The stench off this rot is intolerable. The unions and their leadership have enslaved free people, and now they hold us hostage to their gluttonous thievery. 100 years ago (child labor, sweat shops etc.), they served their purpose. Now unions are a fancy word for organized crime. You should see their offices on the west side, where Sharpton and Jackson hang their gilded hats.
The days when public-employee unions were responsible citizens was an anomaly. When you have one group that does not have to respond to the market place, whose booty is stolen from the hard working, they have no souls. They steal and their leadership is ganstas and goons -- who have planted their chief goon in the White House.
Selfish state of the unions Michael Goodwin, NY PostNew York state and city are drowning in red ink, but don't waste your breath telling it to government unions. They got theirs, and they'll do anything and everything to keep it.
Gov. Paterson's plan to delay 4 percent raises so the state doesn't run out of cash is met with threats of lawsuits.
Mayor Bloomberg's call for relatively modest spending cuts provokes warnings that the city will sink into the Hudson if a penny is subtracted from bloated budgets.
The way organized labor sees it, sacrifice is for suckers. Let somebody else pay.
There once was a time when public-employee unions were responsible citizens. They saw their members' well-being directly tied to the well-being of the people and institutions they served. The movement was probably more militant 40 years ago, but it famously did its part to help the city out of the fiscal crisis of the '70s.
That is ancient history. The modern movement has seceded from reality.
Instead of recognizing it needs a healthy New York to survive, it aims to bleed the public dry, then demand a bailout. Or maybe it thinks it can just move on to another "host" until it, too, runs out of money.
Haven't the bosses heard? Greed is no longer good.
Oblivious to the pain inflicted on taxpayers less well off than they are, the state teachers union is sticking to its predictions of doomsday if education spending is touched. The union newspaper, New York Teacher, reports President Dick Iannuzzi warned that Paterson's plan to cut $1.7 billion "will devastate New York's schools and colleges and derail any hope for economic recovery."
This is hooey, a ritualistic scaremongering that calls into question the ability of teachers to actually teach if they have no regard for facts. "Albany, do right by our kids," the newspaper de mands on Page 1.
Here's a novel thought: How about unions do right by our kids? If they care about New York stu dents, they'll step up to the plate and help minimize the impact of sensible reductions.
The fat is easy to find. Educrats are spreading like poison ivy at the city's Department of Education.
In the last decade, the payroll has swelled by more than 21,000 teachers and other "pedagogical" employees, pushing the total from 90,000 to 112,000. Meanwhile, student enrollment has declined by about 50,000, to 1.04 million, according to the city's Independent Budget Office.
We know where hundreds of these phantom teachers are -- in the rubber rooms, perfecting their napping skills. Thank ironclad union rules for that giant rip-off.
UPDATE: OT but related:
Want federal business? Better be a union shop.
