Unions: Americans Say No
There is a disconnect between the ferocity with which unions are pressing for the Employee Free Choice Act -- better known as card check -- and their representation of the bill. If, as they assert, it does not do away with the secret ballot and would make no radical changes to existing labor law, then why are they so desperate for its passage?
The answer, of course, is that the bill would impose radical changes. It makes secret-ballot elections less likely: If 30 percent to 50 percent of employees sign pledge cards, then the union -- not the employees -- gets to decide between a secret-ballot election and card check. It would force companies not merely to negotiate, but to accept rules decreed by third-party arbitrators. And it would impose stiff fines on employers, but not labor unions, for violations of labor regulations.
There's another reason the unions want card check: They might not be able to win without it. A recent Rasmussen poll shows why.
The poll demonstrates that while 47 percent of union members think other employees want to join a union, that's far from the truth. In fact, Rasmussen reports, only 9 percent of non-union workers want to join a union. Further, Rasmussen found, "even among those who are worried about losing their jobs in the near future, only nine percent (9 percent) would like to join a union. There is also no difference in a desire for union membership between those whose firms are hiring and those who are laying people off."
No wonder the unions are acting desperate.
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Memo to “the observer” - You and I apparently remember the ‘old union days.‘ The present situation with unions is that they are now part of what you call the ‘corrupt capitalist system.‘ Unions of today would be unrecognizable to my grandfathers, uncles and father who were part of the early union efforts in another city.
It is no coincidence some of the best Mafia lawyers in America are also the best union defense attorneys as well.
If you were forced or are being pressured to join a labor union, know your rights:
http://www.nrtw.org/
The fact is, workers in unions do much better financially than workers who aren’t—higher wages, better wages, more job security. There’s no disputing that. So it’s hard to know what to make of people who say they don’t want to join a union; they are like people trekking through a desert who say they don’t want water. One explanation is that unions have been demonized to an extent by conservatives—as we see with this typically shallow t/d editorial.
The problem in America is that the middle ground has not been found. A lot of American workers get exploited by employers—Wal-Mart is a prime example; a company that’s grown enormous on the backs of employees are badly paid and have few benefits—but then that’s sadly the rule in most of America today. Unions were a counterweight to exploited employees—and then, yes, some if not many unions became too powerful and it’s true that a lot of union workers are overpaid. I met a Hispanic guy in the city a week ago who’s working on the water pipes. He told me that he drives a late-model BMW—true story—and in many cities he’s getting $50 a hour. So union contracts can be a burden on some companies—look at the U.S. automakers. I was in a union for 10 years, paid quite a bit in membership dues, and then had trouble leaving the union when I wanted to, which angered me.
I basically support the idea of unions because our capitalist system has become corrupt—with scandalously high executive pay, backdating of stock options, executives chopping workers and cutting costs to boost the stock price to raise their income, on an on. There needs to be a middle-ground—and we really have to starting making/manufacturing products in America again. I generally support free trade, but the shift of manufacturing to low-wage countries like China and south asia definitely has hurt this country. We are now a nation of wal-mart workers—and that is not pretty.
Unions have changed from being a genuine instrument of progressive assistance to the average worker into an engine of wealth transfer from both the ordinary worker to the union officials and from the American consumer to union workers long retired. Expecting that trend to continue into eternity, union leadership assumed nothing else would change. But life is dynamic and change in the form of outsourcing American jobs and industries has become the current reality. I hope those union leaders enjoy things made in China!
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