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Older Americans may fondly remember bygone days when some labor unions played a positive role in our private enterprise economy. In the 1950s, many unions were anti-Communist and expelled Communist agitators. Today's unions, by contrast, are organizations that promote biggovernment solutions to every problem. That's because the membership of powerful unions has dramatically changed. Today, the majority of union members are not in private industry. More than 50% of union members are now federal or state government employees. The political power of these unions of government workers is a major reason why government spending is now out of control. The average pay of federal workers is now over $71,000 a year (in Washington, D.C., it's $94,047), whereas the average pay in the private sector (if you have a job) is $50,028. Government employees enjoy close to lifetime job security and benefits including retirement. Annual raises are a matter of course. These government workers unions work for a lot of questionable projects other than increasing their own pay and benefits. The government workers union known as SEIU (Service Employees International Union) spent $500,000 and the California teachers union spent $1,250,000 to defeat Proposition 8, the California ballot initiative to protect traditional marriage. After the voters approved Prop 8, over 50 unions signed a brief asking the courts to overturn the will of the people. We've only had government employee unions in recent years, and they are very different from private sector unions because government-employee unions are paid by the taxpayers and the taxpayers are never at the bargaining table. Many government employees are forced to pay union dues in order to get and keep their jobs. Union bosses admit that much of the dues money goes to buy political influence to get what the unions want. But the government-employee unions don't exercise their influence only to increase benefits for their members. These unions are also big players in promoting leftwing and Democratic Party policies of all kinds. Nationwide, only 7% of privatesector workers are unionized. However, 41% of government employees are unionized. Together they collect $14 billion annually in dues. The government union officials are very well paid, with individual compensation ranging up to $300,000 per person in annual salaries. One of the major government employee unions is the National Education Association, which exerts tremendous influence on education policies and spending. The former head of the SEIU, Andy Stern, was the most frequent visitor to Obama's White House. AFL-CIO leader Richard Trumka bragged that he visited the White House two or three times a week, and that he spoke to White House staff every day of the week. SEIU was the top outside spender on Democratic campaigns this year, surpassing even President Obama's main super PAC. SEIU funded almost $70 million of campaign donations and television ads. SEIU members were very active in get-out-the-vote campaigns for Obama and other Democrats. SEIU claims its members knocked on more than 2.5 million doors in eight battleground states, including 400,000 doors in Ohio alone. SEIU is a major supporter of early voting. On one Sunday in the early-voting period, SEIU transported more than 5,000 people in Florida, most of them African-American churchgoers, to vote as part of an event called "Souls to the Polls." |
