You Gotta Pay Your Dues

I am not a union person. During orientation day for my current job, I had to go to a mandatory one-hour union briefing. The union rep started out her spiel by saying, "I'd like someone to list any adjectives that come to mind when they think of unions." Of course, I popped up and said, "Defender of the incompetent, enemy of management, gouger of businesses, corruption, extortion, organized crime," and in my best mobster voice, flattening my nose with a finger, "Jimmy Hoffa." The union rep was not amused. But I was amused about three years later when she went to prison for skimming union funds. Gee, and she dressed so nicely. The days of unions being defenders of human rights are over. Now, unions are little more than the list of adjectives I gave at that briefing (from which I was excused.) The New York transit workers' strike is illegal and nothing more than extortion. I'd quit my job today if I could be a New York transit worker.......and if I didn't have to live in or near New York. The average salary of a NYC train or bus driver is about $62,000. That's nothing to sneeze at. What does a subway driver do, open the doors after the train has automatically found its way to the station and stopped? I'm not sure they do even that. A cop's starting salary is $25,000. And the union workers want to retire at the age of 55 at half salary. Like I said, wish I could get a deal like that. I'd already be retired, making more in pension than the average worker does at full salary. Mayor Bloomberg should do the same thing Reagan did with the air traffic controllers. Set a deadline and then fire every single person who does not return to work. The strike is illegal. They are breaking the law. Union leaders should face prison. Of course he won't. He's a liberal RINO. When Reagan fired the controllers, he not only broke up an illegal strike, he broke up a good ol' boy's profession. Before the firings, fewer than 10 percent of controllers were women. After the strike, once new hires were in place, more than 50 percent were female. That's another thing I hate about unions. If you don't join the union in some places (liberal places), you can't get a job. And they can and do keep out undesirables. Try getting a motion picture projectionist job if you aren't a relative of a union member. That isn't illegal, but it's certainly unfair and it certainly should be criminal. My refusal to join a union is the primary reason I had to leave L.A. and find a job in D.C. -- that and my aversion to plastic people. Now I just work with evil people. Another liberal contradiction. They fully support the strong-arm tactics employed by unions. They see absolutely nothing wrong with people being unemployed and unable to support their families if they refuse to pay union dues. So much for liberals being for the little guy. Again.