Last month’s unlawful strike “sick day” by Lake Washington Educational Support Personnel (LWESP) offers excellent local insight into the thinking of union leaders and danger posed by the union movement in Washington state.

In justifying the “sick day,” LWESP member Sheila Nokes stated, “It’s true that an unusually high number of employees were out sick (March 8) because they didn’t go the extra mile that has become normal.”

She went on to criticize the use of school district funds for holding an out-of-town strategy meeting and added the snarky comment, “which would parents say is more important in the budget? The warm and smiling secretary who helps out in the health room and gets their students on the bus safely, or keeping communications administrators on the payroll to criticize their own staff members?”

In these comments, Nokes demonstrates an arrogance and contempt for the school district, the taxpayers that help pay secretary salaries, and the laws of the state.

It gives Redmond residents an understanding of why Boeing became so disgusted with the machinists union that it decided to start moving its operations to South Carolina. This glimpse into the union mentality in government is only the tip of a much broader problem.

This destructive union mentality has infected our state government as well. After her 2004 election, Governor Gregoire quickly pushed through one of the biggest pay increases for state union workers (SEIU) in the nation’s history. Many state union workers received more than a 25 percent wage increase as a direct result of her actions.

These changes have cost the state almost $1 billion per year ever since. Today, while almost 20 percent of Washington workers are out of work, and many others have accepted wage decreases or furloughs, the state’s union workers keep raking it in.

Gov. Gregoire and the Legislature plan no effort to correct their mistakes with the SEIU. Instead, they plan to create new taxes to fund the union- fueled state budget.

How can this be? Simple: the SEIU has been one of the governor’s biggest contributors. Along with the Washington Labor Federation, they funded most of the governor’s 2005 vote recount effort. They have since contributed massive amounts to the campaigns of top Democrat elected officials in the state legislature. To fund this, they convinced the Legislature to give them collective bargaining rights that more than doubled their membership and cash position.

It is a dangerous cycle that has unions and politicians winning, and taxpayers losing. How can taxpayers protect themselves from this infection?

We need leaders who will stand up to unions like the SIEU. Unfortunately, too many of our state elected officials are beholden to unions and will quickly sell out their constituents to gain union favor.

We need a drastic change in the type of people we elect to state offices. First, we need a governor who can’t be bought. Second, we need legislators who represent their districts and taxpayers, not their union contributors. This fall, Redmond voters should start cutting this malignancy from our state government by electing candidates who represent the district’s citizens, not the leaders of the SIEU.