You know, one would think that an administration which is trying to prevent Boeing from moving production of the 787 jetliner to a right-to-work state and has stacked the National Labor Relations Board with union toadies – through recess appointments if necessary – would have Big Labor’s seal of approval. But they’re greedy and chagrined that ‘card check’ didn’t pass when Congress was fully in Democratic hands.
And now Big Labor has to worry about things at the state level. It’s the focus of a report by the Capital Research Center’s Labor Watch project co-authored by Ivan Osorio and Trey Kovacs. And to bear this out, remember that even the union-friendly Martin O’Malley was booed at this supposedly friendly gathering because he wanted to tinker with teacher pensions.
Yet Big Labor suffers from the same problem that any member of a broad coalition of special interests runs into when the Democratic Party seizes power – everybody wants everything they asked for all at once, no matter how noxious. Abortionists want easier access to abortions paid for by Uncle Sam, the gay lobby equates their cause with the civil rights movement and wants laws passed accordingly, gun grabbers want to flout the Second Amendment even more, and so on and so forth. Unions just don’t like taking their place in a long line of liberal special interest groups.
And the key question is: where else can they go? Like those on the conservative side who occasionally express their disgust with the GOP and threaten to boycott the next election if so-and-so is nominated, Big Labor is pretty much stuck with the one who brung them to the dance. They’ve obviously alienated themselves from Republicans, a party they bash mercilessly despite the fact a significant portion of their rank-and-file members vote that way at the ballot box, so I don’t doubt they’ll eventually suck it up and drop millions into the Democratic coffers because there’s nowhere else for them to turn politically. And the fact Big Labor still confiscates huge sums of money for political purposes via union dues means that, somewhere along the line, they and the Democrats will mend fences. It’s all about the Benjamins to both players in that game.
So don’t be surprised to see Big Labor make a push for a more liberal strain of Democrats to replace the ones they feel betrayed them in both state and national races. After all, if they can continue to play the class envy game with any success they’ll always dupe a few useful idiots into pulling the lever for their allies in the Democrat Party, even if they’ll hold their nose a little in the process. As long as President Obama is in office, their goals will be advanced regardless of means.
