Quotes and commentary of the day

Courtesy of the Patriot Post.  Note:  I don't normally post the entirety of a digest, which is the weekly email that the Patriot Post sends out containing news and commentary.  Therefore I want to emphasize that the opinions expressed here are those of the staff at the Patriot Post.  While I agree with much of what they say, I do not agree with all of it.  Discussion is encouraged.

THE FOUNDATION

“I think all the world would gain by setting commerce at perfect liberty.” —Thomas Jefferson

PATRIOT PERSPECTIVE

Labor Day State of the Unions

In 1983, the first year for which the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics filed comparable union data, 20.1 percent of employed wage and salary workers were union members. In 1950, that number was estimated at 35 percent. According to the most recent data from the BLS, fewer than 12 percent of employed wage and salary workers are union members, down from 12.5 percent in 2005.

Government-worker (oxymoron?) unions are, of course, the fastest growing, because there is little fiscal accountability in government. Per capita, government unionization is five times that of the private sector, because the government is not subject to free-market accountability. Worse yet, the highest rate of government unionization is among those in education, training and library occupations. These are the folks entrusted to educate the next generation of voters.

Today, some 15.4 million Americans belong to labor unions—and many would rather not. I fall into that latter category. Yes, I confess. I, Mark Alexander, was once a union member.

A decade ago, in another life, I was hired to provide consultation for a big-screen production about Russian organized crime and nuclear terrorism—a subject I know a bit about (not because of any association with jihadis or Russian crime syndicates).

In order to work on this project, which included some script writing, I had to join a screenwriters’ union; I had no choice in the matter. Of course, I objected strenuously, but they made me an offer I couldn’t refuse.

My experience with the writers’ union provided some real insights into why union demands have destroyed so many private-sector companies. For example, on short notice, I was sent to Moscow to meet with screenplay writers. My first-class seat cost almost $8,000 (that’s eight large!). A seat in coach cost about $1,300. Union rules required the production company to fly me first class. Of course, since I had to “endure this benefit” one way or the other, I asked if I could fly coach and benefit by pocketing the difference. Of course not.

Once in Moscow, union rules also required five-star hotels—at $800 per day. (Ironically, a big chunk of our lodging and meal per diem probably went straight to the same Russian crime syndicates we were investigating.)

Here I’m reminded of a speech a former Screen Actors Guild president gave back in 1957: “Some of us came toe to toe with this enemy, this evil force in our own community in Hollywood... Back in the thirties, a man, who was apparently just a technician, came to Hollywood to take a job in our industry, an industry whose commerce is in tinsel and colored lights and make-believe. He went to work in the studios, and [it was later discovered] that he came to our town on direct orders from the Kremlin. When he quietly left our town a few years later, the cells had been formed and planted in virtually all of our organizations, our guilds and unions. The framework for the Communist front organizations had been established.”

That was, of course, Ronald Reagan.

( Cut because it's long and full of conservative opinion )