Municipal employees in Portland Maine have decided to show their unhappiness with the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Many local union members (Local 1373) feel that they pay expensive dues and are not receiving sufficient job protections. More than ninety of their members were laid off from their city jobs.

Now 450 members of the union have received ballots, giving them the opportunity to decertify the union.  The local AFSCME sends the national office $130,000 a year, and feels that it’s not getting its money’s worth.

Local leaders had filed a petition in October with 200 signatures that asked for decertification ballots. As a result, those leaders were suspended from their leadership positions, and the Local’s assets were seized. In addition, the National office has been running local ads critical of the Local.

As we reported last week in our report about SEIU, a union that is in a war with a break-away union, this is another example of intense dissension within the ranks of organized labor. As unions become increasingly more superfluous, their internecine battles increase in ferocity. Organized labor, unable to connect with workers, are fighting with each other for the ever diminishing number of workers who still find what is chimerical value in being union members.

One of the most aggressive unions in the country, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) will now face a challenge to its dominant role representing healthcare workers in California. The National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) has called for an election to determine if SEIU or the National Union of Healthcare Workers (NUHW) will represent 2,300 Kaiser healthcare workers in California.

The decision of the NLRB came as a blow to SEIU in its ongoing battle with the breakaway healthcare union, NUHW. SEIU had hoped to stop NUHW’s ongoing march to win the allegiance of thousands of healthcare workers in a wide array of states. As part of its PR war, the two sides have exchanged charges of various acts of wrong doing, including financial mismanagement. Perhaps the most hilarious charge leveled by the unions is union-busting. It’s usually the paladins of Corporate America who are accused of being union busters. If the labor movement has ever evidenced its true agenda, the bitter battle between these two unions indicates that power and money are as important to unions as they are to other institutions.

Determined to preserve its power, the SEIU says it will appeal the NLRB decision. If, however, the SEIU appeal fails, balloting is expected to take place in January.

The fight between SEIU and NUHW amounts to a civil war within the labor movement. The unintended victor will be Corporate America, and the millions of workers who will regard unionization with a richly deserved sense of skepticism, if not disgust.  

According to a recent editorial in The Wall Street Journal, the Obama administration has delivered a body blow to Corporate America, specifically the airline and railway industries, which do not need any further impediments to their respective economic woes.

Both of those industries have their labor relations policies governed by The National Mediation Board (NMB), and the Board has maintained a consistent policy for the last seventy-five years.  

Now, however, under a proposed new rule, the board plans to tilt the playing field in favor of organized labor. To wit: In order to obtain certification, a union will no longer need to win the approval of a majority of workers. Rather than obtain a majority of workers, a union will only have to win a majority of workers who choose to vote in a union election. That works well for unions, because only a minority of workers usually votes. Getting a majority of that minority to vote for a union will be easy. Imagine, if only 100 workers out of a total workforce of 1,000 agree to vote: the union would need only 51 votes to unionize 1,000 workers! The winning team will always be the union.

This dramatic change has been the result of President Obama appointing the former president of a pilots’ union and the former president of the Association of Flight Attendants to the NMB. It is comparable to a single football team using its own players as the sole referees in all of its games. Would such a team ever lose a game?

This change will invite numerous strikes, which will cripple the nation’s transportation system. We are now light years away from the time when President Reagan fired air traffic controllers, members of The Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) for going on strike. Their strike was against the national interest. President Reagan’s actions led to the demise of PATCO and to a robust airline industry that benefitted all travellers. It was a milestone in the history of labor relations, a milestone that will not  - unfortunately –  be repeated anytime soon.

While the New York Times is generally thought of as being union friendly in its reporting, it recently reported on a union situation so egregious that the Times could not avoid it.

According to a report by Steven Greenhouse, the hotel and restaurant workers’ union, Unite Here, pressures it organizers to reveal the most embarrassing and distressing personal information to their superiors. Such information may include stories of childhood or spousal abuse, family members who were alcoholic or drug addicted, sexual abuse, phobias, etc.

Once that information is obtained by the union, it is then used as leverage against the organizers who had revealed that information.

According the Times article, “…several Unite Here organizers described high-pressure meetings where they were brought to tears as supervisors pushed them, sometimes in front of a dozen colleagues, to divulge personal information in what several organizers said was an effort to beak their will and ensure obedience.”

Such tactics smack of those used by cults to control members. And those tactics are nothing short of being highly manipulative and cynical.

If this is what organized labor has devolved to, then Corporate America must be on heightened alert to the efforts of organizers who have been turned into aggressive automatons whose sole purpose is to capture the hearts and minds of workers who will follow orders and pay their dues, no questions asked.

According to the Bureau of National Affairs, most unionized employees now work for the government.  While the overall number of unionized workers is just above 12% of the workforce, only 7.3% of those union members work in the private sector.

What is amazing is that more than 37% of all government employees belong to unions! That amounts to 8-million unionized government workers! The government has become the largest employer of unionized workers, and those unionized workers make sure that their voices ring loud and clear in the halls of congress as well as in the White House. After all, unions contributed more than $56-million to Democratic political campaigns in 2008.

While those government workers cannot go on strike for higher wages, increased benefits, or more paid vacation days; they can  and do have their officers lobby congress to achieve those results.

An example of union strategy has become apparent on the west coast where unions have been running television ads and supporting ballot initiatives  to raise taxes so that their members can receive higher wages. One need only stand on line at a local post office or motor vehicles office to experience union-protected inefficiencies and lack of initiative.

As a result of union demands, taxpayers will be footing the bill for increased taxes. And those taxes will  go to pay for unionized government workers increased salaries and benefit. As the government pays ever high wages, it will have no alternative but  to impose ever higher taxes to meet the demand. It is a classic vicious circle.

One thing that Tuesday’s elections proved is that union money is not going to win elections this year. In 2008, the Service Employees International Union spent $60-million to help elect President Obama and Democratic candidates to both houses of congress. Altogether, organized labor gave Democratic candidates $400-million in 2008. That money may have been well spent then, but look at the outcome in 2009!

Governor John Corzine’s various and well-publicized relationships with unions hurt both him and the unions in New Jersey. In Virginia, Governor-elect Bob McDonnell won by large margin after vigorously campaigning against the Employee Free Choice Act. In both states, conservative Republicans triumphed over union supported candidates.

And now many Democrats, having analyzed the election results, are against the so-called “card check” provision of the Employee Free Choice Act. Unions have invested their members’ money with, what some would consider, Quixotic abandon. And what has been the return on that investment? The defeat of two pro-union candidates and the likely demise of “card checks.” Union members should demand refunds!

The safety of airline passengers is of paramount importance not just to passengers, but also to airlines. No one wants to fly on the planes of an airline whose pilots may be negligent when it comes to passenger safety.

When FAA regulators revoked the licenses of the two pilots who flew Northwest Flight 188 more than 100 miles beyond its destination and who had not responded to air traffic controllers, the flying public breathed a sigh of relief.

Yet, officials of the Airline Pilots Association, which represents more than 50,000 pilots, complained that the FAA acted too quickly and disregarded voluntary safety reporting programs.

Blatant acts of negligence that could possibly endanger the lives of airline passengers cannot be tolerated, even if those acts are voluntarily reported.

Had that plane collided with another aircraft or experienced some other deadly catastrophe, the airline would have been held financially responsible and there would have been millions of dollars in law suits.

The FAA did the right thing, and the pilots’ union should understand that. Unfortunately, unions too often raise picayune issues that are of concern to their members, but fail to address more important issues that affect millions of people. 

President Obama has nominated M. Patricia Smith to be solicitor at the Labor Department. Ms Smith has served as New York State’s Labor Commissioner, where her department helped to create the New York Wage Watch. While the organization's mission is ostensibly to be a watch dog and make sure that immigrant workers receive fair wages, it is really a stalking horse for union organizers. The Wage Watch was not formed in a vacuum, but was promoted and aided by unions.

Ms. Smith has a consistent record as a vigorous labor advocate for three decades, and Corporate America can legitimately be concerned that its interests are not foremost on Ms. Smith’s agenda.

As a solicitor for the Labor Department, Ms.Smith will no doubt place Corporate America in the cross hairs of her pro-labor agenda. It is no wonder that disinterested parties have raised objections to Ms. Smith’s nomination. Indeed, while corporations are struggling to survive in a global economy during a recession, they certainly don’t need to be fighting off investigations inspired by unions and their advocates in the Labor Department

economists  on behalf of the Center for Union Facts.  It should come as no surprise to any historian of business and astute observers of Corporate America that unions have had an injurious effect on the overall economy as well as on specific industries (e.g., General Motors, the Port of New York, newspapers, etc.).

The surveyed labor economists then went to note that the proposed (and mis-named) Employee Free Choice Act, which would impose binding arbitration on contract disputes, would have a further negative effect on business. More than 2/3 of the surveyed economists believe that Congress should not pass the EFCA. In addition, more than half of the surveyed economists believe that President Obama’s job creation program would hurt the economy.

It is apparent that the government is on the wrong track; and the only reason that it is pursuing a pro-union game plan is that the AFL-CIO, SEIU, and other  unions have contributed millions of dollars to elect representatives who will do their bidding.

According to an editorial in a recent edition of The Wall Street Journal, a number of union pensions are in the red. That bad news must be causing unionized workers a great deal of anxiety, especially during the current economic recession, when so many workers are losing their jobs.

The SEIU’s National Industry Pension Fund, covering more than 100,000 members, is now in  “critical status,” which means that it lacks the necessary capital to pay 100% of benefits. Federal government officials have stated that the Fund has only 74.4% of the necessary assets to meet its obligation to pay those benefits.

And the list goes on: Thirteen plans operated by the Teamsters have a mere 59.3%. The Journal states that seven locals at the United Brotherhood of Carpenters …are at 67%.

While all of that is bad news for rank and file members of those and other similarly afflicted unions, union officers have nothing to worry about. The pension plan for officers and employees at the SEIU, for example, was funded at 102.2% as of 2007. In addition, the officers and employees get an annual 3% cost of living increase, while its members do not. There are many such disparities.

The dramatic reduction in union pension funds is just one reason why unions are aggressively attempting to organize new members and collect their dues.  And it is why the unions are putting pressure on congress to pass the Employee Free Choice Act as soon as possible.

Increased union membership will mean increased labor costs, increased unemployment, and a worsening recession. But the pensions for union officers will, no doubt, remain intact.

          Waterfronts, from New York to California, have a long history of union difficulties. And now, according to an editorial in The Wall Street Journal, the Mayor of Los Angeles, Antonio Villaraigosa (a former union organizer), is urging congress and the Obama administration to change federal law so that the Teamsters Union will be able to organize independent truckers who work in the Port of Los Angeles.

The mayor wants the federal law changed so that harbor trucking companies will be banned from contracting with independent drivers. Instead, he wants the Port to permit “employee drivers” to operate in the Port, because those drivers are eligible for membership in the Teamsters.

Federal law, however, does not now permit state and local authorities to make their own laws regarding ports, for that would defeat the purpose of having uniform regulations throughout the land. If the mayor’s proposal became law, truckers in one port would not be allowed into another port. The resulting chaos would ruin interstate commerce.

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals has found that the mayor’s intended change would violate the Constitution’s Commerce Clause, and so an injunction was issued. As a result, the mayor wants Washington to change the law.

Should that happen, the Teamsters would have incredible leverage to affect wages, benefits, and the price of shipped goods. No doubt, the result would be a huge spike in labor and consumer costs. In such an environment, if the Teamsters did not get what they want, they could call strikes and shut down one port after another.

This is another example of how the Democrats are working to increase the power of unions at the expense of everyone else.

According to Gallup’s 2009 Work and Education Survey,  more than half of all U.S. citizens disapprove of the role of unions. The percentage of those who do approve of unions has dropped from 59% a year ago to 48% now, “an all time low,” according to Gallup which started asking if people approved of disapproved of unions in 1936. That year, 72% of citizens approved of unions and 20% disapproved.  The tables have dramatically turned against unions.

Gallup also noted that  the perception that unions hurt companies has risen form 39% in 2006 to 46% in 2009. In addition, more than half of all citizens now agree that unions hurt the entire U. S. economy. That’s a jump from 36% in 2006 to 51% in 2009.

Such a low opinion of unions should give Congress pause before voting to pass the so-called Employee Free Choice Act, which should be renamed the Freedom to Hurt America Act!

We can expect many more such appointments in the coming months, and the overall effect will be to make America less competitive and productive in a global economy in which many other countries are not hampered by the excesses of  bureaucratic rules and regulations that are in conflict with free market economies.