Recently in Labor Category

One of the things that always bugged me about belonging to a union was the union's use of my dues money to support politicians that supported policies and laws I found objectionable. I had little say which political candidates my dues money would support.

Some things have changed since those days, but a lot of union money funds candidates which the rank and file may not support. That can lead to trouble for the union, particularly if those dues are used to support a candidate in a federal election. If members of the rank and file object to their dues going to support a candidate they do not support, it is illegal for the union to do so, at least for that portion of the dues paid by the objecting members. But that hasn't stopped some of them from doing so anyways.

The SEIU (Service Employees International Union) may find itself the subject of an investigation by the Department of Labor and Department of Justice for doing just that.

The mighty Service Employees International Union (SEIU) plans to spend some $150 million in this year's election, most of it to get Barack Obama and other Democrats elected. Where'd they get that much money?

That's a question the Departments of Labor and Justice are being asked to investigate by the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation. Specifically, the labor watchdog group wants Justice to query a new SEIU policy that appears to coerce local workers into funding the parent union's national political priorities.

The union adopted a new amendment to its constitution at last month's SEIU convention, requiring that every local contribute an amount equal to $6 per member per year to the union's national political action committee. This is in addition to regular union dues. Unions that fail to meet the requirement must contribute an amount in "local union funds" equal to the "deficiency," plus a 50% penalty. According to an SEIU union representative, this has always been policy, but has now simply been formalized.

No other major institution could get away with its bosses demanding that every single one of its workers step in line behind its political preferences. This is the sort of imposed political obeisance that infuriates so many workers and turns them away from unions.

It's not much different than outright robbery or strong arm "protection" rackets of the past, where money is involuntary taken from union members and given to campaigns that are the antithesis of the political beliefs of the members. Stuff like that gets people sent to prison, even in this day and age.

Just because the SEIU has always had that as a "policy", doesn't mean it's legal, ethical, or moral. It's time for the union to realize they have to follow the laws, just like everyone else. Such strong arm tactics tend to drive people away from the unions. It's one of the reasons I left the employment of a company where I once worked. I got tired of the union BS, the mandatory dues, and the union's campaign contributions to politicians whose ideology was just this side of Lenin...or Al Capone.

A series of TV ads by UnionFacts.org has been hitting the airwaves lately, slamming the labor unions for their attempts to make changes to the way employees can decide to form a union.
 
One of those changes is to do away with secret ballots, long a mainstay of American democracy. Union leaders say secret ballots allow employers to threaten potential union members, though how that can be is something I've puzzled over for some time. Instead, the unions want to replace the secret ballot with an "open" voting procedure which consists of merely signing a card. If this method doesn't lend itself to intimidation, I don't know what will. And in this case the intimidation will more likely come from the union organizers and not the employer. It's strong arm tactics they want written into law.

Here's one ad run by UnionFacts.org showing how it would work:



You think it wouldn't be like that? You're wrong.
 
Having been a member in good standing of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers for 20 years, I can say from first hand knowledge that it probably would be, at least in some areas of the country. And while union membership can have its advantages, there are plenty of disadvantages, too.
 


In my local, if you didn't have a certain ethnic last name (no, not Italian, but Portuguese), you had zero chance of being elected as a steward or any kind of union official, unless of course you married onto one of the families that were the backbone of the local. Needless to say, my experience with union stewardship soured me on unions.
 
While there are still a few professions where I believe unions are a necessity, for the most part they have far outlived their usefulness. While they purport to protect working Americans, most of the protections they used to provide are now codified in labor law, something the unions themselves pushed for.
 
For decades now labor union membership has been shrinking. Some of that can be attributed to the loss of jobs in the so-called Rust Belt, and some to foreign competition. But other losses can be attributed to union abuses that ended up forcing businesses that had employed their members to close their doors or to relocate because they couldn't meet the demands of the unions. If that isn't an example of how the unions aren't really looking out for the welfare of their members, then I don't know what is.