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	<title>FrontPage Magazine &#187; Mitchell Langbert</title>
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		<title>Time to Rethink Government Unions</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mitchell-langbert/time-to-rethink-government-unions/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=time-to-rethink-government-unions</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mitchell-langbert/time-to-rethink-government-unions/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 17 Jul 2014 04:25:53 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mitchell Langbert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[dues]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Funding]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Politics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[public sector]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Unions]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.frontpagemag.com/?p=236428</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[How university unions secretly funnel member dues to left-wing political causes and candidates. ]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/logo.png"><img class="alignleft  wp-image-236476" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/07/logo.png" alt="logo" width="227" height="199" /></a>It is time to introduce markets into the states’ public sector labor relations systems by eliminating agency fees and allowing public employees to join competing unions or no union at all. In <i>Harris v. Quinn</i>, decided on June 30, the Supreme Court held that an Illinois law that forced home healthcare workers to join the Service Employees International Union or else pay an agency fee violated their First Amendment rights.  Dicta in the case suggest that some members of the court are now open to asking more general questions about agency fees. State governments should seize the initiative.</p>
<p>Agency fees are charged to nonmembers who work in unionized, public sector settings; they typically equal the union dues. Their rationale is that nonmembers are otherwise free riders who benefit from the union without paying.  That argument assumes that unions benefit all public sector workers, but they do not. Some public employees are forced to contribute to unions that reduce their pay.</p>
<p>In the 1977 precedent of <i>Abood v. Detroit Board of Education, </i>the Supreme Court held that dissenting agency fee payers can request a refund of the portion of the agency fee charged for political lobbying, for forcing employees to pay for political advocacy with which they disagree violates their First Amendment rights.</p>
<p>In the recent <i>Harris</i> case the court wrote that <i>Abood</i> failed to anticipate “the practical administrative problems” in determining whether political expenditures are chargeable or nonchargeable.  As well, <i>Abood</i> failed to consider the difficulties in assessing where politics ends and collective bargaining begins. The key issue in <i>Harris</i> was that the employees were in the private and not the public sector, but the court is now questioning the more general role of agency fees.</p>
<p>Public sector university unions are a good example.   Contrary to the <i>Abood </i>court’s opinion, university unionism has hindered rather than helped universities.  Studies of faculty don’t find clear benefits, and some studies find impediments to effectiveness.  The studies don’t consider that public sector faculty unions are increasingly not labor representatives but lobbyists on behalf of what Steve Malanga has called the new new left.</p>
<p>The bellwether faculty union at the City University of New York, the Professional Staff Congress, is a case in point.  By cloaking the large share of its budget that supports new new left causes, the PSC leverages New York’s public sector bargaining law to funnel public money to leftwing causes. The union siphons dues from public employees’ state paychecks; it then siphons the dues money to political candidates. Employees cannot fully opt out because the union hides the donations.</p>
<p>Much of the PSC’s delegate assembly’s time is spent debating political resolutions. The May 2014 delegate assembly meeting, for instance, considered resolutions to end US militarized foreign policy, to support the Mayday 5K national movement for job stability, to address the legacy of slavery in the founding of American colleges, to support the full restitution of pensions for Detroit municipal employees, to stop Coca Cola’s abuse of children and human rights, and to oppose ROTC.  A similar list is discussed at each meeting.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.psc-cuny.org/delegate-assembly-resolutions-2014"><span style="color: #0463c1;">union’s website</span></a>, in 2014 the assembly passed resolutions opposing climate change, supporting Illinois strikers, supporting taxes on the wealthy to be used for kindergartens, and opposing a New York State Senate bill opposing boycotts of Israel.</p>
<p>The PSC has chosen to affiliate with the Working Families Party. This choice has is not linked to wage-and-benefit negotiation.  The WFP’s goal is to push the Democratic Party to the left.  The PSC’s affiliation with it limits the incentives for mainstream Democrats and Republicans to support the faculty.  As a result, the union has not won a collective bargaining agreement since 2007.  CUNY’s faculty salaries lag those of neighboring nonunion colleges.</p>
<p>According to the <a href="http://www.elections.ny.gov/ContributionSearchB_Name.html"><span style="color: #0463c1;">New York State Board of Elections,</span></a>  in 2013 the PSC made $23,250 in political donations, of which $22,500 went to the Working Families Party. However, that understates by millions of dollars the extent to which the union’s resources go to political activity. For instance, in the November 7, 2013 minutes of the union’s executive council meeting President Barbara Bowen thanked Vice President Steve London for “his leadership, strategy, and coalition-building efforts that supported the election of [WFP-backed] Bill de Blasio.”</p>
<p>The PSC’s March 2014 financial statement indicates that of its $17.4 million budget, $9.3 million is paid as dues to umbrella organizations such as the New York State Union of Teachers, the American Federation of Teachers, and the American Association of University Professors, all of which engage in lobbying.</p>
<p>Over the years the PSC has held teach-ins against the war on terrorism, donated $5,000 to support the legal defense of Marxist Lori Berenson, supported convicted terrorist Sami Al-Arian, passed a resolution sympathizing with Hugo Chavez, and supported New York City Labor Against the War.</p>
<p>A lone Brooklyn College geology professor, David Seidemann, brought a law suit for a refund of political monies. The case was settled in 2009. The courts awarded his pro bono attorney $250,000 in legal fees, but the time and cost of further pursuing the case are prohibitive.    In the course of the case, among the activities that the PSC improperly claimed were contract related were a forum on an anti-war resolution, public rallies, picket lines, concerts, and letter-writing campaigns. Many of these were charged under &#8220;office supplies.&#8221;</p>
<p>Seidemann states that in 2001 the PSC claimed only $15,387 in political expenses out of a total budget of $6,471,530. As the case proceeded and the court made rulings, by 2008 the PSC had raised the amount to $880,301 in political expenses out of a total of $6,243,044, or 14.1%. Seidemann says that the real percentage is probably closer to 20%.</p>
<p>It is time to introduce freedom choice. There is nothing stabilizing to the American economy about compelling individuals to support extremist political causes.  Giving public employees choice will contribute to stability because it will help to reduce the political opportunism.</p>
<p><em>Mitchell Langbert is associate professor of business at Brooklyn College, a campus of the City University of New York.</em></p>
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		<item>
		<title>Corey Robin&#8217;s &#8220;Reactionary Mind&#8221; and the Historicity of Mass Murder</title>
		<link>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mitchell-langbert/corey-robins-reactionary-mind-and-the-historicity-of-mass-murder/?utm_source=rss&#038;utm_medium=rss&#038;utm_campaign=corey-robins-reactionary-mind-and-the-historicity-of-mass-murder</link>
		<comments>http://www.frontpagemag.com/2012/mitchell-langbert/corey-robins-reactionary-mind-and-the-historicity-of-mass-murder/#comments</comments>
		<pubDate>Thu, 12 Apr 2012 04:49:47 +0000</pubDate>
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[Mitchell Langbert]]></dc:creator>
				<category><![CDATA[Daily Mailer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FrontPage]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Communism]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Corey Robin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Palin]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[the Left]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[The Reactionary Mind]]></category>

		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://frontpagemag.com/?p=128497</guid>
		<description><![CDATA[An indifference to the Left's bloody history that amounts to a defense of the cruelest uses of power.]]></description>
				<content:encoded><![CDATA[<p><a href="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/robin.jpg"><img class="alignleft size-full wp-image-128504" title="robin" src="http://cdn.frontpagemag.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/robin.jpg" alt="" width="400" height="604" /></a>On February 7 I noticed an e-mail from Professor Robert T. Viscusi, a poet and professor of English, who heads Brooklyn College&#8217;s <a href="http://www.brooklyn.cuny.edu/pub/departments/wolfe/" target="_blank">Wolfe Institute</a>.  The e-mail announced a discussion concerning Brooklyn College professor Corey Robin&#8217;s book <em>The Reactionary Mind: Conservatism from Edmund Burke to Sarah Palin</em>.  As one of a handful of conservative faculty at Brooklyn College, I was concerned about these points in Viscusi&#8217;s e-mail:</p>
<blockquote><p>(Robin&#8217;s book) weaves together how conservatism is a reaction against democratic challenges.  From the ideologies of Edmund Burke to Antonin Scalia, from John C. Calhoun to Ayn Rand, Robin illustrates how conservatives through history to present-day have defended power and privilege against movements demanding freedom and equality.</p></blockquote>
<p>The claim that John C. Calhoun is linked philosophically to Ayn Rand is ill informed, and as a conservative I have never considered myself a defender of power.  Moreover, as one of a handful of conservative professors at Brooklyn College, I have witnessed ongoing ideological attacks by powerful leftwing ideologues against the few, powerless conservatives who have not been fired.</p>
<p>I exchanged e-mails with Professor Viscusi and Professor Samir Chopra, who is the discussion&#8217;s facilitator.  As well, on <a href="http://www.nas.org/articles/brooklyn_college_study_group_to_prove_that_freedom_is_slavery" target="_blank">the blog</a> of the National Association of Scholars, I expressed my concern that disagreement with Robin&#8217;s thesis that conservatives are ruthless defenders of power might result in ruthless charges of lack of collegiality against me.  Nevertheless, I decided to attend the colloquium and read Robin&#8217;s book.</p>
<p><strong>The Conservative Mind</strong></p>
<p><em>Frontpagemag</em> readers <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=32432" target="_blank">may recall Professor Corey Robin</a> from his most famous student: terrorist <a href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/h/syed_hashmi/index.html" target="_blank">Syed Hashmi. </a> Robin and Brooklyn College Professor Jeanne Theoharis have led a movement to support Hashmi, who admits to having assisted al Qaeda. Hashmi is serving 15 years in prison.   According to Phil Orenstein in <a href="http://archive.frontpagemag.com/readArticle.aspx?ARTID=32432" target="_blank"><em>Frontpagemag</em></a>, Hashmi became radicalized while he was Robin&#8217;s student.</p>
<p>There is an important link between Robin&#8217;s sympathy for Hashmi, whose activities could have led to murder, and his book.  Conservatism in the tradition of Edmund Burke is a reaction to mass murder; Robin&#8217;s book is a screed in favor of indifference to murder just as Robin has been indifferent to Hashmi&#8217;s contribution to what could have been al Qaeda&#8217;s victims&#8217; deaths.</p>
<p>Relying on stereotyped categorizations of victims and oppressors, Robin claims that conservatives resist movements that claim rights for the oppressed.  Robin does not count terrorists&#8217; victims as powerless or oppressed because they do not fit his comic book-like, two-dimensional world view.  The French Revolution, which Edmund Burke viewed with horror, involved not only regicide, but also the murder of between 18,000 and 40,000 people.  This, of course, pales in comparison to twentieth century examples of socialist mass murder.   Robin condemns Milton Friedman for assisting Pinochet, who was responsible for 3,000 deaths.  As well, he condemns Ayn Rand for failing to appreciate Bolshevism&#8217;s supposed benefits such as access to education and movies.  The Bolshevik death toll that Robin seems to think should have been a matter of indifference to Rand was in the tens of millions.   Robin&#8217;s claim that conservatism is a reaction against movements of the powerless is self-contradictory, for the 100 million victims of communism were powerless, and if the anti-communist movement is not conservative, then it is difficult to know what is.  It is Robin&#8217;s indifference to the left&#8217;s bloody history that amounts to defense of the cruelest uses of power.</p>
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