UofA versus EPA

In these perilous times for our nation and several of our
states and communities, it seems as if new fissure points are deepening in our
civil structure. For several decades union membership in the private sector has
been declining as our heavy manufacturing industries have relocated to
right-to-work states, moved offshore or upgraded to highly automated
facilities. The labor unions, thirsting for the constant inflow of dues money,
have shifted their focus toward retail establishments, service jobs and public
sector employees to maintain their accustomed level of financial and political
viability. Overall union membership continues to decline as a percentage of the
population, but the militant unionization of the public sector has dramatically
altered the dynamics of labor-management relations. Public sector employees
negotiate their contracts with unelected supervisors and elected officials who
can claim to be neutral even though many of them receive campaign contributions
and union-based volunteers at election time.

Because of the dwindling private sector union base, the
public sector organization efforts have become more robust and intense. This
development, I believe, will become a self-defeating movement for public sector
labor and for taxpayer-supported government. By unionizing public sector
employees at a dizzying rate, unions have placed the civil service rules of the
past century on steroids regarding the government’s ability to remove
ineffective or corrupt workers. Many union contracts have constructed various
hurdles and barriers to protect the unworthy employee, thereby requiring that
others be hired to do the work that doesn’t get completed.

In addition, by funneling millions of dollars of campaign
contributions and thousands of campaign “volunteers” into the election efforts
of liberals and progressives (primarily), the unions are contributors toward
the massive growth of government that so many of them are lusting for. Growing
governments yield exploding bureaucracies that exceed the abilities of the
political class or the people to control them. The union, nevertheless, is
somewhat satiated because of their increasing rolls in the public sector even though their numbers for growth
appear to lag behind the private sector losses. So, how many “good-paying
middle class jobs” has an overzealous Environmental
Protection Agency cost our nation, our local communities….and the unions
who organized the laborers? How many union jobs have nit-picking bureaucracies
from the entire spectrum of government, controlling departments lost because of
their senseless oversight policies? While union leaders and their fundraisers
scamper to expand their reach in the public sector, they continue to place
private sector jobs at risk. Union members should ask their elitist,
socialist-leaning organizers why they insist on killing or maiming hefty
private sector jobs so they can squeeze more money for their political cronies.

Private sector workers must realize that their “leaders” are
not looking out for them or their welfare. They are merely exchanging public
and service dues-paying members for the losers who built their organizations.
Every time some big-government rule from the bureaucracy impedes a private
sector employer from growing or functioning well, a laid-off or ‘pink-slipped”
union employee may be the ultimate recipient of the Big Brother overreach. Big
government increases the tax burden for private sector union workers and places
their jobs in jeopardy by over-regulating, over-licensing and bureaucratic foot
dragging. Big Government’s inherent hostility toward the private sector has
undermined its capacity for growth and prosperity…thus diminishing good job
opportunities for the workforce.

It should be noted that a labor union wields the most power
when it represents skilled workers in a labor-shortage environment. The union
leadership’s efforts to organize service and retail workers will fill their
financial coffers, but will not result in significant gains for the members.
Maids, clerks and wait staff can be hired off the street after a couple of
day’s work stoppage. It is more difficult to hire machinists and mechanics
because so few people possess the requisite skill set. It seems, therefore, the
modern movement to bolster union membership in the public sector could be the
saving grace for a dwindling private sector group. The unions may be signing
their own death knell with their new emphasis. Private sector workers may
finally get a clue, and ignore or dismiss the leaders who have undermined them
by promoting big government and massive bureaucracies. The public, the
taxpayers, the people may withdraw or resist the expansionist efforts of the
unions and big-government advocates. The
basket of tolerance can hold only so many eggs of higher taxes, government
indebtedness and bureaucratic meddling before the eggs begin to break. The
people’s discontent may rise to the point that the entire public sector will be
either radically restructured or become so powerful that there will be no one
remaining to pay the freight. Either way, the Marxist-leaning unionist’s
strategy may backfire….as it should.