Labor unions today have unknowingly fulfilled a self-fulfilling prophesy. By leveraging unfair practices upon workers to build union 
membership, they did such a good job that they have lost their only reason to recruit. Now they are left with ancient history, the mid twentieth century, to fall back on. And for the most part, no longer have a reason to exist.
BIG LABOR advocates say “Without America’s labor unions, we wouldn’t have many of the protections and benefits that we have today.” That’s a true statement. It was true 30 years ago too! Thanks to the ‘wake-up call’ delivered to employers by organized labor decades ago, which was “treat your people right or lose,” the labor movement has successfully put itself out of business so to speak. Their usefulness has diminished due to their earlier success as shown by their decreasing member rolls.
- Total percentage private sector and public sector labor union workers: 2002 13.3%, 2012 11.3%
- Percent of private sector labor union workers: 2002 8.6%, 2012 6.6%
- Percent of public sector, government, labor union workers: 2002 37.3%, 2012 35.9%
- Total number of union workers, public and private sector: 2002 16,145,000, 2012 14,366,000
Now the BIG LABOR advocates lament “Every American worker benefits from the hard fought battles of our labor unions, but they are becoming extinct under our watch.” That’s also a true statement. Sucks to be them. Now they are the ones that need to learn a lesson. To get their own ‘wake-up call.’ Which is, be competitive in the marketplace, or lose. And union labor is far from competitive. And, they are losing. They are overpriced, and clinging to the last vestige of survival they have, the public sector. IE. government unions, where they are in bed with politicians who have no problems taking your tax dollars to pay for them and their unsustainable benefits and pension plans, so they (unions) can continue to give to their (Democrats) campaigns. In reality, it’s a huge money laundering scheme.
Where labor unions are concerned, Democrats in Washington find themselves between a rock and a hard place. At least on the surface. Labor unions want the Keystone XL pipeline to go through because it means thousands upon thousands of high-paying union jobs. Remember this? ‘I will not rest until every American who wants a job can get a job.’ But those jobs will go against Obama’s so-called ‘green’ initiative, and turn off the money flow from the environmental lobby. Sad truth is, Democrats are less interested in what is best for the country than what is best for their re-election.
So how does President Obama reconcile this? By taking proactive steps by using the government to boost union membership. The groundwork was set during the Clinton administration in ‘motor-voter’ laws. If you can get a drivers license, you can vote. Regardless of whether you are a legal citizen and, regardless if you can name the Vice President. There is a similar provision contained in the 65 page application to sign up for Obamacare. Why would voting registration have anything to do with obtaining health care? It doesn’t. But like motor-voter, it cultivates potential voters and campaign mailing lists.
Those are the subtle moves. A more obvious one is Card Check. Card Check has been voted down every time it has been proposed. It is a way to use the law against workers and employers to boost union membership. But, like nationalized health care, that issue isn’t going away. It will be back. The BIG one will come and be disguised within the bowels of immigration reform legislation. A straw man argument will be made to show the “need.” A victim. It will be the government making some requirement for some, if not all illegal immigrants to be a union member of some type. Unions don’t care what union it is, just as long as either the members or the taxpayers pay their dues.
Sacrificing the XL pipeline is small potatoes to locking up a permanent Democrat voting block while simultaneously increasing membership for a small segment (11.3%) of the working U.S. population.
Links: Papantonio: Standing With American Labor | U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics
