Pensions go to union members and depending on your state, some unions are in worse health than others. Chart here is very good. So, President Obama talks out of both sides of his mouth.

On the one hand he labels Wall Street evil, but even he knows that if everything implodes, his union buds will be in a heap of trouble.

More here.

So, the one leg of the Trifecta of Doom(TM) is growing back. Says the Wall Street Journal:

One proposal would slash the time for an organizing vote, requiring that it be held within five or 10 days after 30% of workers had signed cards asking for a union. The median time today is 38 days. Organizers want the rush because they know the more time workers have to learn about a union, the less they usually want one. Once employees hear the other side of the story, support dwindles.

This also explains a Big Labor demand to bar companies from requiring their workers to hear management’s side during a union campaign. Labor supporters say this creates a “captive audience,” but these meetings are one of management’s few opportunities to address workers, since companies are barred from the sort of outreach allowed to union organizers — such as visiting employees at home. At the same time, Senators want to give union organizers access to company property.

Democrats also aren’t giving up on binding arbitration, which would let a federal arbitrator impose a contract if management and a newly established union at a work site aren’t able to agree within 90 days. The provision would encourage unions to make maximum demands and play for time, knowing that an arbitrator could force management’s hand. Binding arbitration also denies employees a vote on a contract.

Oh yeah, Unions are all for the little guy. The question is whether these thugs can jam through the legislation that Barack Obama has promised them.

Now is the time to call soft moderate Democrats from Southern states whose states benefit from being union-free.

The Union’s idea here is to make every state as unproductive, hamstrung and miserable as Michigan. Should places like Wal-Mart unionize or should manufacturing plants in the South end up unionized, the whole country will be as oppressed and depressed as the union states now are. Business can’t grow when forced to make unproductive, expensive choices. Card Check is another way Barack Obama is trying to make things “fair”. He wants people to be paid more than the job is worth. This will force companies to cut workforce. It always does. But that matters not to them.

To President Obama, the American economy is just one big, grand experiment.

Card check is dangerous because it’s a way to remove economic competition. If every big company, in every state can be coerced into union submission, the United States becomes a uniformly inhospitable place for businesses. Northern states already bereft of manufacturing jobs figure that the companies won’t keep moving south because the south won’t be as appealing. In actuality, companies will just flee overseas which will harm the southern states just as badly as the northern states were harmed.

Card check is the worst legislation sitting in Congress right now with the most damaging long-term implications. Yes, that includes even Health Care legislation. I know. This is saying something.

UPDATED:

Is Card Check off the table until Summer?

Newt said,”Our opponents count on two things: One, we’re [Americans] cowards and two, that we’re all stupid.” But Newt believes that Americans have always been “brave enough to be free and we’re not that dumb”.

Specifically, Newt discussed energy policy, the economy, and the Union Card Check. He said many interesting things. You can see his policy ideas here.

Updated:

I forgot something: Newt also mentioned going into Democrat strongholds and supporting fiscally conservative Democrats.

Cross-posted at RightWingNews.com

I, too, live in Houston but was born and raised in Michigan. And, you are so right about Michigan.
Beautiful. I miss the four seasons.

Anyway, I hear comments to your blog about how can liberal policies have caused this? I am a
chemical engineer and when I graduated from college (University of Michigan) in 1975 Michigan
had a vibrant chemical and process business economy. However, I remember Attorney General
Frank Kelly waging his war against that same industry. I remember the unions striking one chemical,
pharmaceutical, and food processing plant after another. The result was obvious. Not a sudden
move out, rather a slow disinvestment in the state. Plants didn’t shut down immediately, There just
was no investment. So departments and plants slowly rotted until one after another they were shut
down. If you don’t want business, it isn’t going to stay for long.

Michigan could have a strong chemical business but most are gone and those that are left are
just rumps of what they were. Michigan could have a strong food process business but who wants
to deal with the environmental hassle? So, most the plants are in northern Indiana or northern Ohio.

Michigan’s economy has caved in because they drove everybody out except the auto business. This
took 30 years. Now, the only one left is dying. So, what happens? The state dies.

And this cycle is the cycle that the Democrats would like to impose on the whole country. When there is no where to escape to, America will be like Europe. High unemployment, cushy social services for the lazy, low productivity, long vacations, little innovation (why invest when the government takes the gains?), low birth rates (who can afford kids) and importing labor from regions who don’t like the host country very much creating an angry underclass sucking off of social services.

In a word: socialism. It slowly crushes the spirit and defeats the individual. Unions like it though–everyone is “equal”. Equally miserable.

We are soooo far from those days it’s not even funny.

Mexico, China, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Myanmar, all have to worry about worker exploitation. Other countries like Zimbabwe should just make it a priority to not kill people.

In America, we have problems but bad work conditions and maltreatment are not some of them. The Economist says:

The waning popularity of unions is not just a recent phenomena. The UAW unsuccessfully attempted to unionise my fellow students and me when I was in graduate school. They launched an impressive lobbying effort, playing on the left-wing tendencies of the students in the humanities and social sciences (not the economists of course, they didn’t even bother with us). At the time I figured things must be pretty bad for autoworkers if the UAW had to turn to graduate students for union dues.

But it’s not just the UAW that has fallen out of favour. Teachers unions are a popular target, too. They’re held responsible for perpetuating failure in public school systems by opposing accountability standards and performance pay. When New York City transit workers went on strike even the most left-leaning, upper-west-side-dwelling New Yorker wanted Roger Toussaint’s head. Now if the actors strike (just when we need entertainment the most for pete’s sake), I don’t anticipate them getting much sympathy either.

Unions remain too powerful in America to disappear anytime soon. But I wonder if this recession will have the opposite effect of the Depression, and may make unions less relevant.

Have some freaking perspective Union bosses and workers. When the average worker makes more per hour than an accountant or nurse or teacher, people feel a wee less sympathetic. When union benefits rob companies of maneuverability and productivity, the small businesses that support the big giants get frustrated. There are new products and innovations out there and the Unions strangle the life out of them because of their rules and regulations. When small business people pay huge taxes and expect to work until they’re 65 because 1) they love their work and 2) they have to, it rings hollow to hear some young 50 year old guy bitching because he might lose his pension benefits. Um, hello? Get a freaking job!

Anyway, union sympathy has come and gone. It will be a huge mistake if the Screen Actors Guild decides to strike, but I kinda hope they do. Hollywood sucks on a good day. There is no better time than now to break a union.

Cross-posted at RightWingNews