Yesterday as we celebrated Labor Day with picnics and parades, I couldn’t help but look at unions as a lost resource in the 21st century. Are there any unions that will put the issues affecting their members first? It appears that the larger unions are: (i) more concerned about political agendas, (ii) maintaining power and influence for their leadership and (iii) like certain other special interest groups, such as AARP, little more than political puppets for the left.
Maybe I am just not seeing it. Maybe the unions need better public relations for their nonmembers. However, has a single unions suggested that deficit spending by the government may ultimately hurt their members or that something is wrong with a stimulus plan that has not resulted in decline in unemployment? Has a single union ever questioned whether ”cap and trade” may hurt their membership by driving more jobs overseas. More directly, has a single union ever proposed that illegal immigrants take jobs from union members or that negotiated health care may be better than government health care? I follow the news pretty closely and I haven’t seeen any of these issues debated in a reasonable fashion.
The American worker has been an essential part of making America the greatest country in the world. During the last half of the 20th century, the worker had opportunities for growth and even to buy into many companies. Workers prospered as America prospered.
The recent economic downturn has hurt workers at all levels – union and nonunion. It has hurt owners and management as well. In fact, the only group that appears exempt from the pain is the federal government. Yet, the unions have not demanded accountability from our federal government. Instead, they have fallen lockstep in line with policies that may be hurting their members.
What are the unions getting out of it? They are hoping for legislation that make union membership much more likely by making it more difficult for employees to exercise their free choice not to unionize. There’s not a whole lot of transparency in this power for power bargain between the unions and Congress. Unfortunately, the workers are being used for power and money grabs by both the politicians and the union leadership. That’s a shame.
