Covert Leftist Partnership Threatens America

Human Events ^ | Sept 28, 2005 | Samuel Cook

[bigsky]

John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO and member of the Democratic Socialists of America, must have mixed emotions. The bad news for him is that union membership as a percentage of the nation’s total private-sector workforce peaked in the 1950s at about 40% and has dropped to 7.9% today.

That devastating decline recently motivated four of Sweeney’s major international union affiliates—United Food and Commercial Workers Union, Teamsters, Service Employees International Union, and Unite Here—to sever their AFL-CIO membership ties. Sweeney’s federation thereby lost 5 million dues-paying members, constituting more than one-third of his AFL-CIO roster.

Sweeney’s good news—quietly endorsed by the liberal national media—is the reverse-trend: Today, 37.2% of government workers throughout the nation are represented by labor organizations. And the number is expanding steadily.

For many years, public-sector unionism was opposed both by leaders of the AFL-CIO and union-friendly U.S. Presidents. But in 1978, the Civil Service Reform Act was passed by Congress. Under this statute, federal government unions have exclusive power to . . .

[bigsky]

If you have trouble reading the above graph, Human Events has a larger version here:

http://www.humaneventsonline.com/images/UnionMembersLg.jpg

[KC_Conspirator]

Sweeney’s good news—quietly endorsed by the liberal national media—is the reverse-trend: Today, 37.2% of government workers throughout the nation are represented by labor organizations.

But much of the work, at leasts under Bush, has been contracted out, which means that its still not a good market for unions. Furthermore, I just understood that one of the biggest government unions left the AFL-CIO?

[daku]

it shouldn't be legal for unions who represent federal employees to endorse or fund candidates

[kennyo]

it shouldn't be legal for unions who represent federal employees to endorse or fund candidates

Baby steps.It shouldn't be legal for public employees to unionize,period.Unions were to protect workers against the "unscupulous robber barons".Although there is a Rockefeller in the senate,one can hardly make the claim that any government,state,local,or federal,will be employing six year-olds in coal mines for 60 hours a week.