The history of unions in the American workforce is wrapped up in their quest for political power.

Originally unions sought equality in the workforce with the holders of the capital that employed them.  Unifying was a natural choice.  But their power devolved because the critical industries that employed them devolved.  Foreign competition put their employers at a growing disadvantage.  New information intensive industries such as Google and Facebook became financial powerhouses with few employees.  Much of this was just natural evolution.

Political pressure to promote unionism often had opposite effects.  Factories relocated to less union friendly states and countries.  Read the New York Times article How the U.S.  Lost Out on iPhone Work.

Excerpt:

Why can’t that work come home? Mr. Obama asked.

Mr. Jobs’s reply was unambiguous. “Those jobs aren’t coming back,” he said, according to another dinner guest.

The president’s question touched upon a central conviction at Apple. It isn’t just that workers are cheaper abroad. Rather, Apple’s executives believe the vast scale of overseas factories as well as the flexibility, diligence and industrial skills of foreign workers have so outpaced their American counterparts that “Made in the U.S.A.” is no longer a viable option for most Apple products.

Apple has become one of the best-known, most admired and most imitated companies on earth, in part through an unrelenting mastery of global operations. Last year, it earned over $400,000 in profit per employee, more than Goldman Sachs, Exxon Mobil or Google.

But unions have also lost ground to enlightened management.  As old-line steel companies, a major source of union workers, faded they were replaced by companies such as Nucor.  Nucor is now the largest American steel producer and mostly nonunion.

As unions lost their grip on American industry they sought to maintain their membership by representing government workers.  This was a radical departure and infected with political repercussions.  FDR opposed this and state and local governments largely forbade union representation until JFK in 1962.

Government unions collect union dues from workers, use the funds to promote strongly pro union political leaders, who further enrich the coffers of the unions. It is a vicious cycle that raises the cost of government at the taxpayers’ expense.

It is no wonder that government pay and benefits have thus outstripped the private sector.  And it is no wonder that states have had to push back on the never-ending growth.  Chris Christie from New Jersey, Mitch Daniels of Indiana have fought hard battles with state unions, but the big battle brewing is Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s recall vote.  The state’s unions are trying to remove from the office the governor who sought to reduce their power.  This, hopefully, will be the unions’ Waterloo.

From the Wall Street Journal Stephen Moore writes The Most Important Non-Presidential Election of the Decade, 1/28/12.

Excerpt:
The stakes here “go well beyond who will be governor of Wisconsin,” Mr. Walker explains. The recall’s ultimate objective is to intimidate any official across the country who’s thinking of crossing swords with the empire of teachers and other public-employee unions. “This is about killing reform initiatives in every state in the country,” says Mr. Walker.

In Wisconsin, the evidence is mounting that Mr. Walker hasn’t brought economic Armageddon but financial stability. Last year’s $3 billion deficit is now a $300 million surplus—and it was accomplished without the new taxes that unions favored. “If a business is failing, you don’t raise the prices on your customers,” Mr. Walker scoffs.

HKO comment:

Obama has been the ferocious proponent for unions that they expected when they elected him.  The card check bill (which though proposed was never voted on) was a major job killer and he has sought to accomplish through the NLRB what he was unable to get through Congress.

It will be a long touch fight but Walker, Daniels and Christie are at the forefront.  Public sector unions must go.

While he speaks of yet another jobs plan, this president consistently takes actions to kill jobs.  He is placing the active promotion of unions over job growth. In his fantasy land of fairness this makes sense, but anyone with business sense or experience (and his administration has very little) knows this is a sure way to kill jobs.

Early in his administration with the Democrats controlling both houses and the White House there was talk of a union card check bill that would have eliminated secret ballots for the workers in union elections.  Federal Express placed an order for 30 jumbo jets with language in  the purchase order allowing cancellation of half the order if this bill passed.  Domestically domiciled companies made plans to relocate overseas to avoid this intrusion into their affairs.  During the business panic in 2009 when this bill was being discussed several small businesses I knew spoke of this being the straw that would lead them to decide to shut down .

The card check bill was being considered at the same time as cap and trade, another abusive job killer. Fortunately these bills became sidelined as the Democrats focused their efforts on Obamacare, yet another job killer.

More recently The NLRB has held up the Boeing plant location in South Carolina, leaving 1,000 new jobs in limbo, all in the name of protecting union jobs in the state of Washington, even though there was no layoff of union workers as a result of this new plant.

Without any congressional approval the NLRB gas now issued an edict requiring all companies to post notices of the workers right to organize.  This may just seem like a harmless notification to this clueless president, but to the small businesses out there it is an outrage and it will kill job creation.

To many of us who have had experience with union attempts they too often act like liars and thugs.  For the government to make such overt attempts at cramming them down the throats of small business will just add another in a growing list of incentives to retire or close their business early, sit on their cash, and avoid any growth or new hiring.

Of all the special interests that have been decried for their destructive influence this administration’s obsession with promoting his union supporters is the most destructive.

One of the joys of the internet is that you are no longer limited to the tastes and bias of a media elite.  One can focus on the stories, issues and perspectives that interest you and not what a selected few decides YOU should know or be exposed to.

As bloggers post and read other bloggers we create an exchange or a market of stories often neglected by any mainstream source.  Sometimes these stories get so much traction that the MSM can no longer neglect them and they become widely disseminated.

But our postings certainly reflect our own (my own) biases.  I am biased against unions- I think they are largely lying thugs concerned with their own power and self interest.  They increasingly unable to sell their value in the private market, and thus they resort to political power to force the public to support their  bloated benefits. Their violent protests to restricting their political  power is the  last gasp of a dying institution.

I am also biased against crony capitalism- businesses and industry that rely more on political favoritism than market effectiveness and creative energy.

I believe that government solutions tend to create additional problems that end up dwarfing the problem they tried to solve. The relationship we often call public private partnerships is similar to the relationship between a pimp and a prostitute although it depends on the situation to determine which party is the pimp.

I find that most thinkers do not fit neatly into a simplistic binary political labeling system.  Partisan hacks defy thinking because they place greater emphasis on who said what than the content itself.

I am a main street capitalist and a global realist.  There is evil that must be confronted.  In politics and particularly in foreign affairs, the perfect is the enemy of the good. We reject good solutions because of their short comings and end up with problems perpetuated by inactions and short term pragmatism.

Yes I have my biases. I believe my biases are justified by extensive reading, thought, perspective and personal experience. I am sure others who disagree with me believe their biases are justified in the same way.

I just think they are wrong.

A theme I have visited frequently in this blog is the myth that more regulations make us safer or fairer. Often I point out that complex rules and regulation favor established big businesses at the expensive of smaller companies that cannot afford lobbyists or legal challenges to onerous rules.  Larger organizations have the administrative infrastructure and political clout to game the system (politics and the media) to their advantage.  Liberal activists often fighting for specific regulatory change are often shilling for one corporation’s advantage without knowing it.

For example,  Fedex’s drivers are covered by the Railway Labor Act and UPS is governed by the National Labor Relations Act.  UPS and the Teamsters are campaigning to amend the law so that Fedex would be governed by the same act as UPS, expecting that it would be easier to unionize Fedex.  “UPS increased its lobbying expenses by 60% during its ultimately unsuccessful battle to change the law, spending more than $8,000,000 in 2009.  Fedex spent $1,500,000 a month on lobbying in 2010.”[1]

This effort seems to be an admission that their union certainly does not give UPS a competitive edge, and it shows how lobbying is often a matter of one company using political influence to gain an advantage. Or it can be seen as an effort by the Teamsters to increase their sphere of influence.  But most importantly, it shows that lobbying is an outgrowth of regulation.  One cannot criticize the growth of lobbying and still insist on increased regulation.

While many proponents of regulation seek to make the playing field fairer, the growth in rules and regulations  has had the opposite effect.  Political influence is replacing market influence and it is stifling the economy.

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[1] “Why Corporations Love Regulation”,  William Voegeli, Commentary Magazine, June 2011

Reason shows how a city got it right.

Sandy Springs had a great opportunity and did not waste it.  They broke from the bloated Atlanta government bureaucracy and set up their own city, privatizing most of its services, avoiding public unions and the pension liabilities that are sinking so many cities.  It is admittedly easier to avoid money sucking institutions than it is to dismember them, but Sandy Springs at least gives us an idea at what is to be gained by eliminating entrenched special interests  that are contrary to the interests of the taxpayers and citizens of a community.