‘Black Lives Matter’ but the union always wins By Chris Ladd, January 6, 2015, Houston Chronicle When Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio spoke at the funeral of slain New York City police officers, thousands of officers in attendance turned their back on him. Since then they have engaged in a series of work stoppages. Their...
Conservatives in America are at a crossroads. They face a choice between greater freedom or greater security. While striking this delicate balance has required ongoing policy choices throughout history, recent events involving law enforcement have brought these choices into sharp focus. Here’s how Patrik Johnson, writing last month in the Christian Science Monitor, described the...
Summary: It’s a basic civil right: the ability of union members to get rid of a union if it no longer serves its members effectively. Today, that right is being denied to a group of farmworkers in California by officials who refuse to count the votes the workers cast in a decertification election. That denial...
Voters want Congress to protect employees from unions By Newt Gingrich and Rick Berman, December 16, 2014, Washington Post On Election Day, voters didn’t just rebel against President Obama. There was another pattern in the candidates they chose: Across the country, they picked pols who explicitly supported individual employee rights. This wasn’t just a canned...
It took over a month to count the provisional ballots, but the results are now in for every one of the 118 local bonds and 171 local tax increases that were voted on by Californians on November 4th. Prior to counting most of the provisional ballots, as reported on November 11th in our editorial “Californians...
How Police Unions and Arbitrators Keep Abusive Cops on the Street By Conor Friedersdorf, December 2, 2014, The Atlantic When Frank Serpico, the most famous police whistleblower of his generation, reflected on years of law-enforcement corruption in the New York Police Department, he assigned substantial blame to a commissioner who failed to hold rank-and-file cops...
The first thing we have to understand is that without the law, we have nothing. It turns into a situation of savage against barbarian, of the powerful against the powerless. It turns into a situation of dog eat dog, unrestricted, without restraints or consideration of anybody’s humanity. – Dr. Harry Edwards, POPSspot Sports Radio Interview,...
Teachers unions are busier than ever pointing fingers, forming loopy alliances and making embarrassing gaffes. A couple of weeks ago Massie Ritsch, assistant communications and outreach point man for Education Secretary Arne Duncan, left his job to take a similar position at Teach For America. And not a moment too soon! As I wrote last...
Union-Sponsored Ads By SEIU Target ‘Anti-Immigrant’ Politicians By Melanie Trottman, December 2, 2014, Wall Street Journal One of the country’s largest labor unions launched television ads Tuesday to kick off what it vowed will be a long-term bid to hold what it calls “anti-immigrant” politicians accountable. The Service Employees International Union ads call on Latinos...
“In politics, a big tent or catch-all party is a political party seeking to attract people with diverse viewpoints and thus appeal to more of the electorate. The big tent approach is opposed to single-issue litmus tests and ideological rigidity, conversely advocating multiple ideologies and views within a party.” – Wikipedia, “Big Tent“ Something is...
“In this season of Thanksgiving, please don’t blame taxpayers if they are distracted by the injuries being perpetrated against them by our political class.” These words were the preface of this column at the beginning of the holiday season in 2008 and, sadly, little has changed. In fact, in many ways taxpayers are worse off...
A Landmark Retail Workers ‘Bill of Rights’ Passes Unanimously In San Francisco By Dave Jamieson, November 25, 2014, Huffington Post Amid growing concern over erratic work schedules, the San Francisco Board of Supervisors on Tuesday passed a first-of-its-kind law aimed at securing more stable hours for retail workers. Dubbed “the retail workers bill of rights,”...
Court Agrees With Labor Unions: Giant Inflatable Rats Are Protected Speech By Elizabeth Nolan Brown, November 17, 2014, Reason In case you were wondering, displaying giant inflateable rats is protected by the First Amendment. Apparently a balloon rodent known as Scabby the Rat has been a labor union protest symbol since the ’90s. But New...
“The bottom line is that claiming the unfunded liability cost as part of an officer’s compensation is grossly and deliberately misleading.” – LAPPL Board of Directors on 08/07/2014, in their post “Misuse of statistics behind erroneous LA police officer salary claims.” This assertion, one that is widely held among representatives of public employees, lies at the...