If you want to break into the heads of those of who might be open to understanding just how negative of an effect Unions have had on America (spare me the talk about the 1890s and early 1900s, it’s 2009!), it is always fun to start with this incontrovertible truth…
Unions exist to make sure their members do the least amount of work for the most amount of money.
There, like I said. Incontrovertible.
Now, it is ALSO true that we generally ALL would gladly do the same, and that Corporations would GLADLY gain the most amount of profit for the least amount of investment and/or cost.
The difference between you and me, and Corporations [Please remember that most Unions are corporations organized under Sec. 501(c)4], is that they have the power to lobby, purchase, subvert, and corrupt the political process in their favor. All we get to do is pay.
This makes for a great conversation starter. Unions are just as (or more so) greedy as any corporation. Their members benefit, not at the expense of corporate profits, but from our taxes and the higher prices we pay based upon their subversion of the political process.
Imagine if President George W. Bush used strong-arm tactics to bend the law to favor a politically connected company with $1.2 billion in assets, including a private golf course. What if that company’s political action committee had spent $13 million in the previous election, including more than $4 million to elect him?
Barack Obama has done just that. The company is called the United Automobile, Aerospace & Agricultural Implement Workers of America International Union – or the UAW for short.
Obama and the Democrats will employ euphemisms when discussing the President’s plan to circumvent bankruptcy law and hand majority ownership of Chrysler over to the UAW. They will speak about “the workers” taking ownership of the company, with some arguing that the workers, by right, are the senior creditors in Chrysler’s bankruptcy.
This paints the union-versus-creditors battle for control of Chrysler as a fight between blue-collar workingmen and greedy hedge fund speculators in suits.
But that abstraction—equating the UAW with “the workers”—is grossly misleading. John Doe on the assembly line will not be running Chrysler or directing the use of billions in bailout dollar. No, the union management will become Chrysler’s management.
So this is a gift to the union management, which, when you look at it closely, is a big, politically connected company whose executives pamper themselves and practice patronage on the backs of the workers.