by Bill O'Connell on September 16, 2011
Boeing 787 Dreamliner photo by craezer
Yesterday, the House passed a bill that would prevent the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) from telling Boeing, America’s largest exporter, that it couldn’t build a factory in South Carolina, a Right-To-Work state. Boeing built a $750 million factory (with their own money, not yours) and hired 1,500 workers, before the NLRB stepped in and called this union retaliation. But no jobs are being eliminated back in Washington state, in fact, Boeing has added 2,000 jobs.
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by Bill O'Connell on September 14, 2011
Photo by boss tweed
Ah, 1922, the Yankees won their second American League pennant and finished up their final season at the Polo Grounds before moving across the river to their new stadium in the Bronx. In the summer, hyperinflation in Germany meant it took 493 marks to equal one dollar. Feature length film Nanook of the North is released. In the fall the conversion rate in Germany is 1,000 marks to the dollar. Stalin comes to power in Russia, and Mussolini in Italy. By November it takes 3,000 marks to equal one U.S. dollar in Germany. Alexander Graham Bell dies. By year-end it takes 7,000 German marks to equal one U.S. dollar. It was also the last time the 9th Congressional District in New York was held by a Republican.
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by Bill O'Connell on September 5, 2011
Photo by photobunny
It would be an understatement to say that unions have had some setbacks recently, so what’s wrong with hogging a holiday all to themselves as they lick their wounds?
The Marathon County Labor Council originally tried to ban Republican lawmakers from Monday’s parade, but it backed down when the Wausau mayor threatened to refuse insurance costs and other expenses to the public event.
While it is true that organized labor was behind the establishment of Labor Day, when you consider that at their peak in the 1950s, unions only represented a little over a third of all workers, it never would have happened without a lot of non-union support to get them more than the fifty percent needed to pass any legislation. So just how did we get in this mess?
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by Bill O'Connell on May 3, 2011
Score one for Mr. Boehner. He has been getting lambasted by conservatives for being had on the 2011 budget deal he negotiated. But if you dig a little deeper you can find a nugget of gold.
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by Bill O'Connell on April 26, 2011
by Bill O'Connell on March 14, 2011
Candidate Barack Obama said to Joe the Plumber, spread the wealth around, it’s good for everybody; he also said, I want to give those coming up behind the same chance you had. It sounds altruistic, caring, full of hope. But if Barack Obama turned and looked over his shoulder he might be surprised to see that there are fewer and fewer people coming up from behind. What he might see is the fear of reckoning for one hundred years of progressive policy and programs. Policy and programs that were sold to allay earlier generations’ fears coupled with the promise that the bill was easily paid and a long way off. But the bill collector is now at the door and the next generation is huddled in the corner with no sign of hope and no confidence that Barack Obama will change anything.
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by Bill O'Connell on March 9, 2011
I got an opportunity to watch the documentary “Waiting for Superman,” and it confirmed much of what I have been saying. Teachers are a national treasure. Teachers’ unions are the new empire of evil. Whoa! That’s harsh. Yes, but not nearly as harsh as flushing thousands of uneducated children into the streets to fend for themselves, when we should be educating them for our future.
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by Bill O'Connell on March 5, 2011
The line in the sand that public sector unions draw is over collective bargaining. They will give in to the requests of Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin on contributing to their retirement and health care, but don’t you dare touch collective bargaining. Why is this sacrosanct?
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by Bill O'Connell on February 25, 2011
When the unions and their progressive supporters hit the streets in Madison, Wisconsin the news cameras didn’t have to look high and low to find the Hitler posters, they could probably spot them from a hundred yards off, but honestly, who didn’t think there would be Hitler posters at a left wing rally? But in a effort to modernize, somebody found a newspaper and saw there was some unrest in the Middle East and voila, we had comparisons to Hosni Mubarak and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. So Governor Scott Walker, we are to believe, is acting like a dictator not a democratically elected governor working through a democratically elected legislature? Hmmm, I wonder how the public sector unions got the “rights” they ferociously cling to?
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by Bill O'Connell on February 23, 2011
To hear the progressives talk about the public sector unions in Wisconsin and other locales you would think collective bargaining was enshrined in the Bill of Rights. We have a right to bargain collectively. The unions are fighting for their rights. The Bill of Rights was won through the fighting of a bloody revolution. The right for all citizens to vote was won through the passage of an amendment to the Constitution. So, naturally, the right of public sector unions was won through a similar groundswell of popular support, right? No. Actually it was started by one man, fighting for his political life, in the shadow of Tammany Hall.
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