and other forms of concerted action in support of union demands. They didn’t say who was to protect employers, shareholders, and consumers from union excess.
In their heyday, the unions were unstoppable. Unsupportable and uneconomic work rules were negotiated under threat of strike. For example, bricklayers unions negotiated contracts wherein bricklayers were allowed to lay only a limited number of bricks per hour… often half as many bricks as a skilled worker was capable of laying… while in union hotbeds such as St. Louis, union contracts allowed bricklayers to consume a specified number of beers while on the job.
Teamsters in Chicago negotiated contracts in which the first three hours of each work day were compensated at overtime rates, the fourth through eleventh hours were compensated at regular hourly rates, and anything over eleven hours was compensated at overtime rates. And when employers attempted to manage their personnel so as to reduce overtime payments, drivers smashed headlamps and tail lamps on their own trucks with hammers and tire irons.
The examples of featherbedding and work rule abuse in unionized plants and workplaces would fill volumes. All were negotiated while union bargainers held a gun to the head of management negotiators. One after another, major American industries have fallen due to union excess. The American automobile industry is their latest, but probably not their last, victim.
In 1977, the Carter Administration acted to eliminate the practice of “red-lining,” wherein real estate firms attempted to maintain home values and stem “white flight” by limiting the number of black homeowners in previously all-white neighborhoods. The result was the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) of 1977, a federal law that outlawed “red-lining” and encouraged commercial
The bulk of these loans have been made during a period in which we have not experienced an economic downturn. The Neighborhood Assistance Corporation of America's own success stories make you wonder how much CRA-related carnage will result when the economy cools… While those on the Left assail capitalism and the free market for the banking crisis, they forget that regulations like the CRA helped create the problem.”
In 2003, President Bush attempted a reform of the housing industry, especially with regard to Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, which had become little more than “cash cows” for Democratic “high rollers.” However, all such efforts were quickly defeated by Democrats.
Barney Frank (D-MA), then the ranking Democrat on the House Financial Services Committee, said, “These two entities – Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – are not facing any kind of financial crisis. 'The more people exaggerate these problems, the more pressure there is on these companies, the less we will see in terms of affordable housing.''
In the energy sector, politicians of both parties campaign on the need for energy independence. Yet, support for the development of all available domestic oil, gas, coal, and nuclear potential, while providing maximum support for the development of alternative energy technologies, is limited to the Republican Party. Democrats, on the other hand, bowing to the demands of radical environmentalists and anti-capitalist ideologues, consistently oppose development of new oil and gas reserves in our wilderness areas, in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve, and in our coastal waters; they oppose the exploitation of abundant supplies of low-sulfur coal; and they oppose the further development of non-polluting nuclear power... even though all of these can be accomplished with no additional damage to the environment.
In the public education sector, an analysis of the National Education Association’s 2007-2008 annual report proves, conclusively, that members’ dues are going primarily to left-wing politics and politicians. The authoritative website, LaborPains.org, has identified the organizations that received the bulk of the NEA’s political largesse in 2008. According to their report, “Despite the diverse political and personal beliefs of the NEA’s membership, their money overwhelmingly goes to support partisan causes such as Democratic Party politicians, pro-abortion advocates, and everyone’s favorite voter-fraud-implicated activist group, ACORN.”
In 2008, the NEA contributed $1,000,000 to the Democratic Party’s 2008 Convention Planning Committee, $315,000 to the Progressive Future Action Center, $190,588 to the AFL-CIO, $178,000 to ACORN, $45,000 to the Democratic Leadership Council, $7,500 to the National Conference of Democratic Mayors, $5,000 to Planned Parenthood, and many millions more to other left wing organizations and causes. It causes one to ask, what does any of this have to do with education? What it tells us is that the NEA and the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) have taken a major ownership position in the Democratic Party, to the detriment of taxpayers, parents, students, school administrators, and the entire public education establishment.
A U.S. Department of Education study confirms the shortcomings of U.S. students relative to students in other industrialized nations. Their statistics show that U.S. 12th graders rank 19th out of 21 industrialized nations in math achievement and 16th out of 21 nations in science. However, the public education bureaucracy refuses to concede that, despite spending trillions of dollars on education over the past 30 years, American children fall further and further behind.
They do not want to admit that the S.A.T. scores of African-American children, which average 100 points less than the scores of white children, are the direct result of Great Society programs and the unionization of public school teachers. Yet, as part of the Democrats’ 2009 economic stimulus package, reform programs such as the Washington DC school voucher program are scheduled to be discontinued.
At the insistence of the teachers unions, bright young black kids from low-income Washington families, who now attend school with Obama’s own daughters, Malia and Sasha, will be forced out of the Sidwell Friends School and back into failed, drug-infested, neighborhood schools. It will be interesting to see how The One smooth-talks his way out of that unintended consequence of Democratic elitism.
These are the “four horsemen” of the American Apocalypse. Taken together, they represent the all-time greatest threat to Western civilization. None of it had to happen; it is all a consequence of unbridled political liberalism. And now that American leftists have recruited their ideal ringmaster, Barack Obama, to lead us, our long term fate is even more uncertain.
