Labor Unions valdalize school locks hours before Gov. Walker visit

Custodial staff at Messmer Preparatory school were replacing locks Friday morning after the previous ones had been filled with metal and glue overnight, said the school's Development Director Jeffrey Robb.

"We're very disappointed," he said.

The vandalism came hours before Gov. Scott Walker was scheduled to visit the school to read to second- and third-graders. Walker plans to read, "Oh! The Places You'll Go," by Dr. Seuss.

"This visit is talking about education," Robb said, but there have been political elements brought into it. Robb said that cars lined the street by the school sporting anti-Walker signs Friday morning.

Protesters plan to be at the school during Walker's visit, according to Jacob Flom of the Milwaukee Students for a Democratic Society.

"We're not going to let him go anywhere, especially in our community, without him being protested," he said.

Flom said he doesn't know who's behind the vandalism[ROFL!], but acts such as that aren't effective for the protesters' cause. Instead, he said, a better way to be effective is for people to show up in support of the protest.

MJS

In related news, John Huebscher the WCC director wrote kind of a tribute to labor unions historically for The Compass(GB).  He is right.  Labor Unions did help defend rights of the working class.  In stark contrast, the behavior of the public sector unions of today is nothing short of shameful(unlike many good unions today and the their noble predecessors of the past).  Particularly when you look at the amount of vacation time the WEAC receives, they can in absolutely no way relate to the railroad unions of the past(referenced in the article).  It is important that despite the fact that these unions atrocious behavior recently, that moral labor unions are certainly something we should support and be grateful. 

US Catholic: In defense of Wisconsin public sector unions

The question in Wisconsin was whether public employees should have the same right to collective bargaining as employees at private companies. The 1935 U.S. National Labor Relations Act officially recognized the right to collective bargaining for private-sector workers. Critics argue that public employees inherently have more leverage than employees of private businesses. Public employees can elect their own bosses. What’s more, public-sector workers won’t moderate their demands for fear that their employer—the government—will go bankrupt in the same way that private-sector employees must do.

“One has to make a distinction between unions as they were conceived in social teaching and unions that exist on the basis of taxpayer funding,” says Patrick Carey, professor of theology at Milwaukee’s Marquette University.

.....

The following day, Bishop Robert Morlino of Madison issued a clarifying letter. Listecki and the Wisconsin Catholic Conference, Morlino wrote, had taken a neutral position, neither supporting the governor nor supporting the unions. He quoted Pope John Paul II’s Laborem Exercens: “Just efforts to secure the rights of workers who are united by the same profession should always take into account the limitations imposed by the general economic situation of the country.”

Right-wing bloggers praised Morlino for reining in the Wisconsin Catholic Conference’s support for the unions. The media cited his comments as evidence of divisions within the hierarchy.

“People may say the bishops cherry-picked from the encyclicals,” says John Huebscher, executive director of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference. “The answer is to urge people to go read the encyclicals for themselves.”  [Isn't the bishops' office a teaching office?]

“As Catholics have become more affluent, the church’s teachings sometimes bump up against a Catholic’s economic self-interest,” says Huebscher of the Wisconsin Catholic Conference. “So the church has a greater challenge in teaching.”

Huebscher thinks the church is teaching the social encyclicals, but the evidence is sketchy. “How many laypeople have ever been taught anything about the Catholic encyclicals?” asks Marquette’s Carey.[We know all Marquette grads have Humane Vitae memorized] “It doesn’t surprise me that Catholic laypeople don’t necessarily support unions. The culture can teach more easily by osmosis than the church can.”

“When I talk with priests around the country, they say the church’s social teaching is the subject they feel least comfortable addressing,” says Father Bryan Massingale, associate professor of theology at Marquette.[Less comfortable than gay marriage apparently] “They tell me their two weakest courses in seminary were homiletics and social justice.”

entire article at US Catholic

US Catholic = NC Reporter.  Liberalism is their religion.  It is very telling that they are still trying to spin Listecki as unconditionally supporting unlimited bargaining for public sector unions, despite the fact Listecki clarified his own statement as neutral.  Count how many times Rerum Novarum is referenced without ever quoting it. 

Want to "get" Catholic Social Teaching? Read Regnum Novum, and check out Mr. Gutierrez' section on Catholic Social Teaching at Discerning Hearts.

Not discussed in the article was the public sector union's firm support of abortion, same-sex marriage, contraception without parental consent, and pornographic sex education beginning at early as kindergarten.

You think politics in Washington is bad?  Try politics within the Church!