Ms. Ditto weighs in on Fair Share

My anonymous source deep within the public education establishment e-mailed her views on the Fair Share controversy to me. Her message contained the double-secret codewords we agreed to use, so I’m pretty sure it is authentic.

I suppose you’ve been wondering how I feel about this “fair share” thing they’re talking about. I do have strong feelings about it. You see, I used to be a member of the local “association” but every time I had a complaint or a suggestion the association (or ass. for short) told me that issue was non-negotiable.

I got laid off one time and the ass. bargained away my recall rights. I guess that was a negotiable item. I took a special request to the administration once, and five minutes into the meeting my high-powered union help all decided they had urgent business elsewhere and left. I won my case without their help, thank you very much, and wondered what I was getting from the ass.

Let’s see. The ass. is now negotiating our next contract. They are asking for a pay raise that should just about cover annual association dues. They can’t do anything about the fact we are so understaffed in our building we sometimes have more students in a classroom than desks, and the idea that the whole staff should have a uniform approach to student discipline is laughable.

I don’t make a big deal about my desire to be independent. When my ass. friends ask me to rejoin the union, I just tell them that I don’t want to. Sometimes they call me a “free rider” and complain that I’m getting my union representation without paying for it. First of all, what representation? Secondly, I didn’t ask them to speak for me; that was their idea. They wanted to be the “exclusive” bargaining agent for everyone, so now they can live with it.

One of my non-union friends is very militant about not joining. She vows that if she has to start paying dues – I’m sorry, her *fair share* - she WILL become their worst nightmare.

I’m thinking this is another one of those times people should be careful what they wish for.

Good point on “Fair share”

A letter to the QCT makes some interesting comparisons on the “fair share” issue. Democrats are against bullying in school, but not in the workplace.

Gov. Culver’s recent proposal to steal money from non-union members is indicative of how two-faced the Democratic Party is in Iowa. Legislation designed to force employees to give money to unions they do not support seems to have nothing in common with the party that passed anti-bullying legislation for schools. Do we have a Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde Democratic Party?

On one hand they propose protecting people’s right to clean, smoke-free air and no name-calling at schools, and then propose to turn their heads as union thugs steal money from their workers in the parking lots and offices of their jobs. Maybe it is because the money is skimmed and given to said Democrats.

While three out of four letters published this morning in the QCT are opposed to “fair-share”, many of the commenters (scroll on down from the linked letter) toe the union line. Mark Riley, the writer of the original letter responds,

"When a Union gets 50.1% of a vote to unionize a company they set the wages, retirement, discipline and representation for 100% of the company. That is why they have to represent the fired non-union (under contract) employee. I will do you Union whiners one better, let 50.1% of be under your negotiated contract and the other 49.9% fend for themselves. Guess who will make more money and be happier.”

I don’t know who this guy is, but if he wants to run against Bruce Braley (our new Communist Party-endorsed congressman) next time, I will send him a contribution.

Tom Vilsack: Daring to be different

Appearing on FNC’s Fox and Friends minutes ago, former Iowa governor Tom Vilsack attempted to set himself apart from his Democrat presidential candidate rivals in the area of Iraq war policy. Vilsack’s courageous stand on the war effort was to…wait for it…call for getting the troops out of harm’s way SOONER than anyone else.

Nor was this the only example of innovative thinking he displayed. It turns out he favors capturing Bin Ladin by putting more troops in Afghanistan, and utilizing aggressive diplomatic efforts to stop Iran’s development of nuclear weapons. He also called for Congress [the workplace of Harry Reid, Mark Foley, James* Murtha, Duke Cunningham, William Jefferson, etc.] to exert its moral authority.

He promised he would win the Iowa caucuses because his life’s experiences have shown him to have the “courage to create change” and that if “we all individually have that courage then we can collectively create change”, or something like that.

So that’s Tom Vilsack in a nutshell (appropriately enough); a courageous innovative-thinking typical collectivist Democrat presidential candidate.


*Correction: It's JOHN Murtha. Sorry about the brainf**t.