The United States of Unions

From my Wednesday's Boyne City Gazette Commentary: 

   Over 400,000 people demonstrated in central London, decrying their government’s cuts in its budget.  UK newspapers reported that although some were there to peacefully demonstrate, unions used 600 coaches and 9 trains to take union members to the scene, ala Madison, Wisconsin, where they created havoc.  The UK Telegraph described the planning group as a “ragtag army of anarchists, squatters, student militants, environmental activists and radical academics”.  They broke windows and followed their leader’s statement that their anger “needs to find release”.

   A speech was recently given at a Pace University Forum in NYC by SEIU member Steven Lerner, who has had personal meetings at least twice at the White House.  Stating that unions and community organizations are by and large dead, he declared that destabilizing America is the only hope for redistribution of wealth and a transfer of power.  He suggested doing so by hoping that one million mortgage-holders stop paying their mortgages, sending banks to the edge of insolvency.  He contends that this will aid in his plan to ruin our stock market as well, seemingly not understanding that union members also own stocks.  A shareholder meeting was infiltrated by SEIU workers on March 4, another ploy suggested by Mr. Lerner.  On March 21 a group of union members stormed the lobby of a bank in Pennsylvania, demanding that union membership and dues be mandatory at a hospital on whose board the bank president sits.  The UAW staged a protest at a Detroit bank, demanding a stop to mortgage foreclosures.  Attorney General Eric Holder has been asked by Congressman Jason Chaffetz to investigate this group for domestic terrorism.

"I know how much more we can accomplish as partners in an Obama administration," Obama told the Service Employees International Union as a candidate. "Imagine having a president whose life work was your work." 

   The President’s Economic Recovery Advisory Board has two labor representatives on the 17-person panel, one being AFL-CIO President  Richard Trumka.  Trumka has admitted being in the White House 2 or 3 times a week, speaking to the White House every day, providing a high degree of influence into Obama’s agenda.  Trumka recently declared, “The American Dream is not that a few of us will get to be rich, but that all of us will have a fair portion of the good things in life.”  I assume he expects this to occur whether earned, deserved, or financially feasible.

   Our President said during his campaign that he had it “in his gut” to work with SEIU; has a track record of helping unions organize for power; helped build political power in Chicago; would not be a Senator without SEIU’s support; failed to call for calm in the face of legitimate but controversial laws passed in Wisconsin; and is on video during his campaign chanting, “SEIU, SEIU, SEIU”. Vice-President Biden recently spoke to a large group of union members, saying that if they don't vote Democrat - "You are on your own, Jack!" 

   President Obama supports those in unions over the 90% of Americans who are not members of a union – a “fundamental change” for sure.  He has remained silent while his Federal Labor Board sues a private American company, Boeing, because they built and plan to do business in South Carolina, running it with no union labor.  Obama’s  Executive Order of 2009 forces companies which wish to receive government funding for a construction project to sign a Project Labor Agreement first, thereby giving our taxpayer dollars only to those companies which are unionized.  Recently the Republicans failed to pass legislation which would remove that stipulation from the law.  His NLRB is currently working to fast track union elections, making an employer’s resistance to unionization futile. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner cut pensions only for salaried non-union employees at a GM spinoff in order to expedite GM’s emergence from bankruptcy.

   Many Americans didn’t question what Obama’s “transformations” would be, and our media refused to question him, to investigate his past, or to provide information – a transformation which a modest amount of research provided.  Obama’s mission as President should be to represent all Americans, not just those who are unionized.  He proclaimed how great America is while at the same time calling for a “fundamental transformation”.  His plans are progressing and progressive, and Americans should at least have the right to know the details.