A FRIEND of mine mentioned a great quote from Winston Churchill last week: “I have always felt that a politician is to be judged by the animosities he excites among his opponents.”

Churchill’s observation came to mind as I read a letter to Governor Carcieri from union bosses Frank Montanaro, George Nee and Bob Walsh, asking him call for my resignation. I must excite their animosities!

Their targeting of me has become familiar. Last June, they wagged their fingers at my strong stance against the excessive number of (union-dues-paying) state employees.

They seem to forget that good governance is about choices. Every time we keep a position that we no longer need, cave in to a union work rule, or create a new benefit we cannot afford, we are potentially taking money from anti-poverty programs, from roads and bridges, from local schools, and from our own pockets.

Many state employees know better and are embarrassed and angered by a system that created “protected” coworkers who fail to carry their weight. They know that the system protects unproductive workers, and rewards length of service over quality performance.

They know that this is not the best model for our state, and I ask them to support efforts to improve efficiency of state services.

The second instance followed my call to hold union bosses responsible for encouraging local unions to violate “no-strike” laws. Rhode Island has a law that says that teachers can’t strike. We believe that stable education is more important than using a strike as a negotiating tool, but the union bosses would rather play politics than educate children.

Good teachers don’t support the bosses on this one. They understand that without our convoluted system of labor laws, without the “work-to-rule” actions and other ploys, we could shift dollars toward higher teacher pay and more school supplies and extracurricular programs. I ask for the support of every good teacher who puts students first and who would welcome the higher pay of a merit-based workplace.

The third attack was a reaction to my use of the phrase “poverty pimps” to describe those Democrats who seem to spend more time creating complex anti-poverty bureaucracies (and more union-dues-paying state employees) than they do actually eliminating poverty. As a small-government Republican, I stand firm in my belief that to take a tax dollar, filter it through layers of government administration, and deliver 25 cents to a hungry child is the opposite of compassion.

I ask the support of those struggling with poverty to work with me to find ways to put more aid directly into the hands of the needy person — not the program.

Finally, Montanaro, Nee, and Walsh asked why I would publicly refer to the unions as “the last vestige of institutional racism in this country.” To be honest, I think that is a question they must answer.

Why does the Fire Department of the City of Cranston have 200-plus white male firefighters — no women, no minorities? Why do minority contractors need a state agency to give them access to union-controlled public-works projects? Why do minority contractors struggle to meet union-imposed bonding, apprenticeship, and benefits requirements?

Is it, perhaps, that the labor laws are rigged to protect the status quo? Is it, perhaps, that a minority applicant may be discouraged to throw in with a “brotherhood” of white men led by other white men? Whatever it is, the results are clear — institutional racism.

Samuel Gompers, one of the first union bosses in America, and long-serving head of the American Federation of Labor (Mr. Montanaro now heads the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, its successor), has been referred to as an “arch-racist,” not only because of the anti-African, anti-Asian, anti-Italian vitriol he spewed when advocating for closed shops, but also because the mechanisms he championed — and that still exist today — had as much to do with protecting the jobs of whites as they had to do with fair labor practices.

The Republican Party was formed 150 years ago for the express propose of ending slavery, a cause for which the first Republican president, Abraham Lincoln, died. Today we continue the fight by working to break down barriers that repress minorities in a cycle of poverty and by pushing for the elimination of all the “special deals” that overwhelmingly favor those who are part of the Democratic-union establishment at the expense of the general interest, including thousands of struggling small businesses.

So to the membership of those unions, I have a message — and it is one I will repeat again and again: The labor movement has become the most offensive special interest in Rhode Island history.

It is time for union members to restore your pride, restore your hope, and restore this state. Take charge and create radical change. The union boss needs you. You don’t need him.

I’ve had enough of the waste, the theft, and the lies. The union bosses pick our pockets, they make bad choices, and they cause real harm. Haven’t you had enough?

Giovanni D. Cicione is the chairman of the Rhode Island Republican party.