The Ugly Consequences of Forced Unionism
A recent Wall Street Journal article pointed out that the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees has become the biggest political spender in the 2010 election campaign – thus far having spent $87.5 million. Two other public employee unions have chipped in another $84 million (Service Employees International Union – $44 million and National Education Association – $40 million). Therefore, in what has become a predictable pattern, public employee unions are the biggest outside contributors in the 2010 election cycle.
Perhaps the most egregious part of this massive political spending is that the bulk of it comes from the 28 “forced union” or Non-Right to Work states, as well as Washington D.C., where belonging to the union is a condition of employment.
While corporate political spending goes to both major parties, the unions’ money goes pretty much in one direction – to Democrats – about 93% of the time. Yet, according to Mark Mix, president of the National Right to Work Foundation, about 40-45% of workers in those unions vote Republican. Thus if you are a Republican, your dues very well may be going to someone you will be voting against.)
And it gets worse. Who pays these public employees? The American taxpayer. So very quickly, throughout much of the country, the money goes from the taxpayers pocket to the public employees, whose pocket is then picked by the union and spent on mostly Democrats who will make sure that money keeps flowing in the unions’ direction.
As writer Warner Todd Huston says,” That’s right, unions give politicians money to make favorable laws for unions. Politicians then make favorable laws for unions so that unions will give them even more campaign cash and unions oblige so that politicians can then give them even more favorable laws and regulations. It’s a vicious circle from which the voters are wholly cut out. It is an incestuous relationship that enriches the unions and the politicians at the expense of the taxpayers who don’t have any influence at all on the sweetheart deals going on.”
Bottom line – not only doesn’t the public employee get to choose where his/her money goes, neither does the taxpayer. But the chickens have finally come home to roost. The lavish pension deals that the unions have made with their bought-and-paid-for legislators are now wreaking havoc with state and municipal budgets all over the country — to the point where states going into default and cities declaring bankruptcy are not out of the question.
Legislators all over the country must start to deal with the bleak reality that they and their submissive predecessors have been hoodwinked by a cunning and bullying adversary. As such, either states must make joining a public employee union voluntary – thus minimizing their money flow — or as Houston says, “This country needs to again make public employee unions illegal like they were previous to 1958.”
About the author: Larry Sand is the president of the non-profit California Teachers Empowerment Network – a non-partisan,non-political group dedicated to providing teachers with reliable and balanced information about professional affiliations and positions on educational issues.