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The Public Policy
Card Check's Bounce
(Page 2 of 2)
The first result would be to further immobilize the economy. Although some individual employees -- and especially union leaders -- might benefit from today's coercive collective bargaining process, a new study by Stan Greer of the National Institute for Labor Relations Research found: "The record shows that the prevalence of union monopoly bargaining is correlated with lower real incomes, higher living costs, slower growth in jobs and job benefits, and higher unemployment." Similarly, economists Richard Vedder and Lowell Gallaway pointed out that "the overall evidence is overwhelming that labor unions in contemporary America have had harmful aggregate effects on the economy. Unions are associated with lower rates of growth in incomes and jobs." The Alliance to Save Main Street Jobs warns of an employment loss of 600,000 if card check passes.
Indeed, turning control of the economy over to organized labor would follow Europe, which values stasis over growth. The organizing principle of most European labor organizations is a sense of entitlement: someone somewhere should pay them for doing as little as possible. This system may be the principle reason that Europe went for years without creating a single net job. Flexible and vibrant are not terms anyone would apply to the European economy.
The second result would be to expand government authority over the economy and virtually every other aspect of our lives. Organized labor spent up to a half billion dollars in the 2008 election cycle. Government unions, most notably the Service Employees International Union, have become particularly dependent on government largesse. The SEIU invested nearly $2 million in Rod Blagojevich's two gubernatorial campaigns and was caught up in the federal investigation of the former Illinois governor's apparent desire to auction off Barack Obama's Senate seat. Union officials see politics as an easy means to get benefits that they cannot win in a marketplace.
But union activists want to do more than win more money for their members. Unfortunately, the labor leadership seems to see itself not as the representative of working men and women, but as a partner in the liberal coalition. Thus, unions have been leading efforts to block policy reforms that would most benefit their members: provide families with choice in education, expand consumer-directed health care, offer retirees control over their own futures, increase access to new energy sources, expand participation in the international marketplace, reduce income redistribution programs, limit baseless lawsuits filed by trial attorneys, and so on.
Above all, it is imperative to ensure that workers retain the right to vote before the government requires companies to recognize a union. That means defeating the Employee "No Choice" Act. It also means pressing for state constitutional amendments guaranteeing elections, as promoted by the group Save Our Secret Ballot, chaired by former Rep. Ernest Istook. And contracts must be arrived at through negotiation, not imposition.
It is bad enough that card check would in fact deny workers a free choice about whether to unionize. But if it passes, ECFA would end up denying the rest of us a free choice about many of the economic decisions that we still take for granted.
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frost| 3.10.09 @ 7:28AM
Fine analysis. I read somewhere that unions are for people that want more than what their worth. And those afraid to seek jobs where their real worth (or the lack thereof) is the determining factor as to what they’re paid.
Fact is, in the present neo-Marxist climate, businesses are going to have a hard enough time staying in business without an expensive union telling them how to run their operation.
Truth is, union workers are incapable of producing quality because they work for the union, not the company.
And they're hypocrites.
frost| 3.10.09 @ 7:35AM
Another quick point - - a lot of years ago, 1960, in fact, I bought a new BMW coupe (long before they were trendy, a fad, or called a Beemer) -- worst car I ever owned! But, one of the reasons I bought an imported car was because the Union Chief Walter Ruther was so anti-American and pro-Soviet in his socialistic stance, at the time I refused to buy an American car.
And now we have similar types as very good-buddies with the president (can you say convicted terrorist William Ayres?).
Whew!
stu.b.con| 3.10.09 @ 7:51AM
Even that old liberal warhorse George McGovern has come out against this egregious personal liberty grab.
Eric Baum| 3.10.09 @ 10:23AM
In my view, the worst aspect of card check would be to greatly discourage investment. Remember when foreign car companies came over and built factories in right to work states? Say bye to those investments, when union bosses would essentially have a right to loot the investments.
I think the possibility of card check is looming over the Dow, and if it passes I look for a further plunge. If it is finally defeated, I look for positive move.
Eric Baum| 3.10.09 @ 10:26AM
BTW, I have various investments. Some of them may be in the Dow.
Tom| 3.10.09 @ 11:32AM
Other union doings. Living wage. every so often congress raises the minimum wage. That automatically gives union workers a raise.
Another one is union dues. My son-in-law elected not to belong to a union local. New an equal amount of what would be union dues is deducted for charity.
Yes we live in a free country, bull.
Marc Jeric| 3.10.09 @ 12:09PM
There are two inescapable and immutable laws concerning unions, viz.:
1) given enough time any union will be taken over by either a criminal organization, say mafia, or a revolutionary marxist group;
2) union will eventually destroy the industry where it prevails; examples abound - steel, automobile, textile, apparel, electronics, etc.
3) such destroyed industries will try to save themselves by going elsewhere; that is called outsourcing;
4) government employee unions will also destroy whatever they are engaged in - say schools, where now 45% of teachers "teach" and 55% "administer, facilitate, organize, plan, etc," and of course engage in politics. Other such unions in government provide a safe haven for rejects of private enterprise and have "work rules". For example, it is forbidden to a supervisor to request a deadline for any work; e.g., one must not ask a secretary to type up a one-page memo for a meeting one week hence.
Rick| 3.10.09 @ 9:15PM
"...someone somewhere should pay them for doing as little as possible..."
That sums up the entitlement attitude that pervaded my workplace's recent union drive.
MassArtMom| 3.12.09 @ 5:03PM
Unfortunately, cultures change (and not for the better) when unionized workers and management live together under the same roof. This is unfortunate and entirely the fault of management. If management was fair to its workers, unionizing would not be an issue. Over the last decade astronomical profits and bonuses have soared and sadly, the workers in the trenches (the ones who actually "do" the work and make the profits) have remained stagnant. Raises have not kept up with the cost of living, inflation, etc. To equate unionization with the Mafia is just another old scare tactic used by management. Sheesh! How obvious can you get?!
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