Unions  by Roger King 

The only place Unions can't organize is in Washington DC in congress.  Their reason is it would be disruptive to congress...Gee, ya think?

 

1930s the CIO union actively recruited communists which soon controlled those unions.  By the 1950s the unions turned on the communists and ousted them from the unions and their control.   In 1990 they removed the anti communism clause that prohibited communists in the union from their constitution.  This effort was lead by John Sweenie who was in the Democratic Socialists of America.

 

Morning Bell: Beneath Growth, a Sea of Poison by Mike Brownfield January 6, 2012   The NLRB is a five-member board that is responsible for investigating unfair labor practices, creating labor-related rules, and conducting elections for labor union representation. Last year the NLRB enacted measures shortening union elections to as little as 14 days, limiting employees’ ability to hear from both sides before they vote, allowing unions to cherry-pick which workers in a company can vote on unionizing, and preventing workers from insisting on a secret ballot in union drives, as Heritage’s James Sherk explains. These measures will make it much easier for unions to organize workers — but at the expense of workers’ rights. If workers want to join a union they have that right — management gets the union it deserves — but the government should not limit their rights in order to press workers into unionizing.

Public-sector Unions Bleed Taxpayers to Help Dems  by Michael Barone February 8, 2010  Last month, the Labor Department reported that private-sector unions lost 834,000 members last year and now represent only 7.2 percent of private-sector employees. That's down from the all-time peak of 36 percent in 1953-54.

But union membership is still growing in the public sector. Last year, 37.4 percent of public sector employees were union members. That percentage was down near zero in the 1950s. For the first time in history, a majority of union members are government employees.   ...

As economist Barry Hirsch points out, non-union manufacturing employment rose from 12 million to 14 million between 1973 and 2006. In those years, union manufacturing employment dropped from 8 million to 2 million. "Unionism," Hirsch writes, "is a poor fit in a dynamic, competitive economy."

Moreover, federal laws passed since the 1950s now protect workers from racial and sex discrimination, safety hazards and pension failure. They don't need unions to do this any more.

Public-sector unionism is a very different animal from private-sector unionism. It is not adversarial but collusive. Public-sector unions strive to elect their management, which in turn can extract money from taxpayers to increase wages and benefits -- and can promise pensions that future taxpayers will have to fund.

The results are plain to see. States like New York, New Jersey and California, where public-sector unions are strong, now face enormous budget deficits and pension liabilities. In such states, the public sector has become a parasite sucking the life out of the private-sector economy. Not surprisingly, Americans have been steadily migrating out of such states and into states like Texas, where public-sector unions are weak and taxes are much lower.  ...

Public-sector unionism tends to be a self-perpetuating machine that extracts money from taxpayers and then puts it on a conveyor belt to the Democratic Party.

Union Outrages

A real 'bully pulpit'  by Ed Lasky May 11, 2009   The Service Employee International Union (SEIU) was among the biggest donors to President Obama's campaign, contributing $33 million. The union is also consistently among the biggest donors to Democrats in Sacramento and aggressively fought  wage cuts during state budget negotiations.  

The SEIU, by the way, not only spent 33 million dollars to help propel Obama to the presidency but has also  liberally supported Democratic candidates across the nation. But its reach goes beyond this spending. It can supply the free labor that is priceless during a campaign for door to door solicitations, phone banks, and pamphleteering. 

The SEIU is one of the most politically astute unions. Its leadership is deeply involved as the key decision-makers - as well as funders - of a powerful-and furtive group of billionaires who call themselves the Democracy Alliance (I have written about them many times) The group includes people such as George Soros and SEIU's own Anna Burger, who serves as the vice-chairperson of the Democracy Alliance.

Now the SEIU is throwing its weight around in California, getting the Obama Administration to threaten withholding of federal stimulus money unless wage cuts for home health care workers is rescinded.

Evan Halper of the Los Angeles Times has the story:

Officials in the governor's office say a politically powerful union may have had inappropriate influence over the Obama administration's decision to withhold billions of dollars in federal stimulus money from California if the state does not reverse a scheduled wage cut for the labor group's workers.
 
The officials say they are particularly troubled that the Service Employees International Union, which lobbied the federal government to step in, was included in a conference call in which state and federal officials reviewed the wage cut and the terms of the stimulus package.

 
California Secretary of Health and Human Services Kim Belshe said she could not recall another instance in which the federal government invited a significant stakeholder group into such government-to-government negotiations.

...  In addition to several state and federal officials, participants in the April 15 conference call included an SEIU associate general counsel in Washington, a lobbyist for SEIU in California and a representative from SEIU's policy staff in California, according to a list provided by the Schwarzenegger administration

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ERIE, Pa.—A union is fighting the firing of municipal bus driver in northwestern Pennsylvania who struck and killed a surgeon three years ago and then hit another pedestrian in September. That was the third time the driver hit a civilian since 2000.   Link

Payback Time by W. James Antle, III   Labor unions shelled out well over $100 million (pdf) in donations to political candidates during the 2008 election. More than 90 percent of that total went to Barack Obama and the Democrats.

Unions Gain Heavy Among Government Workers  by Warner Todd Huston  February 1, 2009  As we reported a few days ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported its newest stats on union membership for 2008. These stats show that union membership has increased for the second straight year. But where it has increased is of key importance.

The report shows a gain of 428,000 members, the largest in the last 25 years and since such statistics have been gathered. Alarmingly, a rising number of union workers are employed by government.

The union membership rate for public sector workers (36.8 percent) was substantially higher than the rate for private industry workers (7.6 percent). Within the public sector, local government workers had the highest union membership rate, 42.2 percent.

Why Washington Should Stay OUT of the Auto Business  by JB Williams  December 15, 2008  Of the Top 20 political campaign donors in America, twelve of them are labor unions, giving over $326 million in union dues over the last ten years, 95.7% of it to Democrats.

Labor Unions and Political Donations

Labor Unions US Dollars D R
American Fedn of State, County & Municipal Employees $40,050,130 98% 1%
Intl Brotherhood of Electrical Workers $28,897,844 97% 2%
National Education Assn $28,622,655 93% 6%
Laborers Union $27,212,839 92% 7%
Service Employees International Union $26,841,622 95% 3%
Carpenters & Joiners Union $26,158,999 90% 9%
Teamsters Union $25,850,620 92% 6%
Communications Workers of America $25,785,989 99% 0%
American Federation of Teachers $25,211,493 98% 0%
United Auto Workers $25,188,550 98% 0%
Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union $23,629,086 98% 0%
United Food & Commercial Workers Union $23,054,751 98% 1%
Machinists & Aerospace Workers Union $23,629,086 98% 0%
Top 12 Labor Union Totals $326,504,578 95.7% 2.9%

Unionization Toll Is High Enough Without Throwing In 'Card Check' by DANIEL GRISWOLD  March 11, 2009  In a major study of unions and the American workplace, Professor Barry Hirsch of Georgia State University found that unionized companies suffered not only lower profits but lower investment in physical and intangible capital and slower growth.

As a result, unionized firms tend to lose market share to nonunionized firms, whether foreign or domestic.

Companies can survive unionization as long as every other competitor faces the same "tax," or if markets are not competitive at all. This is why government is the only area where unionization has been growing.

But in a dynamic, open and competitive market, unionization can be a killer. In manufacturing, virtually all the job losses between 1973 and 2006 occurred among unionized workers.

Two Steps Back on Labor Rights at The Wall Street Journal  March 19, 2009   Efforts are also underway to cut the budget of the lone federal agency charged with protecting union members' rights and ensuring union integrity. In January, the Department of Labor's Office of Labor-Management Standards implemented a rule requiring that relevant information on union finances be provided to rank-and-file union members to better ensure transparency and accountability, as required by the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959. In the rush of actions after the inauguration, the Obama administration delayed the effective date of this rule. It remains to be seen if other union transparency and accountability rules will be gutted or revoked.

Hands Off Big Labor by Philip Klein on May 8, 2009  The Obama administration has delivered a strong message to crooked union bosses everywhere: happy days are here again.   ...

Under the leadership of Secretary Elaine Chao from 2001 through this January, the Labor Department beefed up the Office of Labor-Management Standards. During this time, the division's actions led to 929 convictions of corrupt union officials and to the recovery of more than $93 million on behalf of union members. Yet the Obama administration has proposed slashing the unit's budget by more than 9 percent, from $45 million in 2009 to $41 million in 2010.

Funding for the agency, which was created in 1959 as part of legislation to root out union corruption, represents a tiny fraction of the projected $13.3 billion 2010 Labor Department budget.