For a very sobering look at what happens when a government worker union, in this case the teacher union, gets too powerful, read this article from the LA weekly titled “LAUSD’s dance of the lemons” about teachers who cannot teach but remain employed.

Some of the shocking highlights of this investigation:

There are estimated to be 1,000 such teachers, responsible for 30,000 children.

In the past 10 years, the district spent $3.5 million attempting to fire 7 teachers – approximately $500,000 per teacher. The legal battles dragged on for an average of 5 years each, and in the end 4 were fired, 2 were offered large settlements, and one was reinstated.  

32 teachers were recommended for firing but then secretly paid $50,000 by the district to leave without a fight.

Many other bad teachers are transferred repeatedly to unsuspecting schools.

Only one-third of the subpar teachers who are sent for training pass. Despite this miserable record, teacher unions insisted that the results of training for subpar teachers be kept secret. Not even school principals are told whether they are improving, yet the teachers must remain in the classroom during their training.  

Most school board members were elected by the teacher unions. So despite failing schools, school boards routinely agree to rules insisted upon by the unions that make it virtually impossible to fire bad teachers.

Our children are the future. The government worker unions must be reined in before it’s too late.

Watch this rousing speech from OC GOP Chairman Scott Baugh who calls for every elected Republican to support the Citizen Power Initiative. Or read the full text here.

Great news on the endorsements front. Congressman Tom McClintock is officially supporting the Citizen Power Campaign, and had this to say:

“The Citizen Power Initiative is absolutely necessary to bring real reform to Sacramento. People on both sides of the aisle know that public employee unions have too much power in Sacramento and stand in the way of real reform. They have that power because they have a special privilege no one else in politics has – the ability to automatically take money from their union members’ paychecks without their permission and use it for politics. This initiative will stop that automatic flow of money by simply taking the state out of the business of collecting political contributions on behalf of union bosses.”

Read the full press release here.

By Lewis K. Uhler - President of the National Tax Limitation Committee

Mon, January 11th, 2010

This sentiment, written over two centuries ago by Thomas Jefferson, is more applicable than ever today in the case of public -sector unions which collect mandatory dues from their membership to engage in liberal, big-spending, highly partisan politics antipathetical to many of their members who foot the bill.

In 2005 we spearheaded Proposition 75, the "Paycheck Protection Initiative," to require written consent of public employee union members before union dues could be taken from their salaries for political purposes. The unions outspent us 10-1 and only narrowly defeated Proposition 75.
In 2010 the outcome can be different -- for several reasons:

The "Paycheck Protection Initiative" currently gathering signatures is crafted differently. It prohibits the government employer (state or local) from acting as the agent for the public employee union in collecting political dues from public employees. I think it is stronger protection than Proposition 75.

During the intervening years public-employee unions have grown more arrogant and politically demanding and have taken positions on issues and ballot measures with which many of their own members disagree (such as the California Teachers Association's endorsement and funding of opposition to Proposition 8 -- the marriage initiative.)

Polling data reveals that public support for protecting public employees from forced union political dues has grown significantly since the Proposition 75 vote.