by Stingray SFO (3% Oath Keeper) on February 25, 2012 http://patriotsforamerica.ning.com/forum/topic/show?id=2734278:Topic:334813&xgs=1&xg_source=msg_share_topic

Who’s the most responsible party for causing the economic issues happening across the country? AND, WHO’S responsible for creating roadblocks to any hope of economic sanity????
Maybe, just maybe, Americans will finally begin to see the damage that UNIONS have and are causing to any hope of financial responsibility on the part of local governments. Faced with bankruptcy, and severe employee cutbacks, many towns and cities have asked for a LITTLE help form volunteers, but to their surprise are finding that people are more than willing to step up and lend a hand, FOR NOTHING but the satisfaction of doing SOMETHING to help others! THAT IS WHAT THE AMERICAN SPIRIT IS ALL ABOUT!!!
But then comes the unions, the ‘organizers’, the so-called ‘protectors’ of the working people. Would they step up and offer their services? NOT A CHANCE! They want to cut it all off!!!! After all, it’s cutting into ‘their’ peoples livelihoods (actually the union bosses pockets). Where a city, forced to cut back their maintenance force for cleanup and gardening service in their parks and buildings, received an outpouring of volunteer help to perform those tasks, the city employees union threatened law suits against the city unless the volunteers were prevented from using any kind of machinery or tools. A senior center, forced to cut back staff and days of service, and possible closure, has received an overwhelming response from volunteers doing everything from cooking meals, cleanup, transportation, and clerical work to assisting seniors with their everyday problems of life.
The union response…..’if our members cannot work there and get paid a ‘living’ wage, they should not be allowed to use volunteers’.
Another city, forced to lay-off 1/3 of their police officers, now have a force TWICE THE SIZE, as VOLUNTEER officers have filled the gap, and then some!

Volunteers save cities billions, but unions cry foul

With budgets tighter than ever, cities across America are increasingly looking for more free labor. Nowhere is that trend more evident than Yakima, Wash.

“More and more every year, a large part of what we do is volunteers,” says Archie Matthews, Yakima’s director of neighborhood development services, “It saves us a ton of money.”

Matthews says begging for volunteers is not beneath him. And to his surprise, he usually gets them. Once signed up, they do a variety of tasks, including construction work for low-income housing, painting over gang graffiti and keeping senior centers from having to close their doors.
Mary Lizotte, 74, volunteers eight hours a week at a senior center, where the paid staff has been trimmed to just three employees.

“We’ve been faced with cuts in the budget and threatened to be closed down a couple of days a week,” Lizotte said. “It’s not only good for them, it’s good for us volunteers.” The center is able to stay open seven days a week with volunteers doing everything from clerical work to preparing and serving the food.

According to a Volunteering in America study, last year 63 million Americans volunteered more than eight billion hours. When you calculate average wages and benefits for city employees, local governments saved $173 billion.
In many places churches are leading the way. “We’re at a time when, as citizens we need to be giving ourselves away freely to serve our communities,” says Dave Edler, pastor at Yakima’s Foursquare Church which held a park cleanup with several hundred volunteers recently.

But not everyone is thrilled about the civic spirit. Some unions are pushing back, fearing volunteers are cutting into their territory. “They’re eroding the number of hours for our people,” says Ian Gordon of Laborer’s Union 1239 in Seattle. “It’s of great concern that they might be doing further work that we would normally do.”