If anyone didn't already think that the GOP's union busting at the state level wasn't bad enough already with making sure the last of what we've got left with workers in any sector of the American workforce having the right to negotiate for their wages and benefits, apparently presidential candidate Rick Santorum thinks that those public sector unions should just be eliminated all together with these comments during the Fox GOP debate in Florida this week.
KELLY: That's for you, Senator Santorum.
SANTORUM: I -- I think the most important area that we have to focus in on when it comes to unions is public employee unions. That's the area of unionization that's growing the fastest and it's costing us the most money.
We've seen these battles on the state level, where unions have -- have really bankrupted states from pension plans to here on the federal level, for example, 30 percent to 40 percent union -- union employees make above their private-sector equivalents.
I do not believe that -- that state, federal or local workers, unions, should be involved in unions. And I would actually support a bill that says that we should not have public employee unions for the purposes of wages and benefits to be negotiated.
It's bad enough that we've got record income disparity in the United States with the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, but Santorum and his buddies in the GOP would like to assure that one of the last institutions we've got out there trying to do anything to bring some balance back to that equation is eliminated.
Santorum may be considered on the fringe of these Republican nominees for the 2012 presidential race, but his hatred of unions is shared by all of them. There's not a single one of them that were on that stage during this debate that don't want to assure that the race to the bottom we're seeing on wages, income disparity and workers' rights aren't made worse by the policies they're promoting.
And if you needed any more proof that the so-called front runners are just as far off the charts when it comes to union busting and attacking union members, here's Rick Perry advocating for school "choice", which is nothing more than making sure we bankrupt the public school systems in America, and Mitt Romney claiming that advocating for smaller classrooms is just some evil ploy by the teachers' unions to make sure more of them are hired.
Video below the fold.
