Hangin' with the Commies on Labor Day

That's what The Messiah's going to be doing: Winging his way -- on the taxpayer dollar -- to an AFL-CIO picnic in Cincinnati, Ohio. Yes, The Messiah is on the presidential election payback tour, giving thanks to unions for the hundreds of millions of dollars they gave to get him elected and the tens of millions they are still spending to lobby congress in support of The Messiah's agenda.

While the AFL-CIO web site expounds ad nauseum about the wonderful things unions -- particularly the AFL-CIO -- do for "workers", the facts are that Labor Day 2009 finds union membership at it's lowest level ever, mainly due to the fact that "workers" are waking up to the fact that they aren't getting a whole hell of a lot for the $25-$100 or more they pay a month in union dues.

If they aren't getting anything out of the $300-$1200+ a year they pay in union dues, the unions sure are. UnionFacts.com reports that AFL-CIO President John Sweeney makes nearly $300,000 a year in salary to say nothing of bonuses and other perks, all paid $25 at a time from the dues of people making around one tenth as much. And there are nine other people in the AFL-CIO leadership that make salaries of at least $159,000 a year and more. These numbers are probably higher because UnionFacts.org gets the information government-required filings that are usually a couple years old.

What do the "workers" get for this extravagant payroll? Well, ask any United Auto Workers worker (or former worker) what the UAW's extravagant payroll got them. For some of them, it got them fired, for others it got their pay and benefits cut. For retirees, it got uncertainty out of what was supposed to be a rock-solid retirement. For everyone affiliated with General Motors and Chrysler, the unions drove these companies into the arms of the federal government making everyone from the Obama-installed CEO to the line worker essentially a postal worker that makes cars.

But we were talking about the AFL-CIO weren't we? Well those folks haven't fared any better. Unemployment is running as high now than it was the last time a solid conservative had to step in to the presidency to bail out another liberal idiot and his failed economic policies. The AFL-CIO supports the Employee Free Choice Act which is intended to eliminate choice and force employees to become "workers" in unions before they even realize what is going on. The AFL-CIO are also huge backers of Obamacare, which is now apparently a plan to transform health care as we know it into crappy government health care that some Obama staffers are feverishly writing in two days so The Messiah has something to talk about on Wednesday other than the crappy House bill. I wonder how most AFL-CIO "workers" would like to trade the actual health insurance they have now for the government crap John Sweeney supports?  

The simple fact of the matter is that unions are a drain on the resources of companies and add no value to the "worker's" bottom line or the companies bottom line. The HR departments of some companies spend half their time dealing with "grievances" involving minor issues like discipline or time off -- time that could be better spent servicing employees on a one-on-one basis to improve the quality of their employment. Unions focus on seniority rather than incentives for pay for performance. You can do the crappiest job in the world and as long as you were the first man standing, you're going to get the big bucks, regardless of the quality of your work. Also, if you happen to be a union worker who is "downsized" or laid off, as many have been these days, and you have to go out and look for work in the 85+% of companies that aren't union companies, it's highly likely that your inflated wages and limited skills in your old position may render you utterly unemployable at a competitive wage. For example, in a typical union shop, like Maytag which used to be headquartered just a few miles east of here before the UAW bankrupted it, maintenance mechanics did one thing. You worked on mechanical, electrical, plumbing, or welding etc. and got paid the big bucks to do that one job. If you were an electrician and got out to the job only to find that it required a mechanic, you called the mechanic and stood there while he came out to the line and fixed it -- an utterly unsustainable arrangement and the reason Maytag no longer exists. When Maytag closed and these folks were canned, they found that other more profitable companies required more skills for less money. If all you could to was weld and Maytag paid you $25 an hour to do it, you were of no use to most employers who required you to know a little of everything and paid you $7-$8 less an hour to do it.

Of course, The Messiah and his commie-lib union cronies won't be mentioning declining union membership and Big Labor's manifold failures over the last 40 years that have left its "workers" a whole lot lighter in the wallet for having to pay the fat-cat union bosses salaries and benefits and no better off personally than they would be -- in many cases less -- than without union representation. They probably won't be mentioning their bold attempt to increase union membership and rob employees of choice via the "Employee Free Choice Act". Obama will lie about how the economy is getting better because we're still losing jobs but not as many. And then there will be the lie about the wonderful things Big Labor has done for its "workers" lately.

So happy Labor Day union folks and enjoy the fruits of your labor while you can. It won't be long before increasing taxes and worthless dues paid to worthless fat-cat labor bosses will be sucking up all the money you use for the leisure activities you pursue on Labor Day and every other holiday.