What if there were a job that paid decent, was almost impossible to get fired from, required no tangible performance targets, and had contractually guaranteed raises? Would you still complain about how much you make? Would you be willing to put in a few extra hours when you’re failing at your job? The teachers unions wouldn’t. John Stossel recently wrote:

“Gallo also asked teachers to do a few things for no additional pay, like spending an extra 25 minutes in school. I’d think dedicated teachers in struggling schools would be willing to spend a little more time with their students. But these teachers are in a union. Their reaction?

Union officials said they wanted to be paid for more of the duties and wanted to receive a higher pay rate –– $90 per hour.”

That kind of attitude is irritating but it isn’t limited to unions. Given the chance to have merit-less raises, most of us would probably welcome the opportunity. What is unique to the unions, is that they may be the only place where you can actually get a raise for poor performance and none of your peers will bat an eye. In Chicago, even Mayor Daley says unions need to get with the “real world” and accept an end to automatic yearly pay increases. The Chicago Sun-Times writes:

“Noting that he is personally taking 29 days off without pay this year to help solve the city’s budget crisis, Daley said, “Government has to diet. … When people are suffering, you can’t live in the abstract. You can’t say, ‘Everything is great. It’s like 20 years ago.’ It’s not gonna be that way. People are suffering. You have to be able to cut back and start sharing the loss that people have.”

Does that include the Chicago Teachers Union’s attempts to hold the Board of Education to a contract that calls for four percent annual pay raises?

“That includes everyone,” Daley said. “I don’t want to take 29 days without pay. But, you have to be able to be able to lead by example.””

Outside of public sector employment wages are down. Those that have jobs are working more hours, doing more jobs to pick up the slack of laid off workers, and they do it for the same pay they received years ago.

Some might complain about the lack of raises in recent times but there hasn’t been much inflation, either. In fact, this year is on track to have the lowest inflation we’ve had since 2003, except for 2009. Just 2.3% inflation is expected in 2010. Four percent pay hikes just don’t hardly make sense given recent economic conditions. Unions will point out that they have a contract, but contracts were made to be re-negotiated. That’s what the State is trying to do, re-negotiate a contract they can’t possibly ever pay for. Do unions think they’d fare better in bankruptcy court?

Our rocky economic times have had one (and perhaps only one) advantage in that costs for most products have remained relatively stable. That doesn’t stop those who live off taxpayers dollars from asking for more, though. Stossel, in another peice on public sector abuses writes:

“That federal bureaucrats enrich themselves during an economic downturn with pay raises — 2.4 percent this year, 4.8 percent last year, 4.5 percent the year before — is bad enough. Now comes word that Uncle Sam is dishing out “recruitment, relocation and retention incentives” to the tune of $285 million in 2008 (the latest year available) to bring workers onto the payroll or persuade them to stay.”

As long as public sector workers feel they are entitled to the same (or better) pay as the private sector, we can look for steady increases in our deficits. In the private sector greed is seldom tolerated past one’s ability to improve business. In the public sector greed is just a way of life.

To justify tax hikes in a time period where there has been virtually no inflation, lawmakers are trotting out tired fear tactics. They claim if we don’t hike taxes, we’ll have to cut schools. So what if we do have to cut schools? Teachers’ unions have negotiated for themselves pay hike after pay hike, while test grades have stagnated.

It seems like massive cuts to education would just be the harsh economic realities of bad job performance coming home to roost. Unions collude to make sure we can’t fire bad teachers and that they all get generous pay raises. The downside is that since we can’t fire the under-performing teachers, we’ll have to fire lots of undeserving educators along with the derelicts. That’s the downside of being a union shop, and taxpayers shouldn’t feel guilty about the cuts.

Obama’s plans for No Child Left Behind involve removing many of the measurable goals schools need to achieve. That’s typical since liberals prefer intangible education goals like “learning climate”. That effectively makes sure schools will never be held accountable for poor performance, at least not with to Federal funding. That’s a shame because there’s a lot of poor performance in the schools and all tax payers are helping to fund it. Once again, liberal ideology defies common sense the rest of us live by.

Instead of discussing how social spending could be cut or how tough negotiations could happen between unions and the State, we’re told to accept inevitable tax hikes required to keep the kids in school. After all, isn’t America’s future important enough that we can buck up a few extra dollars? Or try this one on for size: “We can’t make our State’s dedicated teachers and future generations of children pay the price for our inaction”. It gets old.

When politicians had the chance to negotiate pensions that were responsible they failed. When they had a chance to say no to raise after raise, they failed. When they knew about all the waste in State budgets and did nothing for fear of losing a vote or two from special interests, they failed. Now career politicians would like to turn on the very people who put them in office and blame them for schools failing if they don’t accept one more tax hike.

However, as soon as the bill was enacted, an unintended consequence was observed: Unions were being prosecuted under the Sherman Act for various tactics used during negotiations. Of course, the progressive types who created the law never intended to hurt unions (after all, they represent “the little guy”), so the first band-aid was applied to paper over government intrusion into the free market: The Clayton Act of 1914. In particular, section 6 spells out a clear exemption for any labor union, effectively immunizing them from the Sherman Act.

When we see these sorts of band-aids applied to law, it’s a good sign that the original authors had not thought through the legislation very well. A knee-jerk reaction to a particular set of circumstances is often poorly conceived.

John Stossel recently reported on the forced unionization of day-care providers in Michigan through a mail ballot system that would make even Card Check seem reasonable. In this case, the State colluded with various Michigan unions to allow them to unionize private businesses. I’d like to see the Constitutionality challenged, of a union ballet imposed on a private company wherein the only “employee” votes “no”. To make matters worse, these are just single-person home based businesses who could never gain any benefit from a union.

The basic flow of money is like this: Unions contribute to Democrat politicians, Democrat politicians create favorable conditions for increased unionization, and agree to hire more unions for State jobs. These jobs cost money, so taxes go up. That means you and I purchase in a price-fixed market which is the result of collusion between States and unions. Opponents have tried to use the legal system to remedy this appalling situation, but they’ve not been successful…not yet anyway.

Given the circular flow of money between Democrats and unions, exemption from the Sherman Act looks like just another favor from sympathetic, paid-off lawmakers. If unions can forcibly usurp private businesses to raise dues, and then have influence, if not control over pricing and wage, they shouldn’t get any help from the State in doing so. The exemption provided by the Clayton Act was not intended by its original authors, to help unions team up with government to ruin free markets.

The time has come to repeal the Clayton Act of 1914 (at least section 6), so that unions can be properly restrained from unfair interferences in the free market. Then again, as long as we keep electing Democrats, what are the odds of that happening?

The story can really be distilled this way. The EU has been placing increased pressure on Greece to lower its debt load. There’s a humorous story buried in that, too. What’s the EU doing telling Greece what to do? Well, if Cap and Trade passes, America will get to find out how that works, too. Back to the main story here. Greece is socialist, and as such everyone is struggling to get their “fair share” of the government’s honey pot. Well, in a sagging global economy with a failed system of government, honey is a little bit short in supply.

That never stops a good union though. When automakers were facing bankruptcy, unions still wanted more and more here in America. In the end, they won. They now have a bigger ownership stake in the “good” GM and the “good” Chrysler while Americans paid the automakers’ debts. Sounds nice doesn’t it?

Greece is no different. Money is tight, and lawmakers have decided they have to cut costs to meet the EU’s demands (and probably to stay viable at all). Unions put the matter like this:

“Demonstrators said they refused to be the ones bearing the burden of getting Greece out of its fiscal mess.

The government has unveiled a series of measures, including a hike on fuel tax, a 10 percent cut in social security spending and hikes on tobacco, alcohol and real estate taxes.

“Why should we make sacrifices? We are not the ones responsible for this crisis,” said high-school teacher Mihalis Exintarakos, sipping his espresso at a cafe after taking a break from the march. “It’s always the little guys who pay.”"

“It’s always the little guys who pay.” No, it’s the residents of a country with a failed economic system that pay. Americans are learning that the hard way, too.

Well now the Unions are back and they are giving Obama a mulligan.  His new jobs bill (Stimulus II) has lots of unnecessary spending, but only to the tune of $100 billion.  To turn this into a full fledged AFL-CIO, SEIU dream bill, Unions will be asking Obama to have Congress put Card Check in the bill. This is a technique that would have worked prior to Scott Brown’s election, but should now be doomed to fail.

This isn’t wonderful timing for Unions to be asking for this. While Union membership has been falling, Democrats are rightfully scared to death of losing their seats in November. Voting for leftist policies is a way to fast track them out of office. Eliminating elections to unionize may be one way of drumming up membership but it’s hardly the right way. If Unions want more dues, they should start advocating for deep tax cuts to business owners, so there is money to hire Union members with. While Unions once presented many benefits to the American worker, today they represent some of the most selfish, tone-deaf, demands from Government.

While Government should be all about saving taxpayers money, to use it as wisely as possible, we learn this week that more Union jobs are now in Government than in the private sector. Isn’t the stated goal of Unions 180 degrees from the goal of saving taxpayers’ money?

If Congressional Democrats want to shed the curse of November, they’d be well advised to put a hatchet to this plan right away.