Month: September 2007

No, it’s not the beach, it’s a blog called Labor Pains. This tells you what’s really going on in the world of unions – a world where the idea is to get companies to pay employees more for doing less. Unless of course they outsource picketing.

(I note this morning that apparently Michelle Malkin likes the Labor Pains blog too.)

I can just see the so-called “progressives” wailing that I’m a hypocrite for writing anti-union stuff like this on a day that the unions allowed us to have off, let alone the weekend. “I bet you want us to go back to 16 hour days for 8 year olds,” they’ll sneer. No, actually I’d just like some balance and freedom of choice for workers. If they wish to organize, let the union win a fair election, not the so-called “card check” that unions like to intimidate workers into. And what’s evil about a “right-to-work” state?

It may also bear remembering that a vast, vast majority of jobs are created by private enterprise and not unions. In fact, the only area of union growth in the last few decades has been in the government workforce, while Big Labor’s share of workers in private enterprise has steadily declined. Why do you think Democrats – the party in the pocket of Big Labor – want to place everything under the umbrella of government? They certainly have a friend here in Governor O’Malley.

I guess some of the issue I have with unions comes from my upbringing. I was raised in a Teamster household but really there wasn’t all that much to show for it. My dad was (and is) a hard worker but people who did nothing made the same amount of money, and that never appealed to the side of me that desires fairness and justice in life. And I’ve heard too many anecdotes of union shops intentionally slowing down production so their quota wouldn’t be increased. It’s sort of the same thinking as the governmental agency spending big money on office supplies and the like at the end of the fiscal year so they make sure they spend their full budget and not have it cut.

Also, to me it was quite sad to see the streets of downtown Toledo full of people and politicans for the annual Labor Day parade when the annual Memorial Day parade was shunted to the Saturday before and was lucky to have a couple thousand watching. Yes, Toledo is a union-dominated city but still I felt their priorities were way out of whack.

On the other hand I can’t say that unions are all bad. They’ve taken the lead in the construction industry for training workers in various trades, and most of the time I’ve been satisfied with the quality of work I see from a union contractor. Conversely, nonunion contractors tend to be on the mediocre side when it comes to judging how the work looks when it’s complete. (Of course, there’s shoddy union contractors and good non-union ones out there, but generally the union ones do a better job and are worth the premium.)

To me there are four things that we should work for in order to benefit the American worker. Unfortunately the unions seem to be deadset against three of them despite the benefits their members would receive.

1. “Card check” is a bad idea. The burden should be on the union to convince both the worker that they would benefit from membership and the business owner that the union would negotiate in good faith, keeping in mind who signs the checks. And a secret ballot benefits both parties because by nature unions and business are generally antagonistic toward one another with workers caught in the middle. A worker should fear retaliation from neither side.
2. Keeping taxes lower and government as small as possible gives more freedom to workers to dictate what they do with their hard-earned money. Rather than take a larger and larger bite from a paycheck with the high taxes items like socialized medicine and increased regulation necessitate, unions should be looking to get the government out of the pockets of the working man – and everyone else too.
3. Trade should be on a level playing field, but the problem with many of the trade pacts is that they contain provisions having little or nothing to do with the movement of goods. Bringing other markets up doesn’t have to be at the expense of our own, nor is protectionism the answer. Closing the door to goods and services from abroad will eventually allow our market to wither.
4. Finally, why unions seem to be encouraging illegal immigration by their support of the Democrat Party is beyond me. I’m certain that some union leaders see dollar signs in their eyes as they scheme on how to organize all of the influx of workers (think big union dues money) but in the meantime the people being hurt are the semi-skilled workers, like those in construction, who make up the backbone of union membership.

By the time next Labor Day rolls around, we’ll know who will be in line for the Democrat Presidential nomination and the GOP will be getting together to formally nominate their candidate. (If I recall correctly, the Republican National Convention will begin on Labor Day next year.) It may make sense for workers to look at who really represents their political views. Something tells me it may not be who the union leadership supports.