A Motor City Near You >>

I have tremendous faith in the American worker, but it seems that as of late, he/she is not at peak performance in a number of ways. It begins in the American education system, which is autocratically inert, inefficient, refuses to accept that better teaching exists outside the system, and genuflects by in large to the Teacher’s Union. But let’s set aside the arguments relating to this and steer them to what we see today in Detroit and nationwide, at the unions that set the blaze and now demand to put the fire out thereafter. Ultimately, unions as they exist today and in their present form, are about control, power, and the riches of hourly dues paid to union executives and lawyers.

First of all, I am not anti-union. All Americans have a right to freedom of association, guaranteed in the first amendment. But there are some places in which they go wrong that lead to corruption and waste.

Mandatory membership: In days of yore when unions had much more power than today, union membership was often mandatory, but things have gotten better. In the places that I worked and had a choice, I chose to opt out of the union. Granted, I was young and had a nest-egg even smaller than the one I currently incubate in a thimble, but a cookie-cutter policy does not augment rights, it drags one into an anthill. To the credit of ants, at least they work tirelessly without compulsion or incentive, and they have smartly tied their currency to sugar crystals and dog turds, a combined exchange that has remained stable, albeit low-valued.

Humans are a different story. Sugar crystals and turds don’t do it for everyone.

Campaign endorsements and in-kind contributions: Labor unions not only endorse candidates, but they also go further into devoting endless volunteer legions to full campaign mode for their predilections. Notice how this bullet point ties into the last, highlighting a compulsory support of a candidate in order to keep one’s job. Progress has been made since the Reagan Revolution, but even that may change.

Transparency: Unions have endlessly touted how much manufacturing executives make via pamphlets and annual reports to their constituents, but remain averse to disclose their legal fees and executive salaries. Furthermore, these organizations have historically held mob ties.

Monopoly: GM, Ford, Toyota, Chrysler. These are all car companies that have deep sway in the American Labor Market. But what unites their entire industry? The United Auto Workers Union, of course! If the Sherman Act of the early 20th century was written to apply to corporate monopolies and large price-fixing trusts, why should the same standard not be applied to powerful organizations wanting to dominate an entire labor market for themselves? Barry Goldwater, in The Conscience of a Conservative, explained that he supported the right of association for organized labor, but felt that one union matched with one company was a judicious balance of power. What we have today is one UAW that monopolizes a whole industry and plays companies off each other.

A Modern Legal Climate: The time in which unions were fostered was much different than today. Children drank whiskey, shot rifles, and were lured to work in coal mines, after having left their farm where their parents often made them forgo an education out of necessity during the outmoded labor-intensive food production methods of the past. Yeah, it was a lot different. We now have labor laws on the books like OSHA, HIPAA Compliance, NLRB and EEOC that render many of the former services of unions redundant if not obsolete. Furthermore, small and medium-sized businesses suffer endlessly from the lack of tort reform and frivolous lawsuits already, and Americans are the most litigious people on earth, in the history of mankind. No use crying over spilled McDonald’s coffee…

The “Employee Free Choice Act”: I once saw a movie about cut-throat, Ayn Rand venture capitalists breaking up unions and companies and then reselling their chopped parts. “Other People’s Money” is the flick in mind; namely it was the climactic shareholder’s meeting that convinced me, a mere highschooler at the time, that the fictitious company might not be worth saving. Yet I liked the format of the finale. Both sides were given equal time to make their case, and each and every voter in the audience knew what it was for which they were voting. Even our judicial system is, with defense and prosecution, adversarial in nature. When people vote, both parties should make their cases, the durance of the campaign should have a clear beginning and end, and people should vote anonymously... all the cornerstones of a genuine democratic flux.

The pending legislation called the Employee Free Choice Act is anything but what its name implies. Instead of a formal vote, union members and organizers can appear in a parking lot as an employee leaves work, and ask them to sign a petition, whose purposes may not be fully explained as there is no provision to watch the surveyors. Union members can even come to a worker’s home and pressure people into signing on for the formation of a union. In order for a union to be ratified, over 50% of the workforce must sign on.

Let’s set the stage. Liberals want for union organizers to eschew an election, surround people in parking lots and show up at doorsteps, drive for unionization in secret from the rest of the company’s management, forgo explaining in depth, in a public forum with private voting, what benefits they have to offer in contrast to standing management, and lastly surprise corporate management one day that they now must accept a parasite. If they don’t concede to this hit-and-run within 90 days, the federal chairs at the NLRB barge in from higher levels of power and strike a two-year binding compromise after a surreptitious guerilla-style campaign to install a thugocracy. Nothing liberal about liberals.

“Here! Would you sign our petition to free Tibet?”
“Yeah, sure…ok.”
“Will you sign onto our drive to end urban poverty?”
“I’d love to…but I’m in a hurry.”
“Don’t worry…it will only take a second…”

It reads like something we all nod in approval to on the street, but never take seriously enough to keep from throwing the literature away a few blocks down, out of sight.

A few months back, Greg Knox, the owner of a small parts supplier for GM, wrote a scorching letter to corporate regarding the complacency and thuggery of labor unions and their unintended consequences that Ford is a healthcare and pension organization that builds cars as a byproduct. It did not surprise me how much hate this man has received from the left on blog posts, the way they vilified Joe the Plumber, Tito the Builder, and any other common man (who they allegedly stand for) who dares question the “experts” and their efforts to play God with their lives. I recently contacted Mr. Knox and wished him good luck, and he did the same for me.

Here is the link: http://www.snopes.com/politics/soapbox/knox.asp

To recap, Democrats have:

•    Bailed out the Big Three (funny Bush would push for this, since the UAW sides against the GOP at every turn)
•    Fired GM management they don’t like
•    Pledged to subsidize and back product warranties
•    Pledged to purchase north of 17,000 cars, with their tires properly inflated
•    Overseen and encouraged the partnership and partial acquisition of Chrysler, an American brand, to Fiat, a foreign company (ironically named “Fiat”)
•    Called for tougher emission standards--which all poor people can afford--to satiate the Cult of Global Warming and the radical environmentalists that comprise the net-savvy base at Sierra Club and PETA.

Piloting the auto industry the same way they did Social Security, FEMA, and other debacles, the DNC and RINOs have their work cut out for them to ever convince me to buy "The People's Car." If Obama had any stones for “change’s sake,” he would have fired Rod Gettelfinger and thereby rebuffed the criticism that he has no executive expertise or business acumen, yet 20 years funneling aid to black supremacists and ACORN, and gallantly serving his nation by fundraising for foosball tables at local rec centers have kept this man rooted in his core beliefs. Times have steered him elsewhere, in his brave new “era of personal responsibility.” >>