Obama & Unions
Posted on: October 28th, 2008 by Ed Ring, EcoWorld

We have written about unions dozens of times, and have consistently acknowleged the contributions unions have made. But over the past fifty years, the role of unions in the United States has changed in two important ways. First, most of the initial grievances that inspired workers to organize have been met; second, union power has migrated out of the private sector and into the public sector.

In our post “Unions - Ideals vs. Reality”.. illustrates the problem with unions in the public sector. Unions in the private sector bargain with companies who have to compete globally, and this is a powerful self-regulating mechanism. If the union is too aggressive, the company goes out of business because their labor costs meant they could no longer charge a competitive price for their product. In the public sector, there is no global competition, no alternative product for the taxpayer - and this means that in the public sector, unions have an unfair advantage. Unions used to be more heavily regulated in the public sector as a result, but as these regulations have been abandoned, unions have taken over the public sector.

In order to maintain their power, public sector unions collect dues - often as much as $1,000 or more per year per member. In California, for example, nearly 4.0 million non-Federal public sector workers pay what totals nearly $4.0 billion per year in dues to public sector unions. Among other things, they use this money to indoctrinate their workforce and to control our elections. They can basically spend as much as they want to make sure their candidates win elections.

Union influence goes far beyond just undermining the competitiveness of our private manufacturing sector and bankrupting our government.
There is nothing wrong with wanting better pay and benefits, but when the levers of government are manipulated by public sector unions so they have retirement security and early retirement, and they have generous vacation and health benefits, but the rest of us don’t, something is very wrong. We indeed have two Americas, but they aren’t rich vs. poor. They are unionized public sector workers vs. taxpaying private sector workers.

That is the real two Americas - and anyone running for President on a populist economic platform like Obama should be making their campaign priority to normalize taxpayer supported benefits between the public and private sector workforces.

In this context, Obama’s position on unions is relevant. In an October 27th Wall Street Journal editorial entitled “The Election Choice: Unions” they state Obama is a co-sponsor of the “Employee Free Choice Act,” a pro-union piece of legislation that would do the following:

- Force employees to vote pro or against unionizing on an open ballot, meaning any employee who objected to being unionized would be publically identified and open to intimidation.
- Impose mandatory arbitration, meaning after 120 days if a company wouldn’t agree to union demands, an arbitrator’s decision would be final.
- Narrow the definition of a “manager” in order to put a higher percentage of a company’s employees under union control.
- Make it illegal for a company to hire new employees to replace striking employees.

Obama also supports the sinister “Public Safety Employer-Employee Cooperation Act” which will require every city over 5,000 in population to negotiate police and firefighter compensation with a national union. For a good look at what that leads to, examine pretty much any city in California - they are all facing insolvency due to the cost of paying their unionized workforces.

But in 21st century America, the government is working to make the lives of government workers better. This is the current legacy of unions, and Obama is going to perpetuate and worsen this divide between those of us who work in the globally competitive private sector, and our unionized public sector overlords.

What does any of this have to do with the environment? Because global warming alarm is being used to justify the biggest expansion of government in history. The taxes and fees that will pass into government hands through regulating CO2 are the only potential source of funds remotely large enough to continue to pay the unionized public sector workforce their exhorbitant, grossly unfair compensation packages.

COMMENT: In our history, there was a time & place/need for unions---but NOT now! We are in a global competitive society, and unions will just make us more non-competitive and subject us under the crush of big govt control!!

Its funny, the groups with Unions anymore are the ones who USED to need them, like any factory job back before OSHA appeared on the scene. the ones that need a national Union like truck drivers for the most part don't have them. yes i know some companies do but realistically I'd say they are a fairly small percentage of the industry as a whole.

Yes we as truck drivers do, there is no reason that we are paid like we are. I think it is just sad that we are one of the few groups left that is exempt from having to be paid hourly. If I ever run for office, that is one of the first things I would try and change. I even think most truck drivers would have black boxes if it meant they got paid by the hour.

I'm not against being paid for production, but when your stuck with logbooks that put a cap on your production, then I guess I'd rather be hourly.

Well for the most part, yes you can be productive but now days with appointments on everything, you are only going to get so much done. The pay by mile worked in the past but now with everything basically just in time, you aren't going to really gain any ground by being by the mile.

I am local now, but next time just do an experiment and for all your line 3 and four time pay yourself $15.00 an hour, and compare it to your mile pay. If it is consistently below, well then obviously the pay by mile is just taking money out of your pocket.

That doesn't apply to O/O obviously, but those guys if they owned any other business wouldn't have to pay themselves by the hour anyway. I know when I was over the road and getting paid by the mile, I ended up alot of paydays averaging maybe 8 an hour and on bad weeks only 4.

The thing I would LOVE to see is a work up of the numbers of where GM, Chrysler and Ford would be financially if they paid workers a straight 15 or 20 bucks an hour and having the employees pay for their own retirements and insurance vs the deal they have with the UAW

something tells me they'd be doing a lot better than they are now..

well I think that is what they should get paid, but I think it puts a lot of loyalty and pride into someone if they know if they work for someone for x amount of years they are taken care of when they get retired, I know if I was the one in that union I would have had wages at 15-20 an hour as long as the company paid health and pension. But thats just me though, I know I would be happy with that deal and probably never leave that company for 40 years, these days something like that is so rare I think turnover would almost be 0