Posted on 09/16/2008 4:16:07 AM PDT by rellimpank
Organized labor spent tens of millions of dollars and untold man hours to help elect a Democratic Congress in 2006. So far the pay-off has been modest. But with the presidency at stake, unions are expected to spend up to $360 million by November, more than twice as much as four years ago.
At the top of labor's agenda is the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, which would deny employees the opportunity to vote before a union takes over their workplace.
Today organized labor represents just 12 percent of all workers and 7.5 percent of private employees. Labor officials blame their woes on the fact that they must win a secret ballot regarding representation whenever 30 percent of workers sign a union card. So organized labor proposes doing away with elections if 50 percent of the workers plus one sign a card.
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
I’ve been reading pieces that state business is starting to come in big time for republicans. Knowing the dems and unions have them measured for a box, no matter how much tribute they pay out.
I’ve seen union organizing up close and personal - it’s not pretty - and that was just to get cards signed to call an election. I can imagine what it would be like if the card signing was the actual ballot.
I was a union man and I think if you keep the politics out of it, they do a lot to protect workers’ rights and improve worker safety. But what amazes me is this figure of $360 million. You pay dues and you expect if there’s a strike and sometimes these can last a long time, that the union will support the strikers and their families. They are also supposed to be out there organizing the unorganized. Where do they get a king’s ransom to squander on politics?
If the unions were strong and were doing what they were supposed to be doing, you wouldn’t have so many illegal immigrants flooding in because they would make sure anyone who worked would get a decent wage. A lot of unemployment is caused by the fact the citizen wants his rights and there are employers not willing to give it to him. As it is now, too many powerful forces benefitting from cheap labor so the will is not there to enforce laws on the books.
Going back in history there were two approaches to helping the workers after the Industrial Revolution. Karl Marx represented the idea that you had to get political control and when he went to England, they told him to shut up, that’s not our way. It seems to me Karl Marx would do very well among these birds making a bonfire out of $360 million in dollar bills, essentially betraying the workers.
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