When union leaders put piles of cash into political campaigns, and union bosses then sit down to bargain with the people they have just put into office, who represents the public?
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker
In 1919, after Boston police went on strike to protest the city’s refusal to recognize their new union, Gov. Calvin Coolidge ordered the National Guard into the streets.
Sam Gompers, the legendary father of American labor, wrote the governor that the Boston police had been denied their rights.
Coolidge’s terse reply put him in our history books:
“Your assertion that the Commissioner was wrong cannot justify the wrong of leaving the city unguarded. … There is no right to strike against the public safety by anyone, anywhere, any time.”
Ronald Reagan’s firing of the striking air traffic controllers, whose union had been among the few to endorse him, marked him as a leader willing to act against a powerful union if the public interest commands it.
Gov. Scott Walker is now in that tradition. He has just routed a recall campaign that began with state senators disgracefully fleeing to Illinois rather than provide a quorum and mobs occupying his capitol.
Walter’s victory is a fire bell in the night for the public-sector unions. It reflects a rising realization among all Western peoples that to continue accommodating the demands of government unions is to risk our survival as free and prosperous nations.
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