Professor at Alaska University Chimes in on Public Unions and the Situation in Wisconsin

A few days ago I received an email from Roland Stearns, a professor at University of Alaska in Anchorage. He copied me on a response he sent to Randi Weingarten, president of AFT a self-proclaimed "union of professionals" .

Weingarten asked professor Stearns to "take the pledge in support of fairness, justice, democracy and workers’ voice."

I am pleased to report that professor Stearns took a stand against the coercion, bribery, and slavery tactics endorsed by those in favor of collective bargaining and union extortion.

Here is professor Stearns reply to Randi Weingarten and the AFT...

Dear Mr. Weingarten,

I am a professor, Vietnam era Veteran and, technically a member of a "minority" who would like to express my firm and absolute conviction that collective bargaining - when it consists of forcing anyone against his or her preference to join a group of any kind - may no more be termed a "right" than forcing someone to sit in one place on the bus - calling that forced seating a "right".

For years during and after my MM and Ph.D. studies (completed with 3.98 GPA) I lived largely debt free on incomes averaging $8,000 to $10,000 a year, on occasion less, and did so without expecting anyone to pick up my tabs.

I have been the recipient of both union members' bullying and mobbing as a high school student while doing summer work to save for my college expenses all the way through to the present-day when as a Veteran my own situation under Alaskan law have been dismissed as some kind of exceptional irrelevancy to the union agenda.

It is the purest definition of a corrupt process to force membership in any group hired by government and then, in any way, manner, shape or form, use involuntarily collected funds of that group to influence a political process that literally picks the taxpayer's pocket.

I am not writing this as an indictment of the great majority of fine educators. I am, however, writing this as an absolute indictment of the political, self-aggrandizing corruption and whining of those who do, indeed, disgrace the profession. We need to drop most of the pretense of bigger paychecks and benefits "for the children".

Respectfully,

Roland Stearns, Ph.D.
Anchorage, AK

Issue of Slavery

I frequently receive such emails but I will only post them if I can use a name. Roland graciously agreed. I thank Roland Stearns for his brave public stance because there is little doubt he will soon be under attack by those who support slavery and coercion.

I am particularly pleased by Stearns' comparison of union "rights" to tactics in the South that allowed whites the "right" to displace blacks in seating on buses.

Rights of unions must not and cannot be allowed to interfere on the rights of other to NOT belong to a union, or pay union dues if they do not want to. The "right to work" is a universal right and union slavery advocates stand firmly in favor of slavery on this point.

For more on the slavery aspect of public unions and collective bargaining advocates, please see

• Collective Bargaining neither a Privilege nor a Right


• Paul Krugman, Stephen Colbert, Bill Maher, others, Ignore Extortion, Bribery, Coercion, and Slavery; No One Should Own You!

Here is a short list from the article of those in support of slavery.

• Paul Krugman, a Nobel prize winning economist and writer for the New York Times
• Bill Maher, an extremely popular stand-up comedian and host of HBO Real Time with Bill Maher
• Stephen Colbert host of Comedy Central's The Colbert Report
• Harold Meyerson, a columnist for the Washington Post.
• Yves Smith author of the site Naked Capitalism and one of the most popular economic bloggers country
• Rick Ungar, a writer for Forbes magazine.

Read the links. I make a case, point by point.

Mike "Mish" Shedlock
http://globaleconomicanalysis.blogspot.com
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