Are the Labor Unions Affecting Policy?
Al Ritter
In must the same way that the Tea Party is affecting conservative policy, the Labor Unions are affecting liberal policy. At no time in the history of U.S. politics have the labor unions obtained such a grip on the money necessary to effectively shape elections.
The main difference between the Tea Party and the Unions is obvious however, the Tea Party has no formal organization and has been offered no ear in the White House, while the Unions have been organized for decades and have been offered a revolving door entrance to the White House.
In the late 1800’s to the 1960’s the labor unions had a large effect on improving working conditions and employee pay. Over the years the government took on the role of the overseer of those problems, mandating conditions in the work place, child labor laws, and setting a minimum wage system.
Now unions are specifically used for worker contract negotiations. The present Administration intends to make those unions even more powerful in the next two years, in a way to appear the friend of the working man.
Is this what the country really needs? Should our aim be to “friend the working man,” or rather to be competitive in the world market? We found that during the negotiation phase of the GM take over that the reason that auto manufacturers weren’t competing on a world-wide level was that they were saddled with massive retirement system debt.
The main reason that the Japanese auto kings weren’t saddled yet is that they hadn’t been manufacturing autos in the US long enough yet and didn’t have the same amount of retirees. Collective bargaining including retirement benefits for blue collar shops is the single biggest reason for company failure in this country, and yet this administration seeks to make them more powerful.
The AFL-CIO was the largest union in the US for many years, but now their lead position is being challenged by the union that Barack Obama endorses, SEIU. Between the Sterns brother’s two entities ACORN and SEIU, the political scene has been changed forever. Even if Obama becomes a one term president the power of SEIU will remain, long after he is gone.
Unions say they bargain for the collective good of the worker, but is that really true if the future of the country is in peril? The function of unions in the past was good, but now the result of unions is threatening the prosperity of the nations, and all the while they are becoming more politically powerful.
It is time we push for congressional investigations into unions, how they acquire their PAC slush funds, and from whom, to deny power to concerns outside America who seek to destroy our way of life.
