Why Senator Jim Demint is Right to Challenge TSA Unions

by Liberty Chick on BigGovernment.com

On Christmas Day, what was intended to be a far worse terrorist attack was narrowly thwarted, thanks to the prudence and bravery of a handful of airline passengers and flight crew.  No one knows yet how Nigerian terror suspect Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab (aka “Farouk1986″) made it past every airport security checkpoint, with bomb materials literally strapped to his groin, and boarded a Northwest Airlines flight ultimately headed for Detroit.  Nor does anyone know how the 23-year old made it onto one watch list but not the no-fly list.

But the now infamous PantyBomber incident has since sparked a heated debate over workers in the Transportation Security Administration that has both Democrats and Republicans fuming, and labor unions chomping at the bit to wage a war of an entirely different kind.

In October, 2008, then candidate Obama wrote a letter to John Gage, President of the American Federation of Government Employees union, promising collective bargaining rights to TSA workers and vowing to make it a priority for his administration.

The critical tone of Obama’s letter was directed at lawmakers who’d voted down attempts to legislate mandatory collective bargaining in the 2001 Aviation and Transportation Security Act that created the TSA, and again in 2007 when another mandatory provision was tucked into the Implementing the 9/11 Commission Recommendations Act.

[Continue reading the entire story on BigGovernment.com]

Hijacking the Private Sector, the SEIU and Blago Way

by Liberty Chick on BigGovernment.com

The current state of the economy has placed a large burden on private business, especially on small businesses and the self-employed. Subscribing to a Keynesian tenet of financing debt and increasing government spending to boost output, lawmakers are repeatedly giving themselves cover for splurging. After the first bailouts came the massive $787 billion stimulus bill, an urgent remedy that Congress and the White House insisted was all about “Jobs, Jobs, Jobs.”

And as spending has increased, so has the size of the public employment sector. Meanwhile, the private sector will soon be close to earning a coveted placement on the endangered species list.

As the union leaders’ plundering of the private sector has continued, this doesn’t mean that they have abandoned unionizing private sector workers altogether.  In fact, while the number of private sector jobs overall is down, the number of unionized private sector jobs is trending upward, right alongside the public sector growth.

But don’t let the beltway pundits fool you.  While the current administration certainly deserves a great deal of credit for bloating the public roster, this was a plan in the making far before the economic “crisis” was created.  And while America focused on the sexier details of  a scandal at that time, many overlooked the legislative and economic arsenal of weaponry that labor leaders honed at the height of their rebirth.

The public bloating flourished years ago in places like California, Illinois, Michigan and Maryland, and grew steadily, though concurrent private sector employment growth dampened that effect. The public sector saw a dramatic spike between 2006 and 2007, just before the mid-term election when Democrats won back control of Congress again – this after stints of Republican power from 1995 to 2001 and from 2003-2007 had interrupted Democrats’ control of one or both houses for 46 straight years.  In 2007 the private sector plummeted.  There would be plenty of catch-up to play.

Union leaders have an obvious history of bloating public sector employment.  But more importantly, there are direct connections to their activity in certain private sectors and intentional disruptions in the balance between the public and private workforce.  Reading about events in isolation from one another might not emphasize the gravity of this issue.  But revisiting prior stories and connecting the dots over and over again will.  Apathy is our greatest enemy right now.  As we enter 2010, this is perhaps one of the most important times in history when such activity could literally push America past the point of no return and will impact who your children will work for in the future.  One particular time in recent history really sets the stage for the perfect storm of today between private and public sector employment; the current stimulus spending is merely the el Niño that has stirred up the silently raging waters.

It starts in 1994 and gains its true momentum by 2005.

[Continue reading the entire story on BigGovernment.com]