Unions Don't Care About Taxpayers

Back when the professional staff of the Ohio Education Association (OEA) had an official blog, this endearing quote from Socialist author Jack London was featured in the right column of every page:

“Esau was a traitor to himself: Judas Iscariot was a traitor to his God; Benedict Arnold was a traitor to his country; a strikebreaker is a traitor to his God, his country, his wife, his family and his class.”

Did you know the rough-and-tumble business of taking six figures from teachers to demonize school boards and extort taxpayers was like the 19th-century Canadian tundra? Yeah, neither did I.

But then, maybe we shouldn’t hold OEA staff accountable for the things published on their website. After all, they also said this:

PSU will maintain this blog, as well as its “Friends of the Professional Staff Union” Facebook page as means of communicating with OEA members and union brothers and sisters, so check back often for new pictures and updates!

I started sharing quotes from the site, and suddenly their socialism-loving, forced-dues-demanding, OEA-boss-attacking words became unfit for public consumption. Here’s one of many reasons why:

During the past few months, the EMT [ed: Executive Management Team] has applied this anti-union attitude in a number of smaller ways that indicate a lack of respect for staff. This group of officers and managers has used their claim of “fiduciary obligation” to attack the core union principle of seniority! Specifically, the actions of the EMT indicate that seniority does not matter in the major arena of vacancies and transfers! What core contract principle will be next? Sick Leave? Health Insurance? Salaries?

Basing management decisions on business needs and merit? Inconceivable! OEA bosses, who talk about fiscal responsibility only as it relates to money already siphoned from public workers’ paychecks into union coffers, don’t get along well with OEA staff. No surprise there.

Would you want your School Board and/or the Administration to be able to treat you and your contract this way—just by claiming they have to protect the interest of taxpayers? We think not!

And there it is: the simple, ugly truth. OEA doesn’t care about taxpayers, because taxpayers aren’t covered by a union contract. Thanks to Ohio’s broken government union laws, every handout a politician gives the unions is automatically assumed to be included in the next contract. Whatever We Are Ohio tells you, Issue 2 provides sensible reforms to the power of government unions who want only one thing: more.

On November 8, vote Yes on Issue 2!

Follow me on Twitter: @jasonahart
Cross-posted from that hero.