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Our State is essentially controlled by Public Service
Unions and the effect has been not only unfair but economically
devastating to those of us who make our living in the Private Sector.
They have been able to accomplish this because they are organized and we are not!
On the average for an equivalent job, public service workers make 60%
more than we do in the private sector. They receive job security and
lavish benefits that we can only dream about. They retire as early as
age 50 with pensions worth millions of dollars. Their salaries and
benefits consume 80% of our annual state budget. and that doesn't leave
much for everything else. They have saddled us with additional liability
for their future pensions and benefits exceeding $400 Billion .
. and this has created a monstrous economic claim on our children and
grandchildren without delivering any benefit to them.
But it gets worse. The Public Service Union's virtual monopoly over
politics in California is also directly responsible for the regulatory
extremism that is steadily chasing private sector jobs from the State.
Why? - because with strong Public Union backing, politicians do not
need to be accountable to the rest of us in any way. As a result, they
create all manner of intrusive regulations and programs of highly
questionable value. Not only must we pay for the bureaucracies that
administer these programs, but we must stand by and watch our jobs and
our opportunities vanish as a result. In the last two years, California
has lost over 2 million private sector jobs while the public service
ranks have grown substantially in size and pay and benefits!
With Public Service Unions urging them on, our governments are very good
at creating resentment between those of us who work in the private
sector and those who own and manage businesses and corporations. They
want us to believe that excessive taxes and regulatory fees - needed to
support their over-the-top pay and pensions - are necessary to ensure
that businesses are ethical and ecologically responsible. They would
have us believe that these costs will be absorbed in some way by the
businesses being regulated. The truth is that most businesses and their
employees have ample incentive to behave responsibly and most
struggle just to make reasonable profits. High additional costs from
taxes, fees and regulations are always passed in the form of higher
prices, lower private sector salaries and jobs lost to other states and
countries.
And so it is no coincidence that unemployment rages in California while
our government grows and grows. Since most of us rely upon on a vibrant
private sector. for our livelihoods, why do we allow politicians to
vilify, over-tax and over-regulate our workplaces? This has created a
shortage of jobs when what we really need is a shortage of workers.
Steven Greenhut’s in his excellent book, Plunder! says “It’s Time For More Than Outrage”
. He is so right. It is time for action. We who depend on a vibrant
and
prosperous private sector must band together to nurture and support our
job markets in the same manner that the public service unions do
theirs. No matter your job or industry, whether you are a
skilled worker, professional, manager or small business owner, UCAPS
members set aside any narrow self interest or concerns and rally around
the task of protecting our opportunities in the Golden State. UCAPS is
also planning to introduce programs to help insulate our members from
the coming health care debacle, to demand our fair share when government
bailout of union pensions begins and to assist unemployed members in
finding work. Learn more about UCAPS, a union for the rest of us!
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