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Today's unions feed off themselves

Over the past few days, we have read stories about police negotiations in Naperville, Prospect Heights and Lake in the Hills. Raises of 3 percent a year? Nine percent over three years? Layoffs of fellow officers because of their own union's negotiations?

Arbitrators must be walking around with paper bags over their heads to come up with the solution they did in Lake in the Hills. A union is defined by Wikipedia as “an organization of workers that have banded together to achieve common goals.” What kind of protection is being provided by the unions when some members get laid off so that the remainder can have their cake and eat it, too?

What other workers are getting 3-percent raises per year in this day and age?

How can these cake eaters look at their fellow union members knowing they are working off their fellow members' backs? So once again, the lawyers get fatter and the taxpayer gets leaner.

“Our View” states “There must be a better way.” Unions were once needed to protect workers from horrible abuses. That was ages ago. Now union members are feeding off their own. When an organization starts doing that, it will not survive.

I have never been a union member. I sleep well every night knowing that when I got a raise in pay, my fellow worker did not lose his or her job. And when I got a raise, it was because I earned it myself, and did not have to pay dues to have someone get my raise for me. And if I didn't get a raise, I didn't cry to someone. I got another job and then quit.

Message to “Our View” there is always another way.

Sue Tiedeman

Elgin