Article: Union: To the Detriment of My Town.

My grandfather, Nelson "Pete" Gilliam taught me a very valuable lesson long ago when I was just starting school. I needed pencils for class so he took me into his room and showed me a big box he had in his closet. He opened it up and showed me what was inside. Nothing but pencils were in that box... every single one of the same. They were all yellow with Shell Chemical written on each one of them. He said, "I worked for Shell for about 50 years, and each and every day... I'd bring a pencil home with me and put it in this box. No one notices if you take just a little bit every day... but if I would have taken them all at once... I would have been fired. Instead they gave me gold and a pension." Then he said something in a way that I even as a child could understand. He said, "That's what Unions and Politicians do... they skim just a little off the top all the time... and no one notices. Both empower each other and they wash each others hands. The Unions get the politicians elected... and the politicians give the Unions jobs and contracts... so that they can hire more Union workers and tell them who to vote for. They scare them and tell them if they don't vote for so and so... they will probably lose their good paying Union jobs."

I've had lots of time to reflect on that conversation that my grandfather had with me, and what he said then... could not be more true today.

Unions started out as a good idea, to improve the working conditions of factory and industrial workers. Quickly though... they became part of the problem as they ventured into politics. It's not a good thing to vote how you are told to vote. Most Union members do just that, they vote in blocks according to who their Union supports. That gets a little scary when you realize just how many Union employees vote in any given election.

Unions in my part of the country install whichever candidate they want... whichever candidate is connected. It's a racket that has been killing my once beautiful town for years.

Year after year... every Mayor that has been elected in La Porte, Texas has been elected solely because of the influence the Unions have in the area.

Each Mayor has been from the same group of people... the same clique... year after year.

That is exactly why Barry Beasley, an AT&T Lobbyist was elected in the last election earlier this year.

He certainly was not elected because of his failure to even show up at the La Porte Police Officers Meeting where they were SUPPOSED to decide who the police union was going to vote for as Mayor..

That's right! Barry Beasley did not even show up for the meeting! I did not even think he was going to be elected... I thought Tod Powell was going to be elected.

I was shocked when I heard Barry had won... obviously the police union had told him they were going to vote for him... BEFORE the meeting!

Why else would he have not even bothered to show up?

And why else would the police union have decided to vote for him?

Unions vote for who they are told to vote for!

About 1800 people voted in that election... a little over 1300 voted for Barry Beasley. The rest of the votes were split over the other two candidates and myself with the majority of those going to Ted Powell.

There are over 35,000 residents of La Porte, Texas.

Most all of the people who voted for Beasley were Union members or family of Union members, City employees, industrial and Port workers, Firemen and Police officers.

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