Tuesday, February 22, 2011

What Wisconsin Democrats Forget: Collective Bargaining Violates the Rights of Teachers Who Don't Want to Join the Union

The 14 Wisconsin Democratic State Senators who have fled the state in order to prevent the State Senate from acting on Governor Walker's proposal to have state workers contribute to their health and retirement benefits the way private sector employees do keep hitting the disingenuine talking point that their actions about protecting individual rights.

The unions, they say, are willing to concede some financial points, but insist on preserving collective bargaining. It's a sacred individual right, they say.

This is Orwellian double-speak, 21st century version.

For decades, collective bargaining, which forces every teacher in the state and every state employee in the state to pay union dues and join the union, has been one of the most egregious violations of individual liberties allowed in American history.

There are many teachers in Wisconsin--and the rest of the country for that matter--whose individual rights to choose whether or not they will join a union have been violated by this union forced law.

Individual rights mean freedom of choice. Teachers, state workers, any worker for that matter, should be free to choose whether or not they will join a union.

If the 14 Wisconsin Democratic State Senators really believed in individual rights, they would support Governor Walker's legislation.

Don't hold your breath, because the truth is, they have long opposed individual rights. Collective bargaining is the ultimate weapon for the enforcement of collective rights. And, collective rights, by definition, can not co-exist with individual rights.

1 comment:

Dizzy Girl said...

This has always been my biggest problem with unions. Hubby is law enforcement and he was talking to me a few months ago about union talk amongst the department. He doesn't like unions and doesn't want to be in one. He wouldn't have a choice really. That's sad and scary to think that you don't have a say-so in what YOU want and whether or not YOU want to be a part of something. Same for teachers here. You can choose not to be a part of a union, but if you decide you don't want to be, they still get your money. You have to pay to opt out! How is that even legal???

My dad was a coal miner for the biggest part of his adult life. He was a union man. I'm very familiar with unions. I've seen the good and I've seen the bad...and I've also seen the greedy. Unions 100 years ago were fighting for rights, now it's greed. And they bully people into doing what they want and damn the consequences. That's not what it's supposed to be about.