It is "Payback Time" To The Union Movement For Obama
This column presents a fiscally conservative viewpoint about items of interest in our community and our lives. Focus is on items impacting your pocket book, your personal freedoms, and your rights. I hope you will read the column regularly and it occasionally influences your opinions and actions. Now, on to the subject of the week:
"Big Political Donations Should Now Yield Big Rewards for the Union Movement in the USA".
Even before President Elect Obama takes office, the union movement is moving. They are already beginning to pressure the legislative leaders to recognize their "wish list" of new legislation that will make unionization easier to accomplish, more lucrative, and more widespread within the industrial sector, and within all government employment.
Auto Industry Bail Out - As a starter, the automotive unions are pushing for the domestic automotive manufacturers to be given approximately $75 billion of the $700 billion bail out funds. This is a "porky" move which is being sponsored by the United Auto Workers in order to help General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler retool their factories for the new era of smaller, fuel efficient autos that will be in demand and must be manufactured if those companies are to stay in business. However, when you probe the issue further, you find that only about $25 billion is needed for retooling, and a major portion of the balance is slated to repay the union’s medical and pension funds, which those companies have not been able to pay.
The unions want to use public tax monies to pay their union members lifetime medical and dental benefits, and lucrative pension payments….while the rest of us suffer, do without, lose most of our pensions, and are forced to pay the bill. The terrible part of this situation is that in the existing political climate…they stand a good chance of success.
I would favor offering low interest loans to those companies for retooling, meanwhile restricting dividends, executive salaries, and benefits until the loans are repaid, and offering no "bail-out" free money for the companies and their unions to gobble up. These companies and their unions have demonstrated bad management and excessive greed over the past decades, thus moving their cost structures to a non-competitive level…and if bankruptcies and closings are in their future, they all earned it.
Abolishing Secret Ballots – Another front burner union proposal is a move to abolish the secret ballot when unionization elections are held within a company or function. Although the secret ballot is a cherished part of the American culture, designed to assure the right to vote without fear of reprisals, the Union Bosses want to know which employees voted against the union. They will thus know who to "blackball", and which front porches for their mafia hoods to burn. These practices will enable them to penetrate and unionize with greater success in areas such as Wal-Mart and other selected companies.
Abolishing "Right To Work Laws" – At present there are fourteen states where state laws have created "open shops" for workers instead of "closed shops". In those states right to work legislation is in effect, workers can work for a unionized company and not belong to the union. They have the right to choose whether or not they wish to pay dues and belong to the union. In the other union dominated states where right to work legislation is not in effect, in order to work for a unionized company, all workers must join the union and pay dues.
These laws have greatly weakened the strength of the union grip on industry in the mostly southern, right to work states. The union movement wants to pass state and federal laws that will ban the right to work legislation. They will certainly have this on their agenda during Obama’s term.
Expanding Unionization of Government Functions: At present there are several government functions which have been identified as "critical" and unions are thus prohibited from organizing these areas. An example would include the Air Traffic Controllers, and other similar jobs where public safety would be put at risk if disruptive union activities were allowed.
The unions do not like these restrictions, since thousands of potential dues paying workers are not within their grasp. We can expect this to change in the coming months. Of course the unions enjoy unionization of public functions, since they can escalate wages and costs without fear of putting the organization out of business from foreign competition…as they did many industries. When government functions are unionized they have an open reach into the never ending flow of money from the taxpayers.
Raising the Minimum Wage: The unions and their politicians like to raise the minimum wage. They can then pretend they have helped the lower earner work groups. In reality, these are the jobs which are most sensitive to competition from other parts of the world, and these jobs are soon transferred out of the United States to other nations. Those workers they pretended to help the most are actually the ones hurt the most. A good example is the textile-apparel industry that was lost during the past decade.
Also, by pushing up the minimum wage, the platform of comparison for union wages is thus pushed upward. This helps the unions justify further wage increases for high paid union workers.
Conclusion: In my opinion the union movement and the impact it has had on industrial production costs over the past fifty years has resulted in those industries becoming cost prohibitive on the world market. As a result America has lost a major portion of it’s basic industries. For example, today the bewildered steel workers stumble around in the decaying union halls in Pittsburg and ask forlornly, "What happened to my $30.00 per hour job?" The same thing is happening as we speak to our automotive industry.
But the union movement hopes for revitalization as the liberal, pro-union Obama regime takes power. They are about to form a "More perfect union".
Rudiments- Odds and Ends Worth Mentioning:
♦ Well as I write I can look out the window and see everyone at all of the retail businesses along the street busy at work, hoping to entice some customer to enter their shops. Small business vans and trucks roll by as they rush to make a delivery in their continuing struggle to survive. At area factories and warehouses everyone is hard at work…and meanwhile across the street at the court house all lights are out and the private parking spaces are empty, as our federal, state, and county bureaucracies enjoy one of their many, many paid holidays, using our tax dollars to enjoy themselves while the tax payers work. It just doesn’t seem right to me. They pass the laws, set the rules, and give themselves whatever they need. They always look out for each other and themselves. We are asked to keep our mouths shut, our heads down, to ignore it, and just keep on working.
♦ I wish Milton Pittman good luck and a happy life. He has been a good Commissioner and has always been a positive, honest force in our local government.
♦ This Christmas I encourage all area citizens to "Buy Local". Our local businesses are struggling in this weak economy and we should all try especially hard to support them this year as we buy presents for our loved ones. Do this and you will be "Getting It Right".
Note: The opinions stated in this column are solely those of the author and do not represent those of Hatcher Publications.
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