Unions: Champions of the Little People or a One-Word Oxymoron?

You know how unions keep telling us that; their way is the best way, card-check is all about protecting a worker's right to vote on unionizing without facing employer intimidation and that unions are there to make sure the voices of the little guy are heard?

According to the website for The Center for American Progress, "Unions Are Good for Workers and the Economy in Every State."

Sounds good, right? I mean, who isn't all for solving problems, stronger workplaces and giving working families a real voice? Who would be against an organization that is good for the economy in every state? The problem is; unions accomplish none of that. In fact, unions accomplish quite the opposite.

According to the National Right to Work website, "Right to Work" law secures the right of employees to decide for themselves whether or not they want to join or financially support a union." Out of the 50 United States, 22 of them are "Right to Work" states. The other 28 states have laws that force workers to become part of a union and pay dues as a prerequisite of their employment.

According to a study conducted by CNBC, when it comes to rating America's Top States for Business 2011 for quality of work, 18 out of the top 20 states are Right-to-Work states. More telling than that, all 22 Right-to-Work states rank in the top 25 for states for having the best workforces.

More Right-to-Work states also take top 10 best spots in the categories of; Economy, Infrastructure and Transportation, and Cost of Living. So, why are Democrats like Rep. Brad Sherman (D-CA) teaming up with unions to force the 22 states who do not want unions moving in to turn them into union states? Moreover, since when is it the right of union leaders and government representatives from union controlled states to strip other states of their Right to Work laws so unions can enforce what they see as their "legitimate ability to collect dues"?

The oxymoron otherwise known as the Center for American Progress also informs us that, on average, "union workers earn significantly more" than their non-union counterparts and they cite such interesting statistics as union workers are "nearly 54 percent more likely" to get pensions and health insurance at the complete expense of their employer. No wonder the liberal friendly group called Shared Prosperity touted a survey that showed three out of five workers saying they would like to join a union.

Incidentally, isn't it a coincidence that the same company who conducted this "independent" study for Shared Prosperity, Peter D. Hart Research Associates, also conducted an "independent" poll to prove public support for the social initiatives of another bastion of liberal activism known as The Open Society Institute owned by George Soros?

Another curious thing about that "independent" poll that said 3 out of 5 workers want to be in a union? When union workers are given the option to voluntarily opt out of membership and paying dues, most of them do. Consider what happened in Indiana after Gov. Mitch Daniels signed an executive order similar to the Walker bill in Wisconsin that also limited collective bargaining for state workers. Before Daniels signed the order in 2005, 16,408 state employees belonged to the union. After the executive order became law and gave the workers "free will" the total of union members dropped to 1,490.

Unlike union leaders, liberal activists and their "independent" polls, math doesn't lie.

Additionally, while leaders of public employee unions love to demonize "employers", they always avoid mentioning that those "employers" are the American taxpayer.

Remember how the teachers unions stormed the Capitol Building in Wisconsin to protest the passage of Republican Gov. Scott Walker's bill designed to strip government workers of nearly all collective bargaining rights? Remember how the union leaders insisted that the cuts made to the city budget by the bill would be "devastating" and would "damage the state's residents and communities for generations"?

The fact is, just four months after Gov. Scott Walker signed the bill into law there are early indications that the bill is already working to reduce the budget. In fact, according to the Washington Examiner, the union's predicted disaster has turned into "a godsend" for the Kaukauna School District. Under the new budget policies put in place through the bill, officials in the Fox River Valley of Wisconsin say they will turn this year's $400,000 deficit into a $1.5 million surplus.

More school districts should be allowed to experience disasters like that.

Unions are also pushing hard for the passage of what they call the Employee Free Choice Act, more commonly known as "Card Check." The words, "Free Choice" in this title are quite the oxymoron. The Heritage Foundation reveals that Card Check is really a way to eliminate a worker's right to cast a private ballot on whether or not to join -- or to leave -- a union. Passage of the Employee Free Choice Act would force employees to cast their vote publicly before union organizers. Where unions claim publicly that the law would make it harder for employers to threaten workers seeking to join a union, union activists acknowledge privately that publicly signed cards do not reflect what workers really want because many of them sign union cards because of peer pressure or out of fear due to intimidation and harassment imposed upon them by union organizers.

SEIU spent a lot of money to get Obama elected in 2008. Therefore, Barack Obama also supports the union push for the passage of the Employee Free Choice Act.

"We spent a fortune to elect Barack Obama -- $60.7 million to be exact -- and we're proud of it," Stern boasted to the Las Vegas Sun in 2009.

In fact, Real Clear Politics reveals that, through the many White House visits of Service Employees International Union leader Andy Stern, Obama has "SEIU-blessed bureaucrats installed in every corner of his administration to carry out the agenda." Additionally, SEIU has amassed a $10 million war chest they plan on using to un-seat anyone who opposes their card check efforts. They acquired the cash arsenal by slapping an extra $6 member fee on top of regular yearly union member dues and then funneled the cash straight into SEIU's political action committee.

In return for their hefty financial support, Obama also engaged in a series of quid pro quo efforts to pay the SEIU back for the generosity. American Spectator reported how Obama cut the Labor Department's funding to investigate union corruption. CNS News revealed how Obama signed an executive order that encourages federal agencies to grant construction contracts to unions or to use "project labor agreements", which required non-union workers to pay into union pension funds and to follow work guidelines set out by a union. The Los Angeles Times exposed how Obama gave the SEIU an unprecedented role in deciding which states did and did not receive federal stimulus funds and how SEIU used their clout to threaten withholding stimulus money from California unless lawmakers reinstated the pay cuts made to public employees made in an effort to balance the state's crushing budget.

According to the AFL/CIO website, "Labor unions are made up of working people working together to solve problems, build stronger workplaces and give working families a real voice."

So, why weren't the members of the United Federation of Teachers (UFT) listening to the voices of the thousands of African Americans who took to the streets to protest the lawsuit they filed to prevent the closure of 22 failing schools in New York? If unions were supposed to solve problems, why would the UFT and the NAACP want to block the city from allowing the vacated spaces from becoming charter schools, which would provide access to better education to the children of poor, urban minorities? If the NAACP was so interested in what working families had to say, why did Hazel Dukes, president of the New York chapter of the NAACP tell the African American parents who opposed their lawsuit that they "can march and have rallies all day long. . . . We will not respond"?

Then there is the case of the nurses in California.

According to a 2009 report by the San Francisco Times, the California Nurses Association/National Nurses Organizing Committee, United American Nurses, and the Massachusetts Nurses Association joined forces to create a formidable nurses "super union" known as National Nurses United. Soon after, the new union powerhouse became an affiliate of the AFL-CIO. Together, the NNU and AFL-CIO were busily engaged in furthering what they called the "unification process."

Nurses of the Fremont-Rideout Health Group want out of that "unification process.". They are tired of paying the exorbitant California Nurses Association (CNA) dues, which they feel do not benefit nurses but rather go toward funding the generous salaries and benefits enjoyed by the CNA officers. Because the nurses no longer feel that the union represents their interests they want to withdraw from the union and, in a David and Goliath style resistance the nurses have banded together to fight.

According to their website, the Fremont-Rideout Health Group claims the CNA/AFL-CIO "unification process" involves implementing multiple delay tactics to prevent the nurses from voting their exit from the union while they go to court in order to force rebelling nurses to remain in the union against their will.These nurses also strongly oppose the Employee Free Choice Act saying, "The very foundation of American democracy is centered on the right to cast a secret ballot vote" and that the efforts of unions to impose card check is a "stark contradiction" to the "very core rights of American democracy."

Robert E. Anderson former Executive Vice President of Marketing for Reynolds Tobacco who eventually advocated against company advertising once said, "Labor unions would have us believe that they transfer income from rich capitalists to poor workers. In fact, they mostly transfer income from the large number of non-union workers to a small number of relatively well-off union workers."

Despite their altruistic claims, the more we find out about the real motives of union activity and the effects that their policies have upon local economies, the more we find out their efforts have less to do with protecting the paychecks, voice and rights of the little people and more to do with funding their own efforts to shut them up and force them into submission.

Sources:

"Interactive Map: Unions Are Good for Workers and the Economy in Every State", Center for American Progress Action Fund

"Right to Work States", "National Right to Work Legal Defense, Inc.

"Workforce-2011", CNBC

"Economy-2011", CNBC

"Infrastructure & Transportation -- 2011", CNBC

"Cost of Living -- 2011", CNBC

The Honorable Brad Sherman, "Help Eliminate Unfair Labor Laws: Give Unions a Fair Deal", Scribd.

Harley Shaiken, "Unions, the economy and employee free choice", Shared Prosperity.org

"Changing Public Attitudes toward the Criminal Justice System", Peter D. Hart Research Associates, Inc.

For The Open Society Institute

Scott Bauer, "Wisconsin Senate to vote on anti-union bill after thousands storm capital", Salon.com

Matthew Boyle, "Wisconsin's teachers make a little more money than they're letting on", The Daily Caller

"Capitol Chaos: Unions Say Plan Damages State 'For Generations'", TMJ 24/NBC

Byron York, "Union curbs rescue a Wisconsin school district", The Washington Examiner

Evan Halper, "U.S. threatens to rescind stimulus money over wage cuts", The Los Angeles Times

James Sherk, "Unions Know That Card Check Does Not Reveal Employees' Free Choice" The Heritage Foundation

Michael Mishak, "Unplugged: The SEIU chief on the labor movement and the card check", Las Vegas Sun

Michelle Malkin, "Big Labor's Investment in Obama Pays Off", Real Clear Politics

Philip Klein, "Obama Slashes Union Enforcement Budget", American Spectator

"Union FAQ's/ What is a union?" AFL-CIO.org

"NAACP vs. Black Parents", National Policy Institute

Chris Rauber, "New national "super union" for RNs chooses name, plans founding convention", San Francisco Business Times

"Nurses Should Know anbut CNS/NNOC", Fremont-Rideout Health Group

"The High Cost of C.N.A./N.N.O.C" Fremont-Rideout Health Group

"The Timeline", Fremont-Rideout Health Group

"FRHG -- CNA Timeline", Fremont-Rideout Healthcare Group

"Employee Free Choice: The Employee's Right to Choose Should be Protected", Fremont-Rideout Healthcare Group