Should public sector unions be banned?

Franklin Delano Roosevelt was right about one thing – collective bargaining has no place in public service.

In a 1937 letter, Roosevelt noted the special relationship between government employees and those who pay their salaries – the taxpayers:

All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service. It has its distinct and insurmountable limitations when applied to public personnel management. The very nature and purposes of Government make it impossible for administrative officials to represent fully or to bind the employer in mutual discussions with Government employee organizations. The employer is the whole people, who speak by means of laws enacted by their representatives in Congress. Accordingly, administrative officials and employees alike are governed and guided, and in many instances restricted, by laws which establish policies, procedures, or rules in personnel matters.

Today, Americans nationwide are watching as public sector unions threaten to tear Wisconsin apart over a bill designed to help repair the state’s budget.

Lawmakers have been threatened with death, and the Capitol building in Madison has been stormed, occupied, and trashed.

Union thugs and their radical left wing allies have tried spreading unrest throughout the country, all the while claiming to be fighting for the “working people.”

But as Roosevelt pointed out, public sector employees theoretically work for all the citizens in their jurisdiction, as they are paid from monies taken in taxes.

By demanding more in salaries and benefits, they are placing a burden on all those who pay taxes.  The more concessions given to these unions by the states, the more power the unions have.

In July 2009, outgoing National Education Association President Bob Chanin explained the real goal of the teacher’s union:

"This is not to say that the concern of NEA and its affiliates with closing achievement gaps, reducing drop out rates, improving teacherquality, and the like are unimportant or inappropriate. To the contrary these are the goals that guidethe work we do. But they need not and must not be achieved at the expense of due process, employee rights, and collective bargaining. That is simply too high a price to pay."

Today, the very fabric of our Republic is being threatened by union thugs with far too much power and influence.  The message to legislators is clear: obey us or else.

It is time to put an end to the tyranny of public sector unions.  Simply “busting” them is not enough.  Perhaps it is time to consider making such unions illegal.

In his letter, Roosevelt wrote:

Particularly, I want to emphasize my conviction that militant tactics have no place in the functions of any organization of Government employees. Upon employees in the Federal service rests the obligation to serve the whole people, whose interests and welfare require orderliness and continuity in the conduct of Government activities.

‘Militant tactics’ are exactly what America has seen since the beginning of the Wisconsin Insurrection.  Worse yet, allegedly responsible lawmakers and leaders have called for blood and revolution.

A Democratic member of Congress said unions should be willing to get bloody when necessary.

Civil rights leader Jesse Jackson has called for an escalation of the protests, and wealthy filmmaker Michael Moore has called for a class war.

A former Idaho state Senator wrote, “Let’s pull a Wisconsin and descend on Boise.”

Union supporters wail about the “rights of the worker” as though the rest of us who work for a living and pay taxes are not really workers because we are not part of a union.

Who stands for the rights of the rest of us?  What about the right to not be browbeaten and blackmailed by union thugs who are paid by the taxpayers they are supposed to serve?

Enough is enough. 

The country survived for over 150 years without public sector unions and it can do so again.  The transition would not be easy, and the unions will not give up without a fight. 

If public sector unions insist on extorting taxpayers with unrealistic demands on the threat of violence, they should be banned and dissolved.