Back on January 13th there was this splash, albeit inside page, in the QCTimes.
Protesters picket Bill Dix’s home
The article was almost totally given over to being a PR piece for labor union agitators. Picketing a home to inform neighbors about something about a neighborhood they may not be aware of for lack of news coverage and readily available information may be a good, and we do not object to peaceable sidewalk pickets anywhere, in difference to the Black Hawk GOP comments (see article). Banging drums and bull horns however are objectionable. But who in that neighborhood in that small community does not know that Bill Dix is “high up” in state politics (he is Senate Majority leader) and what Republican approaches to budgets and governing are, election after election? So it was a newspaper stunt and the Lee enterprise outlets played along always helpful to put union agitators in a save-the-working-man glow.
The article referred to Dix being unavailable for comment directly, the reportage excuse for there being no on-point rebuttal to comments reported. Of course it would not stop them from offering up something from their archives or issuing challenge questions had it been Republicans picketing a Democrat and the homeowner was not available for timely comment. In truth, if truth were an interest of journalism grads today, statement after statement made at the event were challengable.
A challenge question might have been something like ~~ you decry a “GOP” “anti-family anti-worker agenda” – yet the recent tax reform measures at the federal level have already produced wage increases, notifications of plant expansion and hiring, and tax reductions for most Americans, all the result of Republican passed legislation . . . how is that anti-family anti-worker ~~ ? And ~~ at the state level Republicans say bargaining changes were necessary to avoid financial crisis, or to avoid additional taxes of families and workers to service workers already compensated above average, so what would you have cut or how would you have increased revenue ~~ ?
Most of the article was just transcribing the liberal union spin.
That includes this transcription:
“I think having a hundred people in front of Bill Dix’s house on a five-degree day is a sign that people have had enough of Bill Dix,” said Jesse Case, secretary-treasurer of Teamsters Local 238, which organized the event.
“We have people that carpooled locally,” he said. “We have people that drove from Des Moines, southern Iowa, Quad-Cities and Cedar Rapids.”
So maybe a few dozen in the mix came from other cities, likely compensated in one way or another to do so, or as an expectation of positions held. That they had to go statewide to get that number reflects something, and that might be explained in the next article written by Ed Tibbitts on January 24 appearing in the QC Times: (front page) (excerpts)
Iowa union membership declines
The number of Iowans who are members of labor unions in the state dropped sharply in 2017, according to new estimates from the federal government.
The decline comes a year after the Republican-controlled Iowa Legislature significantly reduced the collective bargaining rights of most public sector workers in the state.
The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reported last week that 104,000 Iowans were members of labor unions in 2017, down from 129,000 the year before. . . .
This isn’t the first decline in union membership in recent years. Membership in Iowa labor unions has fallen in Iowa since 2014, according to the survey. However, the estimated fall off last year was sharper than it had been previously.
The survey said that 7 percent of wage and salaried workers in the state belonged to unions in 2017. That’s down from 8.9 percent the year before. . . .
The state’s two largest public unions, the Iowa State Education Association and the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees said they do not release membership figures. . . .
Union officials, though, did point to re-certification elections to demonstrate they still have support.
Of 481 re-certification elections held last fall, only 31 unions were not re-certified. That came despite new rules requiring unions to get a majority of people covered by their contracts to support re-certification, rather than a majority of those voting. . . .
V’Pac note: Keep in mind what decertification means. Requiring a majority vote from all those affected seems in the highest spirit of “democracy” to us, not voting being a vote that you don’t care for that union. That is much different than formation of government in the American system where the issue is not decertification of government, but rather who will run it. Indifference to which party should run it is not the same thing as a decertification vote. We also note that decertification in and of itself does not necessarily mean less union membership as often those so inclined can join another union when there is more than one non-exclusive union present. And nothing stops someone from joining a union in some way whether or not that union covers where they work, other than perhaps union rules. SO JUST MAYBE THERE ARE OTHER REASONS FOR DECLINING UNION MEMBERSHIP IN WHAT IS A MULTI-YEAR TREND PREDATING RECENT PUBLIC EMPLOYEE RELATED LEGISLATION
. . . The federal figures said that 127,000 Iowans, or 8.6 percent, of wage and salaried employees in the state, were covered by union contracts, down from 153,000, or 10.5 percent, the year before.
In 2014, 184,000 Iowans were covered by union contracts, according to the survey.
We think it has to do with union leadership getting into matters that prospective members would never bargain for. Unions by and large are a virtual adjunct of the Democrat party and all its proclivities many of which are fundamentally against the culture of their members. And there is the realization that all manner of shenanigans go on in the union structure that workers oppose.
Why should Republicans ever kowtow to such a totally Democrat dominated/dominating element of the voting public led by self-serving and/or largely socialist creeps? Similar question could be posed as regards rent-seeking business and industry. Do what is best for the general good of the citizens and lean efficient parameters of governing.
R Mall
