>> lewis or the prosecution are guilty of three charges. number one, public employee unions have become a scourge on our u.s. economy and are making us plural as a result. number two, public employee unions are responsible for the bankrupting of virtually every state and local governments in america. [applause] number three, from albany -- number three, public employee unions are guilty of causing one of the greatest income

inequality injustices in american history. the injustice and inequality of inequality between the public employee unions received and private sector workers that are comparably skilled. you will provide evidence for you that shows that the average worker in america receives only half of what a public employee unions get. we hear from liberals all the time that there is injustice and unfairness in america. i'd make kc ladies and gentlemen and we'll show you the evidence that the greatest is in greatest unfairness of this is dirty and income between the public sector union received in the private sector union. that is something that is causing higher taxes on all of us. now, i had an article in "the wall street journal" about a month ago called makers versus takers. it really exemplifies what is wrong in america with the growth of the power of the site of the union in america.

.. that is a trend that is simply unsustain nbl america today. [applause] one last point i would like to make, we have not talked yet about the real evil empire of the u.s. economy. and i think you all know who i am talking about. the teacher's union in america ruining our schools, they are

bankrupting our schools, and i have got to do something about freeing the kids from the public teacher union in america. one example of the injustice of the teacher union impose on our economy. today is state like ohio, take one example. they have a policy called "retire and rehire" a worker -- a teacher at the age of 53, 54 can reearn a salary of $100,000. retire with a $100,000 a year pension and get rehired for that same job at the old salary taking up $200,000. nobody in the private sector gets that kind of deal. that's the kind of thing that is taking away money from the classrooms so we have better schools in america. and so i think in some, ladies and gentlemen, you will find by the end of this that the public sector employees are guilty as charged, and the american economy and every state and

local government and the federal government would be much more fiscally healthy if we did not have public employee unions. thank you very much. [applause] please, no applaud. there will be in order the court. it's a courtroom. i expect to have in order my courtroom. [laughter] now, thank you, counselor. we'll hear from -- he's a deputy chief of staff policy direct and chief international economist. she earned her bachelor's degree from smith college and a master degree in economic at university of michigan. she's coauthor of a field guyed to the global economy. she's an expert on the free trade agreement, wage and equality, and steel and text tile industry. she appeared on numerous national television and radio shows and also on the board of directors of --

[no audio] hard working men and women who belong to them are utterly faceless and should be thrown out of this court. the prosecution's case is founded on shoddy statistics. and a false premise. more over, i will demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt my client has been unfairly scape coated. and is being blamed for crimes in fact committed by another party entirely. the prosecution is well aware of this fact. and i mitt to you that the prosecution has un-- i might even say intimate

relationship with a true culprit. the entire case against my client is a tobacco-free to did divert attention from the true perpetrator at the collapse of the u.s. economy, the destruction of the american middle class, and the state budget shortfall. my clients could not be present in the courtroom this evening. they were here, i have no doubt that you would find them to be an extremely sympathetic group. they are your neighbors, your family, your friends. they teach your children, they care for your elderly parents. they keep your local library open and pick up your garbage. they were the ones who walked back in to the burning buildings on 9/11. they're the ones who throw their body in front of violent criminals. many of them literally risk their lives every single day to keep you and your family safe. the question in front of us tonight is: do these hard

working americans deserve to exercise their basic freedom to form a union if they choose. and bargain collectively with their employer for wages and benefits, a secure retirement, and a safe workplace. my case tonight rests on three key points. first, it's a basic human freedom for workers to join together at the workplace and have a voice on the job. the government should not deny the workers the freedom. in every decent democratic -- it's to tailtarian that are a the second point, it is good for the u.s. economy and essential to the survival of the american middle class that public sector workers have decent wages and decent benefits. there is overwhelming empire call evidence that public sector workers are no overcompensated compared to the private counter part. one can take to the different

level of education of skill and years of experience. in fact, many, many studies show that public sector workers are underpaid, relative to private sector workers by at least 4%. third, public sector workers and the unions are not to blame for the fiscal trouble of state and local government nor for the underfunding of their own pension. there is absolutely no correlation between those states where public sector workers have collective bargaining right and strong union and state -- in fact, states that allow public sector collective bargaining recently had 14% deficit compared those states where public sector collective bargaining was not allowed. they are a 16.5%. the biggest problem with the pension and deficit don't allow public sector collective bargaining like texas, north

carolina, nevada. what that account for the ballooning state budget deficit. any -- >> you're making a speech. i need you to make an opening statement. >> yes, sir, your honor. of course, your honor. the deep recession in michigan in 2008 collapse of the housing market were to blame for the trouble the state budget are having. not the workers and their unions. rising health care costs both public and private sector workers. not the fault of the unions. they deliver significant benefit not just to their members, but to their communities and to the economy overall. teachers, bargain for smaller class sizes so kids can learn. nurses bargain for patient load so that the patients get the care they deserve. firefighters and police meet state condition so they can provide the protection for their community. richard of the martin prosperity the university of toronto business school found that union

density is state by state actually have higher incomes, more education, and more creative work. not the opposite. and internationally that hold up as well. the country of the highest unionization have higher protectivity and lower unemployment. public sector workers have been dragged through the mud to distract you. the american people, from the truly guilty party in the economic problem we are facing today. wall street, big business, multinational corporations, scandal with our future turned our economy to a giant casino. sent the job offshore and want to blame hard working nurses, teachers, firefighters, and police officers for the damage they brought. this is what america is all about. you worked hard all your life and play by the neighbor. you take care of your neighbor

and community. you take pride in your work. you deserve debt school for your kids, a safe neighborhood, and a dignified retirement. my client is not guilty of all charges. instead of put these hard working people on trial, we should be thanking them for the hard work they do and to the modest pay. we should redirect our justified angers at collapse of the u.s. economy forward the truly guilty party wall street and big business. that, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, is who should be going to jail. thank you. and now labor journalist steve early who exam the current organize of many labor union in the u.s. >> so i want to just say a few words about obviously what has been so exciting particularly for those who had firsthand involvement in it about the upsurge in madison. talk little bit about how some

of the subject matter overlaps with the book, which was finished up before this great development occurred and open it for questions. we have a lot of folks who want to contribute to the discussion. clearly one of the most exciting things about the event in madison and relates how do we reach people like that young fellow from tollson state not sure what a teamster is. who we need if we're going to be something other than than a geriatric culture. and clearly any account of this struggle has paid tribute to the leading role of high school students, college students, and the teaching assistance for the vanguard of the struggle.

member of the union that brother bob founded nearly forty years ago in madison as an outgrowth of '60s activism. the fact that they did not take business as usual approach to lobbying. we know that what that is. how many have been on a union lobby day to some state capital? it tends to be highly ritualistic. it tends to involve being politic -- polite and showing up on time for appointment with our betters and the political class and tipping our hat and hoping for the best. well, these folks on lobby day and they brought their sleeping bags. they didn't leave at 5:00. they occupied the state capitol like it was an administration building in madison circa 1969. they stayed for days and weeks, and that galvanized, as we have seen, older workers in the

teachers, in sciu on the faculty, and most significantly for the kind of unity we need to rebuild the labor unit. workers in the private sector. my friends work at madison gas and electric. the building trades workers probably saw that picture in the globe today. a plumber holding up a sign in madison yect. within the public workers under attack by governor walker, one of a number of republican workers as we know going after public employees in the midwest, it would been easy for the cops and the firefighters, who unfortunately backed the guy last fall to opt out of a struggle. we have seen the opposite particularly the firefighters but also the police expressing very strong support for the teachers, the state workers, the county, municipal workers who will be affected by the attempt

strip public sector wisconsin workers of the bargaining rights. at the bottom tier of the public sector in wisconsin and other states. it's something i do write about quite a bit in the book, you know, we have the largest source of newly organized union members who are also at risk in these struggles in wisconsin, ohio, and indiana and states like new jersey where the friends comes out of the public sector in new jersey is here tonight, and cwa vice president had a huge rally in trenton are confronted with that. charming fellow, chris christie. cover if you saw his mug on. he has a voracious appetite for many things. contractive education -- -- cwa asked me, the aft, the uaw all following the lead of sciu

have organized the total 5 to 6,000 home-base health care worsers, biggest source of predominantly female. many in the case of our joint gar -- still trapped in the post clinton world of warfare. they are on women on temporary assistance for needy family. lost in that, if you can call that and some media outlet about the overpaid benefit-laden privileged protected, pamplered, public sector employee is the fact there is a huge underclass only recently organized at the

second tier a recently unionized public sector employment who are losing their right and acquired. the case in ohio is already with a stroke of pen destroyed two units. one asked me when sciu a big group of home health care aids at risk in wisconsin and so on in other states. within the public sector at all level within the occupational structure, workers are coming together, aligned with students with the community. with what remains a private sector union activism to fend off the attacks. one of the things that i think is most inspiring is seeing the bottom up solidarity seeing the rank and file initiative. seeing the cross union networking. seeing people voicing their

opposition to the attack on collective bargaining in has actions that we haven't seen since public employees first got organized in the '60s and '70s industrial workers had the great upsurge in the 1930. the question is how do we constitutionalize that? how do the activist networking hopefully being created by the mobilization in the midwest and elsewhere survive? when and if some of their unions lose bargaining right, and that's, i think, a challenging topic for conversation tonight. let me just say i think we would been in a stronger position to fend off the attacks if we had not had the string of costly disastrous and devisive of interunion conflict described in civil war. the story, it's a sad one, begin with the conflict and over home care workers in a number of

states in 2005. it moves on to the raging battle between the nurses who are the anchor for national nurses united and sciu in health care facilities in a number of states including california, nevada, ohio. the development of a reform movement -- which i felt was a long overdue and healthy development in 2008 lead by our good friend sal. the president of the united health care workers west, the largest affiliate. a 50,000 local very dynamic -- a kind of organization that any union certainly cwa would have loved to have as part of its union when uhw with a help of a number of people in this room began to networking and build a

broader teamster for democratic reform. reform caucus within sciu and challenge the leadership with the san juan convention at puerto rico in 2008. they essentially set the stage for a leadership crackdown, the imposition quite literally of marshall law two years ago in california and served other sciu leaders removed 100 elective leader of -- and basically opened the local removed hundred of stewards in the second largest in labor history. at the same time even though they were both part of the dynamic new labor federation known as change to win. sci u-turned the guns on the hotel worker side of the fellow founding union changed to win. unleashing another whole front of civil warfare while it was

going on in the mainland here, we had the sciu attack on the puerto rican teachers three years ago. 43,000 teachers and militant independent union went on on island-wide strike under the laws in effect in puerto rico. the union was desert fied. when it took a strike vote. the then governor of puerto rico refuse -- and a lot of support in puerto rico. it was under the critical issue of privatization of the school. sciu when represents school isn't about to and principal and other school employees was well positioned to provide sol -- solidarity. they tried to caught deal with the then-indicted governor to replace the fmpr, the whole sci uconn venges in 2008 in puerto

rico was designed to build that campaign. the fmpr was excluded from the ballot when there was a vote on the question in the fall of 2008 and the puerto rican teachers voted no. rejected the raid and thousand pay deuce voluntarily which continues to struggle on net yet having restored bargaining right. the whole series of interand intraunion conflict which i estimate result in the expenditure for about $140 million when you add up the cost of all of those involved, came at the very inopportune moment. it came at the moment we were told in the fall of 2008, was going to be pregnant with political opportunity. the first two years the obama administration we were going to achieve our two highest priority. real health care reform and strengthening the national labor

act. in civil wars, i argue, i think we have considerable evidence that both of those critical campaigns were very much undermined by this internal dysfunction and the civil wars described to the group. up next author and film maker michael moore a former editor of "mother jones magazine." talk about the economical, political social crisis. concentrating on the situation in michigan. all this in recognition of labor day on monday. >> guest: i think there's a protest that is, again, about ready to boil over. it's going to come from all corners. it's going come from seniors. it's going come from autoworkers. it's going come -- the subway conductors and bus drivers in new york city voted to join the protest on wall street. the head of the flcio gave his backing to the protests a couple

of days ago on c-span. i think you're going see it's going to grow to a larger thing. there's so many millions of people who have lost their pensions, who have lost their jobs and health care who have lost their homes because of no health care or the insurance company wouldn't pay the medical bills. it's one of the top reason people go bankrupt is because of medical bills. you have so much suffering and so many millions of people. i don't honestly know why the rich have overpaid their -- why they made life so difficult for so many million of middle class people who used to support them. vote finish the candidates and didn't have a problem with them being rich. yes, you invented that or started you built that factory. i have no problem with you being rich. i get to have any house, car, vacation, my kids have health care. they're going college. i have a good life. you have your yacht going down the pa towic.

fine. when we were growing up, the wealthy were paying 50, 60, 70, 80, 90 percent in health care tax. i seem to remember the ones in my state, if you -- [inaudible] pretty good life. even though you're paying all the taxes, and you made sure that the working people had a good life too. that was your best -- protection so you can have your yacht, mansion, and jet. nobody bothered you with that. everybody else got to live. they had a good life and health care and these things. i have, for the life of me, no idea why they would upset that. the rich. why they would allow the middle class to be exterminated and to be shoved back to a place of not

knowing from month to month not knowing whether they're going to be getting by. it's going end up being the ruin for the wealthy class, the wreath, and the banks. they are going go why did we have to get so greedy? why do we have to make $8 billion. now there are all the streets and elect democrats or worse. so it's if anyone has the answer. >> i will tell them -- in case you are interested. in 1996, michael moore wrown -- part of what he wrote was to protect ourself -- this is in 1996, we should prohibit corporations from closing a profitable fact i are or business and moving it overseas.

prohibit companies from pitting one state or city against another. institute a 100% tax on any profits gained by shareholders when the company stock god up do to an an announcement of firing. prohibit executive salaries from being more than thirty times grearlt than the average employee's pay. and require board of directors of publicly owned corporation to have representation from both workers and consumers. next call from michael moore coming from tony orange, california. ged. >> caller: thank you, mr. moore. it's an honor to speak with you. you don't sugar coat anything. basically, i would like to get your opinion or brief commentary inas far as american foreign policy in reference to iran and how that is shaping to arab spring.

because, you know, for example libya and syria. you have have embassies that the u.s. trying to open and the iranians are trying to open up as well to have the near future influence. and, by the way, you're right. iran is a democracy, it is a parallel with islam and the e-mail that the gentleman that it would be a coup if you went there, i don't think he had his morning coffee. the iranians are hospitable people. they will welcome you with open arms. thank you, mr. moore. you have a good one.. >> guest: yes. the -- what has happened in the middle east this past year has been incredible. absolutely incredible, and of course, you know, the line is we're always, you know, seemingly on the wrong side or actually on the wrong side, but

took us awhile to get the idea what was going on in egypt. then we got behind. it they were doing peacefully. when they were doing it with arm and weapons and bombs in libya. we were right there right away. but when you look at countries like bahrain, our fifth fleet is based people out in the street practically every day. people being shot, you know, one phone call from the president. this little country their economy exists in large part because we fund so we can base our fleet there could take care of this problem. i don't know why we don't do more of that? i think all people want to live in peace. i think dictators are a bad idea. i think countries where they are based on a religion and the -- the theocracy, i think, those

-- i just think it doesn't allow for the people who aren't part of it. and so and the case of iran, you know, yes, you have democratic elections and all of that, and that's why in that last election with there was -- ahmadinejad with the questioning about how the votes were counted. he was elected in privates election. there was no dispute about that. there was a dispute about the election. people took to the street about it, and again, you know, the kind of help we need to -- there's a lot of moral help. i was in actually in a cab the other day in new york city, and i had an egyptian cab driver, and he said to me, i want to thank america and canada. i said, okay. [laughter] you're welcome. [laughter] why? because of the iphone and

twitter and the revolution. for the technology you gave us. thank you for that! we do, actually, a lot of good things about us maybe we can enforce for good the things we have and the ideas we are are great sometimes. i would like to see more good things done in our name. >> host: speaking of twitter, mr. moore. the tweet from venezuela. what are your thought on the administration of hue georgia cho vees on vens are they invading for the oil? >> guest: they are concerned about any place that has oil. we use 25% of the world's oil even though we're only 5% of the population. so, yeah, so if you have oil, we're coming. in one form or another. but in all seriousness, i hope it's not the case with

venezuela, and but i think there is a lot of attention on venezuela as opposed other countries in south america because of that. >> host: the next call from andrew in albany, new york. >> caller: i'm originally from detroit. my grand parent were immigrant autoworkers. i used to ride the bus in inner-city detroit with my grandmother in the summer time when she was laid off to go to the unemployment office with her and stand in line. and the buses were still segregated in detroit at that time, and for those people that, you know, don't resonate well with michael moore, i think if they go to michigan and visit michigan, and see the perspective that people like michael moore came from, they can appreciate better the work that he does. i had some friends who took a

vacation in michigan last year, and when they came home they said the entire state of michigan was for sale. all the people had their stuff out on their front lawn for sale. and said if they had some money they could have bought some really good stuff from the down and out people in michigan. so the people that don't understand where michael moore comes from, i would encourage them to take a visit to michigan and i live on the east coast now, and i first read mike's books "stupid white man." he gave instructions to go a democratic committee meeting in your town, because nobody else was. >> guest: yes, i did. and i think that people need to get involved on even the smallest level.

running for precinct delegate. if you go to your county democratic party meeting there might only be ten people there. you can bring twelve friends and become your county's democratic party. he's right about michigan. the most people don't go to michigan. you never pass through it. we are on a peninsula. you don't drive across the lake on the way east or we. the only time you might be in g.a.b. if you're from there or have relatives or changing planes in detroit. that is most people's encounter with michigan. we are in a depression. we have been in a depression now for years. now a recession. we've had essential lay one-state depression. it is brutal. up in northern michigan where i live, rural areas in the last year or so the unofficial -- has some 16, 18, 20% officially.

you know it's higher. you know it's much higher than that. and there's an elementary school there where i live where 79% of the school children are eligible for the federal school lunch program. their family lives in pouf -- poverty. it's not downtown detroit. it's up in the woods of northern michigan. we're showing you portions american labor and union in recognition of labor day on monday. steven greene hunt takes a look at workers. >> i'm not afraid we're becoming slaves. i'm afraid we're becoming a nation of people who wait in line and follow these endless rules. and the whole machinery of government that controls everything is run by a bunch of coatle class of workers who retire the at age 50 with a $100,000 pension.

that's the kind of world i think we are creating. and in the book those are kind of light example. my book goes to some serious examples the financial examples, the sub head is public employee union are raiding treasury. which they are doing. controlling our lives. they have a lot of control especially these are government employees who have a lot of control over our everyday lives. and they are bankrupting the nation. we can't afford to continue to do what we're doing. so that's my big concern. you know, the old deal was that government employees get lower pay; right? they would get somewhat better benefit and job security. that was the old day. i don't think there were quiet some government workers. the new deal they retire with large salaries. the california foundation for fiscal responsibility has

$100,000 pension club. in california it's more than 10,000 people. and there a lot more that are close to that. so that is the new deal. and they get cost of living adjustments. they get free health care. free courtesy of the taxpayers and better pay. especially federal employees who get better pay. that's the new deal. it's a troubling new deal. they get fewer working hours. i know, a lot of officials especially in police agencies have the 3-12 work schedules. they work fewer days because of stress. that was the excuse we can't work as many dais because the stress from our job. they have the days off. so what do they do? they work overtime, then in orange county, that has pushed a lot of deputy's salaries to $150,000 and more. a typical deputy because of overtime gets $100,000. try going city hall on friday.

they are often closed fridayings or every other fridays. that's because of the deal given to the public employees. they get more time off. they get everything. they get more time off. they get more paid holiday plus they get special protection. that's another theme in the book. the special protection are very troubling. for instance, consider the iran -- ironclad job security public employees have. often they feel superior to us also. i was reading in california the state legislature passed a special week celebrating public employees with and an example i use in my book. i wrote about how as a kid i citied my mom, on mother's day, i said, how come there's no children's day? and she started laughing, and i pressed her for it. she said the reason there's no children's day is every day is children's day. we don't need special weeks

celebrating public employees. severed public employee day. and they get it all. and i'm looking at the couple of public employees who are smiling, but there is a certain truth to that. and, by the way, the government is still hiring despite in the public sector is getting -- laying off and cutting salary. but the government is still hiring at the federal and state level. there have been some cut back and furlough. they do furlough friday, and make a big deal of it. at least traffic is low. but despite some of these things, the government is still hiring and ebb up and downing and those cutbacks have been far less severe than what people in the private sector get. so how bad is it? we're in a world in orange county a firefighter often total benefit and pay package is $17

5,000 a year. we have city managers making $27 5,000. $300 ,000 a year. they tell me they are like fortune 500 executives. well, they get paid that way. i don't the bureaucratic jobs really are the equivalent of running a entrepreneurial enterprise where there is some risk and where you can actually get fired and not that i don't think their share of incompetent ceo. at least it's with private money. and there's a expanding class of public safety workers. public safety workers in the state in many jurisdictions get what is called 3% of 50 which means they can retire with 90% more of their final year's pay available as early as age 50. if you have a lot of folks working at 20 you get. in california they do it based

on the final year pay not the average three years like in some other state and available as early as age 50. in orange county general public employee in the county government can retire. 2.7 of a. they get 81% of the final year pay available at 55. check your own 401(k) plan. you get nothing like that, and then the public safety is expanding class i know that the cooks at the prison system wanted to be considered public safety also. i'm not sure they got it. i know, there's a constant pushing of the eni have throap expand the class of people that qualify for the high level of benefit. one is unfunded pension liability. a very banal sounding term. it's the debt that our kid and grand kids have to pay to make good on the promises that city council members and

supervisorrers make to these unions that are quite demanding. once a deal is granted. no matter how false the premise of the deal. it the union comes before a city council and promises that it won't -- this new retroactive pension increase won't cost anything and it turns out they weren't being exactly truthful. i know, that's shocking a union might be anything less than truthful. it doesn't matter. once the deal is granted, it's a vested benefit that must be paid for the thirty years or so of the life of the contract. we get the exploding debt. it's very expensive. the city in the bay area has gone bankrupt and 75% or 80% went to police and fire. that's an enormous part of the budget. and the unions, their approach is to make it more difficult for municipality to declare

bankruptcy. they would like to see an endless sea of -- they don't want to cut back the benefit. the enormous pension program -- it's not enough apparently. there are all sort of pension spiking scheme that public employees will employ to increase their already high level of benefits. there's something called a draw program to defer retirement option plan, which according to gerard miller of "the governing magazine." it's for executives. having a drop program it's a form double dipping you're at retirement agency. the age wants to continue working. you want to continue working. you get the full retirement and full pay, and part of it goes to a deferred account you get when you really do retire. he said it's a sign that the requirement program are too rich. if your system is encouraging do you retire and you still want to

work and your employer still wants you to work, then it's absurd. but these are the kind of programs that have gone forward thanks to the power of the union. air time benefit where public employees can buy additional requirement time, and it never pays for itself. there are various double dipping scheme. i cover in the book even public employees who are convicted of crimes. they still often get paid their pension. then of course, the disability scam. and the sacramento bee reported that 82% of california highway patrol officers at the chief level, they discover a disability about a year from retirement and gives them a extra year off and protects 50% of their pay from taxes until they leave this effort, and that, you know, whenever. and their spouse.

it's often. they're not for taking bullets for bad guys. back injuries, irritable bowel syndrome. i've seen it a few times. retroactively they are granted, which means that public employees are just about to retire, the city councils here in orange county the board of directors twice voted far retroactive deal. i'm about to retire tomorrow and the board grants me going to an increase the day i started working. there's no value to the taxpayer. there's no value to the agency. often it harms the younger workers they have to pay more of a contribution to pay for the guys that retire. they gate massive gift of public funds. there's no excuse for that. it's a way to buyoff union support. it speaks to the power of the public sector unions. these are the type of things that are going on for years.

especially in the last ten years, when the massive increases have taken place it's very hard to turn the tide on this. then here is a great benefit that public employees get that i'm sure none of us who are not public employees don't get. you can't get fired. that's pretty good benefit. and the l.a. times did a great investigative journalism series on the los angeles unified school direct, and how they don't try to fire incompetent. there's no trying. but the degenerate teachers accused of dealing drugs, all sort of amazing things, it takes years sometimes ten to twelve years to get rid of these people because of the long elaborate union process that sticks up for the bad actors at every case. so imagine running your own business in a way where you can't even thinking about firing incompetent. if you have some bad people

working for you, it's going take you years and many thousands of dollars to fight that. and thanks to the union, the public schools have what are called rubber rooms. the people go. they are taken out of the classroom and paid their salary and benefits and sit in a room all day year in and year out. it's a pretty crazy situation. one infans the "times" referred to. there was a teacher making fun of a student who came back from a suicide attempt, and saying to him in front of the class, he was making fun of the kids saying you're so stupid. you can't even kill yourself right something to that effect. they tried to fire him. and to no avail. mallory factor talk about the government employee union and the negative impact they've had on policy making. it's next on the collection of american labor and unions. for years i have written and

spoken about the growing national debt, and investigated why government that is grown beyond the means. i've been sounding that alarm for years, and it's spent a lot of time looking at the root cause of the excessive spending. what i discovered is that shadow bosses are setting the agenda. they're setting the agenda in congress, in our state house. setting the expwreand on city council and school boards as james put before. it's really about our government spending too much on government employees hiring too many and paying them too much. in is how i got to the subject of government employee unions. i began exploring how these government employee union to increase spending on government employees which, by the way, increases their dues income and gives them more money to spend

on politics. it's this cycle. this corrupt cycle of political spending which benefits government employee unions far more than it benefits the government employees. it drives our nation in to debt. that's why i explored the topic. coming to the room somebody said what is a shadow boss. i'm going to try to explain it to you. what is a shadow boss have to do with government employee communions communion? our lives our shadow bosses are the people that we really work for. the poem that hold us scbl for the decisions we make in our lives. it's our fathers tells us to study harder so we have a chance for a bright future. our mothers. pressing us to stay out of

trouble it's our football coaches sending sending in play from the sideline. for many of us, god is our shadow boss. giving us a plan for action we ought to take and the cobs consequenceses if we don't. unfortunately, as i found writing this book for many of our political leaders their shadow bosses are the government employee union bosses. these bosses tell them what to do, which legislation to support and when to bend to the demand of the union and contract negotiations. the shadow bosses are there to pat politicians on the back, and to tear them down when they don't do things in their interest. it is shocking to me but not the people like james shirk over here, that over twenty million people work for government.

and 41% 77 those people are represented by a union. government workers are five times as unionized as private employees and far less than that are actually union members. but the rate of unionization, interestingly enough, varies by state and profession. in twenty states, less than 20% of government employee unions are members. in fifteen states more than 50% are union members. now, who are these union members? they are teachers. they are fireman, police and postal workers. they are among the most unionized. government unions rent almost every type of union worker. including federal border patrol

agents. civilian employees in the military, officer workers and state and local government, university professors, graduate student assistants, even zoo keepers. government is the growth area for unions. when you compare with the private sector, of course. and just to give you some kind of an idea, and this is a number that mr. shirk developed here at heritage. there are over 200,000219,000 in just the post office there's 477,000 union members. almost two and a half times the entire auto industry in just the post office! what does it really mean for our nation? many americans feel we lost control our government and politicians no longer answer to

the american people, and there's a good reason they feel this way. government employee union have a huge influence over our political system and they're driving big government spending in over regulation of our economy. in the little time we have remaining. i want it open for questions and answers. i'm going it give you seven of the policy concern we have raised about "shadowbosses: government unions control america and rob taxpayers blind." i'm going hit on seven of them. number one, union draw, unions drive excessive spending on government employees. i don't know if you realize this, but the private sector union have to make sure their demands are not so great, that the private employer goes out of business; right? well, outrageous concession to union don't drive the government out of business. they don't make union member lose their job. the government will always be in business.

unwill the union contracts just make government immensely bigger. , more expensive, create debt and bankrupt our city states and ultimately our federal government. and they are more burdensome on taxpayers. two, unions are private organizations and we give them special benefits and treatment from our government. it's important realize they are private organizations. they are not there for the public good. government employee unions get their business directly from our government, but they are not part of the government themselves. unions represent government employees because it's their business represent them. not because they are working for the public good. the problem is that our government elevates one private group government employee unions out of proportion to anyone else.

taxpayers, citizen, even union members. we all know and we all believe strongly in our right to speak under the first amendment -- would you agree with me? but you don't have a right to be listened to unless you're a government employee union. when you petition the government, for example, you have a right to talk. but the government doesn't have a right listen to you. doesn't have the right to listen to you. there's a group that does have that right from government to be listened to. with collective bargaining, public officials are forced to bargain with the union. they can't just ignore their demands and walk away. they -- they don't have to bargain with taxpayers. they don't have to bargain with any other group. they have to bargain with the union. we must never forget that unions are businesses that are run for the benefit of their members. and union bosses, not american

workers, is who they run it for. our nation is in deep trouble because of this. government unions even get subsidizes from taxpayers. the american taxpayer unwittily is paying government workers for huge amounts of time to do government work. while they do union work. in "shadowbosses: government unions control america and rob taxpayers blind," we put the number together, according to official government reports, federal employees spend over 3 million hours. this is in 2010 statistics on official time which moons they're getting paid to work for the government but they're doing union work instead. that cost the taxpayers at least $127 million in salary and benefit. when you put in state and local county you are looking at 23

million man hours a year at the cost of over $1 billion. that's a direct subsidize. we're not including all the other subsidizes like giving them office space, giving them copiers, letting them use telephones, as well as a number of other items that we subsidize them with. in the time when we're cutting back teachers, cutting back workers and high unemployment. why are we spending a billion dollars a year just to subsidize these unions who take in multiple billions of dollars a year? an interesting fact we found, even -- most of you know that tsa was recently unionized. before tsa was unionized. we found a report in minute of homeland security. homeland security alone, before

tsa, had 62 members of home land security, full-time working on union business. getting paid to do homeland security work. come right from their own notes. that's just shocking. now, the reason i'm not revealing other agencies' numbers because they don't reveal them. they don't talk about how many employees. nationwide that 23 million man hours is staggering. i'm being redundant. it's mind boggling at this time in our society that we do this. it's called official time, and it's part of the u.s. code. now, by the way, for those who want to know, it's five u.s. c3171 on a federal basis. number four, unions corrupt our political process. government unions aren't just bankrupting our country, they're

also comprising our system of free elections. government unions use boughten tape -- the path legislation granting them unending benefits. government employee unions like to say they get to -- and i quote them, elect their own bosses. they actually put in to power people who will make all the decisions about their salaries, benefits, work rules, and they -- laws, regulations that govern themselves. and if these politicians don't perform, guess what? they throw them out and put their money behind somebody else. you can watch this and other programs online at booktv.org. we want introduce do you first-time author randy disuk berg. new book coming out in the first. >> a double author! >>w exciting is that?