Public Sector Unions and Lessons as yet Unlearned
Daniel Howes asked an excellent question in the Detroit News yesterday: What will it take for public-sector labor — with no ties to private, for-profit employers — to understand that the steady gravy train of the past 50 years has ground to a halt? In autos and steel, the UAW and the Steelworkers finally learned brutal [more...]

Posted Fri, 19 Mar 2010 .

Accepting the inevitable, AFL-CIO will back health care bill
Richard Trumka’s one block sprint to the White House yesterday afternoon paid off. This just in, from Politico: “A union official says the nation’s largest labor federation is strongly endorsing the Obama administration’s health care overhaul bill and plans to push wavering lawmakers for support. A union official familiar with the proceedings says [more...]

Posted Thu, 18 Mar 2010 .

Common Misunderstandings

In addition to misleading statistics generated by union-affiliated organizations, there are a few union “talking points” that confuse the issue.

One of the most common misunderstandings is that, under the card check plan offered by labor-friendly politicians, employees could decertify their representation by the same mechanism. The legislation clearly avoids that possibility.

Union officials continue to promote the idea that, even if a card check bill were signed into law, employees could still have a private vote if they wanted one. This is at best misleading. Simple logic suggests that union officials would have no reason to call for a vote if they are able to achieve the simple majority of signatures in a bargaining unit. It would be tantamount to a politician winning an election and then asking for a recount.

Perhaps the most pernicious misstatement is that signing a union authorization card should be viewed the same as joining a voluntary association. Former Senator John Edwards gave a representative sample of his pro-card check stump speech in Las Vegas, where the Las Vegas Review-Journal quoted him in April 2006 saying, “If someone can join the Republican Party by putting their name on a card, then workers in the workplace all across America ought to be able to join the union by doing exactly the same thing.” But political parties do not have the equivalent power of a union official’s ability to tax, represent, or reprimand members. And signing up for a political party doesn’t force anyone else to start paying dues.