22 Million Americans Work for Government!

22,500,000 of our fellow countrymen work for the government, ie. the taxpayers. That’s more than work in construction, farming, fishing, forestry, manufacturing, mining and utilities combined! And, it’s 3 times as many government employees as there were 50 years ago.

How can a system sustain itself that keeps expanding the public sector work force?  Don’t think too hard, it’s a rhetorical question – IT CAN’T! But here’s an even scarier thought… What if these folks were allowed to form unions and collectively bargain, ie. hold the rest of us over a barrel? Thank goodness we aren’t stupid enough to allow that. Oh, wait…

 

Link to full story in Wall Street Journal

Even FDR Was Against Public Sector Unions

As Quinn Hillyer points out in the Washington Times, even Franklin Roosevelt, the patriarch of the proggressive liberal left ruining America today and a huge supporter of unions, knew that government employees unionizing was a terrible idea that would have dreadful consequences. You aren’t going to believe what this raging liberal said on the subject! I’ve bolded my favorite phrase. Read on…

[M]eticulous attention should be paid to the special relationships and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government.

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.

And what of the hystrionics employed by the Wisconsin teachers union in an attempt to game the system and keep getting overly generous pay and benefits, the recession, the budget shortfall and the economic health of their fellow Wisconsinites be damned? His position on that behavior is clear as well…

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. This obligation is paramount. Since their own services have to do with the functioning of the Government, a strike of pubic employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to prevent or obstruct the operations of Government until their demands are satisfied. Such action, looking toward the paralysis of Government by those who have sworn to support it, is unthinkable and intolerable.

When FDR disagrees with your position you need not wonder, you have moved left of left to the point of falling off the political map.