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| June 22, 2007
| 2:51 PM
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posted by Ryan
Republican Presidential Candidate Fred Thompson weighed in on the Davenport victory in an op-ed published on Townhall.com. In “Union Dues and Secret Ballots,” Thompson addresses union coercion and why unions are having to resort to coercive organizing and coercive political activism. In short, because, “In the last 25 or so years, private sector union membership has dropped from about 19 percent to under 8 percent today.” In fact, “Most decertification votes, giving workers the chance to end union representation, go against the unions.” Why are unions losing the hearts and minds of the American workforce?
“…[T]hey often focus on politics instead of supporting their members. Last week, in fact, the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against a Washington state teachers union that had been spending dues on political activities -- against the wishes of individual teachers. Some of those who protested the use of the funds weren't even union members but had to pay to keep their teachers' jobs.”
Unions give a lot of their members'-- and nonmembers'-- dues to political candidates, and they're really good at providing free labor to campaigns. So they have a lot of influence in certain parts of congress. That may explain, for example, why the House Appropriations Committee is apparently planning to cut the budget of the Office of Labor Management Services -- the office that investigates illegalities by unions.
Thompson concludes with a middle-of-the-road, but intellectually honest statement that is completely in line with Constitutional principals upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court Justices last week.
“In America, we need the right to join a union. We also need the right not to join a union.”
2 Comments:
I sit at my computer practically speechless as I read the US Supreme Court's opinion that private entities operating as public sector unions must obtain affirmative consent of government employee non-members' "STATE-COERCED" agency fees. Wait a minute, hold on, take a breath. The Supreme Court is saying that the state is coercing its own employees to pay money (taxation) to a private company to keep a government job. Doesn't the state exist to protect the rights of each individual and isn't it the employer's and the union's job to protect any individual from being subject to coercion? Is it not an unfair labor practice for an employer or a union to coerce an employee into anything to keep a government public sector job?
8:47 PM
www.freeconscience.org
8:48 PM
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