Moreover, taxpayers do not pay for union business the employees do. Release time is a negotiated portion of a labor contract that would have been part of a employees salary had they not elected to defer that money towards release time. I am also unsure as to how a simple paycheck deduction constitutes “doing the unions accounting for them” Car payments can be deducted from a paycheck but I certainly don’t hear anyone claiming that equates to doing a credit unions accounting for them.

In answer to your question, yes I am a municipal union member and a proud one at that. This is likely the reason I am aware of how things really are as opposed to simply believing the large amount of rhetoric and misinformation that these bills are based upon. I urge you to do some research and learn the true facts. You might just find that the people who ensure you live in a safe and civilized society are anything but “goons”

For them to tell me how much I will pay in taxes to support their forced raises and benefits irritates me. And for them to tell the State that the State will do the unions accounting for them as well as pay members of that union to do union business on my tax dollar demonstrates the gall these union goons have.

I support SB 1142 and it needs to pass.

When you read between the lines on all of the anti-labor bills it is very clear that none of them serve the taxpayer in any way as proponents contend. This is exactly the sort of petty, do nothing, hate-baiting nonsense we have grown to expect from Republicans in Arizona. This is also the primary reason former Republicans such as myself have distanced themselves from the party and registered independent.

There are plenty more pressing issues in need of the legislatures attention than waging war for political purposes on the working men and women of Arizona.

Republicans again are shooting themselves in the foot. When one looks at membership in firefighter and police associations, the majority of their members are Republican, many are NRA members and support hunting, among other items and they and their families tend to vote regularly. Push them away with needless regulations does nothing for the Republican brand.

I’d rather see the Legislature working overtime on jobs, job creation, fair taxation and how to better fund our public educations system that causes more jobs and industry to come to Arizona. We don’t need a state handgun, state tie or another state symbol. We need every waking hour of a Legislator spent on the critical economic issues at hand.

Such bills may make some groups philosophically feel better, but in a state that is right to work, does not allow for public employee collective bargaining and its public safety employees, in particular, are largely Republican, where’s the issue?