Read Online Shadowbosses: Government Unions Control America and Rob Taxpayers Blind by Mallory Factor - Free Book Online

he emphasized that he would be able to deliver more dues revenue to the teachers union: “In the coming weeks, I’ll be laying out the specific details of my plan to invest billions of new dollars into the teaching profession and recruit an army of well-trained, well-qualified teachers who are willing to stand at the front of any classroom and give every student the chance to succeed.” Of course, more teachers may or may not be the fix that our failing education system needs. But we do know that by recruiting an army of teachers, Obama channels additional union dues right to the teachers unions. And that sounded good to the teachers unions in 2008, so they agreed to heavily support Obama’s campaign.

Chapter 4 Summary Points
    President Obama is the most union-connected President in the history of the United States, both a partner of the unions and a true believer in the union movement.
The unions spent $300 to $450 million to elect Obama in 2008 and have pledged to spend over $400 million or more to reelect him in 2012.
Unions supported Obamacare heavily because it gives them an opportunity to organize millions more health-care workers—and add billions of dollars in dues income. • During Obama’s first term, the stimulus package was an enormous giveaway for the unions, particularly in the area of green jobs and education.
The Obama Administration has allowed unions to gain collective bargaining power over the Transportation Security Administration (TSA). Our other Homeland Security employees and civilian military employees are also increasingly unionized, leaving our nation exposed to strikes.
Card check, a top union legislative priority, would eliminate workers’ rights to a secret-ballot election over whether or not their workplace will be unionized, and would be pushed hard during a second Obama term.
An even higher legislative priority for unions during a second Obama Administration may be the repeal of section 14(b) of the National Labor Relations Act, which would destroy state right-to-work protections and make all fifty states in America forced-dues states, generating billions more in dues income for the unions.

CHAPTER 5
Schoolhouse Shadowbosses
    I MAGINE sitting in a large room packed with human beings. Imagine that all of them are crying, or praying, or grimacing—because at the front of the room, a man is reaching into a basket of Ping-Pong balls. Each person in the room has been assigned a number. And each of those Ping-Pong balls carries a corresponding number. If your number is drawn, you have a chance at living a better life than your parents had—maybe going to college or to a technical school, getting a good job, making enough money to support yourself. If not, you’ll likely end up dropping out of school, may face limited job prospects, and perhaps end up dependent on the government.
    You don’t have to imagine it. Each year, thousands of children across America enter into such lotteries, trying to get into decent public schools. Their normal public schools are educational sinkholes—kids fail out or they pass to the next level through social promotion without having met the learning objectives of the previous grade.
    “Either the kids are getting stupider every year, or something is wrong in the education system,” master educator Geoffrey Canada tells the camera in Davis Guggenheim’s 2010 documentary
Waiting for Superman
. Guggenheim—the same man who directed Al Gore’s propaganda film
An Inconvenient Truth
and President Obama’s thirty-minute tribute reel at the 2008 Democratic National Convention—is no conservative. But he recognized that America’s education system is in serious trouble.
    Guggenheim points out that although we have doubled the moneythat we spend on K–12 schools in recent years, there has been little or no improvement in student performance. In the film, a huge share of the blame falls on the teachers unions—a conclusion Guggenheim desperately did not want