Gunpowder Chronicle posted on June 18, 2007 11:04 AM | Rating:
| Views: 167
John Fund over at OpinionJournal.com has the details on efforts by the so-called Democrat party to strip workers of their democratic rights in certification elections.
I am not a big supporter of unions. There was a time when they had a place. Just like there was a time and place for buggy whips. But not today.
I take a rather progressive view of labor. Not progressive in the sense of Upton Sinclair, but progressive in the sense of forward-looking.
In the 1800s and early 1900s, "labor" was not highly mobile-- either upwardly in terms of advancement, or geographically. But the technology advances of the last century have made "labor" highly mobile in both directions. We are no longer a civilization bound to the land. The growth of public eduction, despite its current weaknesses, has set a higher baseline for anyone willing to accept the benevolence of a democratic society. The main benefit of that is that we work in an economy where any individual can set their rate for their labor. If they cannot find an acceptable rate, they can sell their services to someone else. If their labor is no longer desired (in the case of buggy whip manufacturers, for example) they can change their skill set. In short, labor is a commodity-- to be bought and sold in a free marketplace as a negotiation between worker and employer.
Unions impede that freedom, trading false security for union dues who only work to enrich Union officials. Imagine what union members could do with those extra monies they pay in terms of union dues. Imagine the nestegg they can build. You think that unions really help their workers? Ask the former employees at Bethlehem Steel's Sparrows Point plant what 40 years of union membership did for them. No pension, no retirement benefits of any sort, no health insurance. Where do they go now?
Ask UAW members who they will milk for job retraining, healthcare, and retirement benefits when General Motors collapses. Almost $2,000 of every vehilce GM produces goes to support retiree health benefits. Ford has almost 200,000 employees that never work an hour, but just report to a "job training center". Mostly they play cards and read the paper. Only the mob has a larger hold on "no-show" jobs.
And this is what your Democrat Leaders in the Senate and the House want to expand, by forcing more and employees into organized labor by denying them a secret ballot vote. Why? It's simple: number of union members increasing = increase in union funds = increase in political donations to Democrats from richer Union Bosses.
In other words, the Democrats are laundering political donations through the unions. I'm sorry if someone is offended by that accusation, but the simple fact is that is what they are doing. It is the Democrat modus operandi.