This is not a very happy Labor Day for labor, considering the continued heavy attacks on public-employee unions, which have become the vanguard of organized labor. More than one-third of public employees are now in unions, while only about 7 percent of private-sector-workers are unionized.
Probably nothing could be more damaging to the labor movement in general than the attempts by anti-union forces to weaken unions at all levels of government by trying to limit - if not withdraw - their collective bargaining rights and right to strike, in addition to unilaterally cutting the pay and pensions, health care, and other benefits their unions have won in bargaining.
Although that's all been done in the name of budget balancing, it's more accurately described as union busting, spurred on by the steady increase in public-employee union members, even as the number of private-sector unionists has been declining.
It hasn't helped unions, either, that President Obama has turned out to be far less friendly to labor than he'd promised while securing lots of union money and lots of union supporters to help him win the presidency. Ironically, the key role unions played in Obama's election has led to moves by anti-union forces to try to also weaken unions' political rights.
2 comments:
Public unions are corrupt by design and should be outlawed like they used to be! Anytime you negotiate your contract with the same people that you contribute money too, You have corruption.
Unions have been holding employers (Public and private) hostage for years. By any other definition Unions would be outlawed by RICO and other corruption/organized crime laws, but because a large chunk of the union dues is funneled back into the DNC coffers, they get a pass.
Time to fix it. Time to put those corrupt union leaders and democrat recipients in jail!
Post a Comment