The union-led school closures and demonstrations in Madison have left
most ordinary Americans shaking their heads in disbelief. Months ago, I penned
a message to my fellow union brothers and sisters when I found myself
on the receiving end of union boss Richard Trumka’s wrath. Yesterday’s
demonstrations reminded me of the full-page ads taken out against me
when I put my foot down in dealing with union demands while I served as
governor. My message then and now to good union brothers and sisters is
that you have another option. You don’t have to kowtow to the union
bosses who are not looking out for you, but instead are using you. You
can join millions of other union members in a commonsense movement to
help fight for the right causes in our great country – for budgets that
share the burden in a truly fair way and for commonsense reforms that
take power away from vested interests like union bosses and big business
lobby groups, and put it back where it belongs – with “We the People.”
Here we are still struggling to get out of a deep recession and coping with high unemployment, record deficits, rapidly rising food prices,
and a host of other economic problems; and Wisconsin union bosses want
union members out in the streets demanding that taxpayers foot the bill
for unsustainable benefits packages.
I am a friend to hard working union members and to teachers. I come
from a family of teachers; my grandparents, parents, brother, sister,
aunt, and other relatives worked, or still work, in education. My own
children attend public schools. I greatly admire good teachers and will
always speak up in defense of the teaching profession. But Wisconsin
teacher unions do themselves no favor by closing down classrooms and
abandoning children’s needs in protest against the sort of
belt-tightening that people everywhere are going through. Union brothers
and sisters: this is the wrong fight at the wrong time. Solidarity
doesn’t mean making Wisconsin taxpayers pay for benefits that are not
sustainable and affordable at a time when many of these taxpayers
struggle to hold on to their own jobs and homes. Real solidarity means
everyone being willing to sacrifice and carry our share of the burden.
It does no one any favors to dismiss the sacrifices others have already
had to make—in wage cuts, unpaid vacations, and even job losses—to
weather our economic storm.
Hard working, patriot, and selfless union brothers and sisters:
please don’t be taken in by the union bosses. At the end of day, they’re
not fighting for your pension or health care plan or even for the
sustainability of Wisconsin’s education budget. They’re fighting to
protect their own powerful privileges and their own political clout. The
agenda for too many union bosses is a big government agenda that only
serves the union bosses themselves – not union members, not union
families, and certainly not the larger community. Everybody else is just
there to foot the bill; and if that bill eventually takes the form of
thousands of teachers and other public sectors workers losing their jobs
because the state of Wisconsin can no longer afford to keep them on the payroll,
that’s a risk the union bosses are willing to take as long as their
positions are secure. Union brothers and sisters: you are better than
this and you deserve better. Don’t be lead astray.
One final word of warning to my fellow Americans: back in 2009, I
warned about what would happen if states accepted short-term
unsustainable debt-ridden “Stimulus Package” funds. Accepting those
funds allowed states to grow government, increase already unsustainable
levels of spending, kick the can down the road on reforming
entitlements, and create public expectations that they would continue
financing these new mandates once the federal funds ran out. States were
not in a position to grow government and take on new financial
commitments then, and now the chickens have come home to roost. As goes
Wisconsin today, so goes the country tomorrow.
- Sarah Palin