SHADDAP AND PAY YER DUES

"When school children start paying union dues, that 's when I'll start representing the interests of school children."
-Albert Shanker head of Teachers Unions

It isn't all that often that Oregon is in the national news, but there's a story going around lately that ought to be. The Portland area, like all big cities, is run by the left which means trial lawyers, unions, and leftist activists have a huge say in how things are run and what is done. That means the government spends its money on pet projects and social engineering to the detriment of what it is supposed to be limited to, such as schools, roads, police, fire, etc.

The town of Clackamas is part of the Portland Metropolitan area, and like all of the city, it has budget problems which have gotten worse in this recession. One of the areas that is hard hit is the school district, which faced a choice: pay freezes or lay off teachers. Layoffs have begun, and Margy Lynch at KATU (ABC) television in Portland has the story:

A group of teachers in the North Clackamas School District took the initiative Thursday, amid losing their jobs because of budget cuts, by gathering signatures in an effort to have their voices heard by their union.

The teachers, who gathered outside their union office, said they want a response from the union and put their demands in writing in the form of a petition.

Those speaking out said it shouldn't have reached this point, and they would have accepted the district's offer, favoring a wage freeze to save jobs.

“We took a poll in the spring and they got our opinion and the majority said wage freeze,” said Monica Whiteley, who was laid off. “So I would like them to look at the poll or honor it and have us look at the memo of understanding that is out there.”

Got that? The teachers said they'd rather take a wage freeze than lose their jobs, which seems reasonable to me. The union refused, and so teachers are losing their jobs. The union, which is supposed to represent the teachers decided it knew better, went against their wishes, and cost the teachers their jobs.

This is not unique among unions, although this lack of concern about union members usually doesn't take this form. In this case the union would lose future revenues and dues from teachers so it fought to keep their pay raising in the assumption that employers always have an infinite source of income they hide away Scrooge-like from workers. Most often, this disregard comes in the form of how dues are spent.

The US Department of Labor has a section that oversees unions, the only watchdog these organizations have. Theoretically newspapers should be keeping an eye of unions, but they are almost completely in support of labor unions and will rarely if ever say anything negative about them (the above story an astounding exception), let alone attempt any sort of investigation. The Office of Labor-Management Standards (OLMS) is a sort of Securities and Exchange Commission for labor, keeping an eye on how they spend their money, how they do business, and so on. Under President Bush, it was quite busy.

In 2007, the Democratic Party majority in congress decided they had finally found somewhere in the bloated federal government that they should cut: the OLMS. This is part of the reason that labor unions support Democrats exclusively and relentlessly: Democrats might tend to give us bad economies, but they give unions protection and limit transparency. Bad for the rank and file, good for the leadership of unions.

One of the things the OLMS does is makes sure that unions are not spending dues in political causes that the due payers dislike. Technically it is illegal for the unions to spend union dues on issues that an individual member does not support; in reality it is extremely hard and hazardous for one's employment to contest this. Part of the work of the OLMS was to fight that and protect the workers from their unions. In 2007 that part of the labor department budget was cut. Thanks to Warner Todd Huston at Right Wing News we learn that in 2009, the OLMS was told this:

NOTE:... Accordingly, OLMS will refrain from initiating enforcement actions against union officers and union employees based solely on the failure to file the report required by section 202 of the Labor-Management and Reporting Disclosure Act (LMRDA), 29 U.S.C. § 432, using the 2007 form, as long as individuals meet their statutorily-required filing obligation in some manner. OLMS will accept either the old Form LM-30 or the new one for purposes of this non-enforcement policy.

In normal English that means: if the Unions ignore workers who don't want their dues spent to help Democrats, ignore it and do not enforce the law. Because the Democrats are the party of the little guy, the party that is for the workers and against oppression. They're liberals which stands for those who love and defend liberty. Unless it gets in the way of a huge campaign donor.

This helps explain why the SEIU is so willing to send thugs to beat up and intimidate protesters opposed to government-run health care. They know who they can rely on to protect their interests - the leadership's, not the workers' - and they'll do whatever it takes to return that protection. Combine that with the huge pay off for union health care funds in the government health care bill and you've got a big monetary lever to tip the union thugs your way.

The unions all knew this, that's why they donated over 8 million dollars to the Obama campaign and instructed their members to vote for him - even stating openly that the only reason they might not is racism. And union members know this too, which is why unions are in rapid decline. Because people can vote to not be in a union, they're taking that opportunity and the unions are losing members, they have been for decades.

With Democrats controlling both houses of congress and the presidency in the US, the Unions have allies who will reverse the secret ballot laws which they previously fought so hard to get passed. Back when unions were weak and small, they wanted to protect people who voted for the unions by keeping their names secret. Now that unions are big and powerful (in money and influence, at least), they want to make sure the names of who votes for and against unions are well know and are open to intimidation by the union for not signing on. Democrats in congress want this passed but so far it hasn't gone far. Republicans would never pass such a plan.

So the unions march on, ignoring their membership, spending their money for huge houses and parties, supporting causes they have absolutely nothing to do with (the auto worker unions supporting abortion rallies?), and spending dues on things the rank and file oppose or disagree with. Because the unions have never really been primarily about the workers' rights. They've always been primarily about enriching the leadership and manipulating society and government toward the left. Worker's rights are a distant third, and even then only insofar as it advances the two primary goals.