs. The average salary of a 
mid- to upper-level government employee is $123,000.00; the average salary in 
our private sector is $61,000.00. In 2005 we had 118 million private sector 
jobs, now we only have 105 million, and the 105 million are taxed to pay for 
government workers. The difference in pay is about $61,000.00 a year. 
That's 600 billion a year which is taxed to the private sector just to pay the 
difference in compensation to the public sector. Hmm, how long do you think we 
can afford to carry these unions? The corporations are paying 40 percent 
just to support this monster.
Are you okay with your children and grandchildren living on the streets and 
in poverty? because that's where we are heading. WAKE UP AMERICA! STOP and 
CUT SPENDING. Our Federal Government has increased its GDP (gross domestic 
product) from 19.6 percent in 2007 to 25 percent today with an increase of 
2.5 percent a year because of the greed and the self-serving economic policies 
of the union leadership.
Bush had unemployment down to 4.5 percent and now Obama has it at 10 
percent nationally. Are you feeling the impact, or at least understanding it? Our 
pro-union big government just keeps adding employees. They're about to put 
16,000 new IRS agents on the books so they can rob more Americans of their 
hard earned unsecured dollar; and hey, if you don't like it, then you can go 
straight to jail. How many government employees do you think our government 
has in mind to hire for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act? Not 
to mention the FINREGs (financial regulations) have 20 to 30 new agencies. 
The Fed will keep adding. The states will have to make hard decisions and cuts 
in services. We, at the state, county, and city level will have to budget 
away services to pay for the GEP. The cuts will come to education, first 
responders such as police, and even our very own overpaid union fire fighters. 
There is nothing left to tax. Take General Motors as an example; another 
bailout on tax payer dollars. The UAW, United Auto Workers union, wound up 
getting their work force laid off because they paid unnecessarily high wages and 
benefits that they couldn't sustain. It's the same with the government 
unions with their outrageous pay and benefit demands that we tax payers pay for. 
Soon they, too, will be looking at massive layoffs. There's already talk 
about increasing furlough days for state employees and considering state 
employee layoffs.
These unions get the politicians elected and the politicians make sure the 
unions get funded by our tax dollar. This is not okay.
Some government employees continue getting raises whether the country's 
falling apart or not - just so long as the taxes keep coming in. Higher pay for 
government employees can only come through higher taxes on private sector 
workers. The latest example comes from Oregon, where public sector unions 
outspent businesses 3 to 2 to pass two ballot initiatives raising taxes by $700 
million. The unions wanted higher taxes to prevent spending cuts. Had the 
tax increases failed, government employees in Oregon would have faced 
cost-cutting measures such as contributing toward the cost of their health benefits 
- something they currently do not do.
Government employees have done well in this recession. Few government jobs 
have disappeared - unlike in the private sector - and their pay rose at 
twice the rate of their private sector counterparts. No wonder that government 
employees are almost three times as likely as private sector workers to 
believe that the economy is in good or excellent shape. The question for policy 
makers is why should private sector workers have to pay for this?
There is really no difference between LA gangs robbing entrepreneurs and 
small business owners for protection money in order to stay in business and 
the unions forcing us to pay them for what we're already doing. Unions are 
thoughtless automatons, kind of like bottom feeders that can only make a living 
by robbing the private sector. What the unions are not seeing is that our 
government doesn't create wealth; the private sector does. So what are they 
going to do once they bankrupt us? How will they support their appetite for 
more, when the private sector is all taxed-out?
Unions killed the auto industry; unions killed the manufacturing industry; 
and unions are about to kill the American private sector. Conspiracy? Nope, 
just an executed plan to force the North American Union on us so we will 
have Mexico, Canada and the United States as a Union in order to have a single 
market through a standardized system of laws which would apply to all three 
countries to ensure the free movement of people, goods, services, and 
capital, including the elimination of the use of our passports in and out of 
Mexico and Canada.
Union Bosses are generally the type to enforce “do as I say not as I do.” 
The United Federation of Teachers just fired one of its longtime employees 
for trying to unionize the dominant labor organization's own workers. Jim 
Callaghan, 63, from Staten Island, New York; a veteran writer for the teachers 
union lost his cushy $100,000-a-year job just two months after he told UFT 
President Michael Mulgrew that he was trying to unionize some of his 
co-workers. “I was fired for trying to start a union at the UFT,” said a 
dumbfounded Callaghan, who worked for the union's newsletter and as a speechwriter for 
union leaders for the past 13 years. Callaghan said he personally told 
Mulgrew on June 9 about his intention to try to organize nonunionized workers at 
UFT headquarters, thinking that Mulgrew would be enthusiastic. Callaghan 
told union boss Mulgrew that he wanted to have the same rights that teachers 
have. Mulgrew told Callaghan he didn't want that and that he wanted the power 
to be able to fire whoever he wanted to.
“This is the exact antithesis of what they preach, and Michael Mulgrew is 
the biggest hypocrite out there,” Callaghan fumed in an article recently 
posted by the New York Post.
Callaghan said he's planning to file a complaint with the National Labor 
Relations Board against the UFT for illegally blocking his unionizing effort, 
and he added he would slap the union with an age-discrimination lawsuit.
Callaghan said that yesterday morning, he was hauled into a meeting with 
UFT officials, including CFO David Hickey, and told only that he was being 
fired from his job and had a half-hour to clear out of the office.
“They gave me no reason, no letter, no cause at all,” said Callaghan, who 
insisted that he has received no reprimands or notices about problems with 
his work. Callaghan said the union-busting bullying continued after he was 
told he was fired, when UFT leaders called in a detail of six uniformed cops 
to remove him from his office because he wasn't leaving fast enough.
Much as I'd rather not accept it, while unions have done a lot of good and 
have helped workers avoid exploitation, they also seem to have helped 
workers exploit employers. Perhaps it has been a gradual shift over time, with 
unions slowly accumulating more and more power.
As harsh as it sounds, union members are suckers who get to pay their union 
dues in support of candidates they may not like and for whom they wouldn't 
vote. You work in a corrupt institution that destroys the very American 
dream you're supposed to be working to build. Mr. Union employee, please 
understand, your job will still exist without college educated thugs smiling at you 
for your money and manipulating you with a proverbial knife behind their 
back; or perhaps not even smiling at you before their manipulation of you. 
There's no kiss for you before you're screwed.
I am Michele Fiore. I do what I say and I say what I do, popular or not. My 
message is short and sweet. Together “we will.”
Michele Fiore is Director of Community and Political Affairs with the Las 
Vegas Tribune. She writes a weekly column in this newspaper. To contact 
Michele Fiore, email her at 
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