Organized Labor vs. Tea Parties<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
By Henry Lamb
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Governor Scott Walker and the Wisconsin legislature kicked a rattlesnake when they significantly reduced the power of the state's public employee labor unions.   Labor unions across the country have declared war on Republicans, even threatening death, and the Tea Parties that support them.
A battle between organized labor and the Tea Parties is decidedly a one-sided battle.  Organized labor receives regular income from every member, often deducted by the employer and paid directly to the labor union.  National Education Association attorney Bob Chanin says:
"The NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power. And we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year…"
 Tea Parties, on the other hand, survive on the voluntary contributions of people who give to support their beliefs.
Labor unions can lease buses and print signs and pay members of other unions to stack their demonstrations.  Tea Party members must take time off from work and make their own signs if they participate in demonstrations.
Labor union protestors, to some significant degree, are essentially mercenaries; Tea Party protestors are patriots.  This gives Tea Parties a decided advantage.  People who are motivated by principle, a sense of fairness, honor, and respect for the God-given freedom guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution will win – in the long term.
In the short term, labor unions can, and are likely to wreak havoc in every venue they can.  In Wisconsin, labor unions disrupted operations, vandalized the capitol building, and blocked people from entering the building.
In the short term, labor unions are organizing to recall eight Republicans.  It is the 14 Democrat Senators who should be recalled for abandoning their responsibility and hiding in another state for three weeks.  Labor unions can assign and pay people to march up and down the streets to collect signatures.  Labor unions can create and run TV and radio ads.  Labor unions can, and do, threaten and intimidate people until they do the bidding of the unions. Tea Parties rarely have the funds or inclination for such activities.
Tea Parties have reason, right, and determination on their side; labor unions have demonstrated their willingness to destroy whatever gets in their way.
Labor is riled because the Wisconsin law does what every state should do: bring public employee unions under control.   No longer will the state deduct union dues from every public employee and send it to the union.  Now, union members may choose not to pay dues; not to be a member, and the union will have to face a vote every year to affirm that the majority of employees even want a union.
Public employee unions extract millions of dollars from their members, spend millions of dollars to finance the campaigns of Democratic candidates, and rely on Democratic majorities to enact whatever legislation the labor unions want enacted.
 Labor unions have sent their puppets into the streets for three weeks in protest of what they now call unfair, one-sided, maneuvers of the Republican majority.  Where were these protesters when the Democrat majority rammed through Obamacare without allowing debate or amendments, and without a single Republican vote.  The Republicans, however, showed up for work and voted; that's more than the Wisconsin Democrats would do.
Labor unions, especially public employee labor unions, have become a threat to the Republic.  They have demonstrated a philosophy closely akin to Marxism, demanding ever more from tax payers to redistribute to their members.  These unions are different from those that organize in private industries.  Private industries must negotiate with profits they earn.  Public unions negotiate with employers who use unearned tax dollars they simply confiscate from unwilling payers.  There is no natural barrier to prevent the unions from taking control.  This is why public employees are paid so much more than people who do similar work in the private sector.
Tea Parties get no automatic dues deductions from the employers of their members.  They will have to continue fighting with truth, honor, and determination.  It will take a lot of all of these virtues to combat the tactics the unions will employ to unseat Republicans in the 2012 elections.  From the courthouse to the White House, labor unions will do everything they can to reverse the gains made by Republicans in the November elections.   Tea Parties, 912 groups, property rights groups, 10th Amendment groups, gun –rights groups, and every other individual, business, and organization that cares about freedom should begin now to work toward expanding the number of Constitution-loving officials at every level of government.