Public Union: Public Enemy | 5 Minute Video
Public-sector unions have been gaming the political system for decades, bankrupting whole cities and plunging states into massive debt. How did this happen and can it be stopped? Akash Chougule, senior policy fellow for Americans for Prosperity, has the answers in this sobering video from Prager University.
Donate today to PragerU! http://l.prageru.com/2eB2p0h
Get PragerU bonus content for free! https://www.prageru.com/bonus-content
Download Pragerpedia on your iPhone or Android! Thousands of sources and facts at your fingertips.
iPhone: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsnbG
Android: http://l.prageru.com/2dlsS5e
Join Prager United to get new swag every quarter, exclusive early access to our videos, and an annual TownHall phone call with Dennis Prager! http://l.prageru.com/2c9n6ys
Join PragerU’s text list to have these videos, free merchandise giveaways and breaking announcements sent directly to your phone! https://optin.mobiniti.com/prageru
Do you shop on Amazon? Click https://smile.amazon.com and a percentage of every Amazon purchase will be donated to PragerU. Same great products. Same low price. Shopping made meaningful.
VISIT PragerU! https://www.prageru.com
FOLLOW us!
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/prageru
Twitter: https://twitter.com/prageru
Instagram: https://instagram.com/prageru/
PragerU is on Snapchat!
JOIN PragerFORCE!
For Students: http://l.prageru.com/2aozfkP
JOIN our Educators Network! http://l.prageru.com/2aoz2y9
Script:
How would you like to fund politicians with whom you strongly disagree?
Not interested?
How about if I… forced you?
How would I do that?
Well, what if I said, “If you don’t pay, you lose your job.”
For decades, millions of state and local government workers—police, firefighters, teachers, and others—have been forced to make that choice.
And who forces them?
Public-sector unions; that is, unions who represent public-sector employees.
How? It’s pretty straightforward.
First, they demand employees pay hundreds of dollars in union dues as a condition of employment—meaning if they don’t pay, they get fired. Next, they use that money to support and elect union-friendly politicians. Then they negotiate contracts with those same politicians—kind of like negotiating with yourself. It’s a sweet deal—unless you’re a worker who doesn’t agree with those union-friendly politicians. Or the taxpayer who has to foot the bill for those union contracts.
This game plan is not a secret. Here’s what the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees say on their website: “We elect our bosses, so we’ve got to elect politicians who support us and hold those politicians accountable.”
These perverse incentives might help explain why, for most of American history, pretty much no one thought that unionizing government workers was a good idea.
This includes liberal icon President Franklin Roosevelt. Roosevelt was a very strong supporter of private-sector unions, but a very strong opponent of public-sector unions. Here’s what he said on the subject in 1937: “All Government employees should realize that the process of collective bargaining…cannot be transplanted into the public service…”
Roosevelt recognized that public-sector unions could hold the government hostage at will. They could simply threaten to walk off the job if they didn’t get what they wanted. Sanitation workers, for example, could put public health at risk by refusing to collect the garbage. Other public employees would have similarly disruptive power. This was, Roosevelt believed, “unthinkable and intolerable.”
In 1943, New York state’s highest court agreed, calling government unions “not only incompatible with the spirit of democracy, but inconsistent with every principle upon which our government is founded.”
In the late 1950s, New York City and Wisconsin defied this view and allowed their public employees to unionize. But it was President John F. Kennedy who opened the floodgates. In order to win the support of union leadership in the 1960 presidential election, he promised to allow federal employees to unionize—and fulfilled that promise with Executive Order 10988 in 1962. It was a shrewd political move, but a bad deal for the country, and its consequences are still being felt today as public-sector unionization spread rapidly in the decades that followed.
Today, unions wield tremendous power in government. Try to fire a poor-performing government worker in New York City or Los Angeles. Or almost any unionized government employee anywhere. It’s extremely difficult—if not impossible—no matter how incompetent they might be. According to one union contract in Michigan, employees could be caught drunk at work five times before being fired.
For the complete script, visit https://www.prageru.com/videos/public-union-public-enemy
source
4:28 thankful to live in a right to work state
So you don't want firefighters getting pensions… nice
Prager SUCKS!!!
Talk to any Amazon or Walmart employee about their job and you'll quickly understand why unions exist.
This is cope
Fyi corporations paid politicians 1.3 billion dollars unions only gave 100mil
The problem with unions, all unions, are that for everything good they do in one area, they cause an equal amount of harm somewhere else, because at the end of the day they're just another company that wants to make money. It's a shame people seem to believe we wouldn't have made any progress without them.
Holy shit these guys really are paid off by oil companies
Come on now, we all know you aren’t against police unions.
JANUS WON, HOWEVER, STRONG HEALTH AND SAFETY IN THE WORKPLACE IS STILL NEEDED.
There's a reason rich oligarchs like Prager, Musk, and Bezos don't want workers unionizing. It's because it gives more power and money to the workers. Unions are one of many things that threaten their empires of stolen valor. Don't let them win. Unionize.
the unions undeniably help the employees, but the best thing to have would be the government employees being paid well enough that no union is needed.
Tira o pai do chao e vai!
No dia mais claro
Na noite mais densa
E pede bença
E pede bença
Na noite mais densa
No dia mais claro
mt gay
Meu ovo
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
.
Pega fogo cabare!!!!
Workers are not forced to join a union though. This is a complete fiction.
i like to drink paint ……
As a Canadian Teacher I am a union member, not by choice.
When I first got my unionized teaching job, I needed the union to settle a dispute with my employer. They made a promise to me and did not keep that promise. With out the union, the employer would not have been held to account and made to keep their promise. I then joined the more inner workings of the union by becoming a local rep. It was great to fight for teacher's rights when violated by the employer. But about 15 years ago the union went woke and I saw all the rights of white straight Christian teachers disappear. I saw all the leftist attack agendas played out in real time. It started with the union creating cohorts of every minority group. Why does a female dominated profession where equal qualifications garner equal pay between the semester???? Then a policy for sex education in schools including lgbtq sex ed etc. And without having to give parents notofication nor the option to withdraw their child. As a union policy it was a harmless"ideal" with no direct impact on the children, school system or curriculum ….yet,
BUT, it meant that the union would lobby the government for implementation of their policy on the schools. Any union members questioning this policy was vehemently verbally attacked for being racist and homophobic, in what I now know first hand as, classic leftist style. That's when I left volunteering for the union. As a straight white Christian teacher, I have no one fighting for my rights amy more.
This video makes me want to join a union.
Yet PragerU has no problem with the rich spending money on politicians that support them. This is PragerU calling you stupid and trying to cuck you
The biggest problem with unions from personal experience is that they keep the weakest links safe from receiving any real consequences for being slow or lazy. Basically allowing employees to do the bottom of the barrel minimum labor on jobs and tasks and not be fired for it as long as they show up on time and act busy
Was unions that made the middle class of America.
Private sector Unions are a beautiful thing…. Public sectors are a whole other animal.
I’m proud to say that I’ve been a Teamsters for the past 25 years! Despite their downsides, unionized labor does work!
The issue that I notice with a loto f the responses is that they assume that the video is anti union (PragerU may very well be anti union so I'm not defending them as a whole) but it's specifically going after public unions.
I don’t have anything against public unions. I have a lot against politicians being able to trade stocks.
Those damn greedy unions… making sure employees that keep society functioning have living wages and benefits… how DARE they! It's costing me… like… $0.02 off my paycheck! I'd much rather that go to more bombs like the other $999.98 of taxes I pay every month!
I'm not a team player!!! 👎 to unions…
No college… No tech school… In management… Get paid hourly… With no union… I make 117K a year… Great insurance… With no dues… I like the way things are… 👍🙌👍
I'm more worried about billionaires who are all connected, with lobbyists in Gov, and private Armies and endless wealth, then a bunch of tired workers who want better treatment.
Inside Los Angeles’ Homeless Crisis https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTZsJNj3sIE
$1 Billion in Cocaine Seized at Philly Port, Crew Charged https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UB5beRjAKmk