Fun With Union Shills

I bet it’s difficult to be a radical leftist in Ohio these days. In the Strickland Times, you could believe devoutly in a government big enough to hold every hand, and that was enough. Unions had their rightful place at the head of the table, women could conveniently murder their babies like civilized people, and endless monies streamed down from the federal government. But now Mean King Kasich is in charge, and he’s dashing every hope of free lunch from the lake down to the river!

Taking up the Progressive flag at an early May union meeting, here’s America’s most liberal senator with some epic revisionism (video):

“The reason we have a prosperous middle class in this country,” said Senator Brown, “is because in the 1930s Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law collective bargaining rights.”

Does Sherrod mean this Franklin Roosevelt?

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.

FDR recognized the central difference between private and public unions – a distinction Sherrod Brown is either ignorant of, or patently dishonest about. Even if we gave credit for America’s past success to private industry unions, that would say nothing against FDR’s stance on government unions.

If only Sherrod’s tale were the lone example of a pro-union argument with holes visible from orbit:

• Reducing public employee pay will cripple the economy, but taking more from taxpayers will have no such effect.
• Corporations employing hundreds of thousands shouldn’t pay their CEOs seven-figure salaries from earnings, but union bosses employing a couple hundred activists deserve six-figure salaries from member dues.
• Public union members are the middle class, even though they make up a tiny percentage of the working population.
• Government employees are more educated than the average worker, so they deserve better pay – regardless of how much benefit they provide to the public.
• Government unions create good jobs… by demanding unsustainable pay which leads to higher taxes and fewer jobs.
• Public union members love paying dues, but making payment of union dues optional is a political attack.
• Government union reps speak for all their members, even when preaching far-left politics and financing far-left politicians.
• Government union employees are paid six figures even as dues-paying members are axed, but government unions are selfless organizations in command of the moral high ground.
• Unions and the Democratic Party are attached at the hip, but forced unionization for government workers keeps politics out of the workplace.
• Union members are wonderful, underpaid, unappreciated - and incapable of emailing a local newspaper or TV station if there’s a problem at work their supervisors won’t address.
• Government unions are effective and innovative, but expecting public worker compensation to be based on merit is madness!
• Wealthy CEOs should be punished for their greed, but wealthy union bosses and the wealthy politicians they fund are heroes of the middle class.

Think I’m being obnoxious to prove a point? Visit the Plunderbund Pals, who are treated as witty oracles by Ohio’s leftists, and check off how many of these hackneyed arguments you see. For a challenge, try to spot any meaningful difference between Plunderbund’s shilling and the deep thoughts from the AFSCME, the OEA, or the AFL-CIO!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart

Cross-posted from that hero.