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Is the American Labor Movement Dying? All Signs Point to Yes.
Townhall.com ^ | February 9, 2022 | Peter Roff

Posted on 02/09/2022 5:04:16 AM PST by Kaslin

Washington, DC. – Joe Biden likes to talk about how “unions built this country.” And, up to a point, he’s right. From FDR to Nixon, the American labor movement held considerable sway over the nation’s economic destiny.

Since the 70s, a decade marked by economic extremes Biden’s policies are causing us to revisit, unions have been in decline. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reports participation in the labor movement to be down across the board. Unionized private sector workers represent just 6.1 percent of the labor force, an all-time low, while the total number of those in unions dropped last year by almost a quarter of a million.

The labor movement has lost a lot of its clout. What remains comes because the rank and file are held captive by the union bosses who extract political contributions from them to what remains of its political influence. To put it another way, it’s the number of dollars they provide to the politicians, not the number of members who can vote that account for what influence remains.

The union bosses would have you believe membership is down because it’s too hard to organize. They want the politicians who are still in their hip pockets to let them boost their numbers by resetting the clock to the days when people had to join a union as a condition of their employment whether they wanted to or not.

It’s an interesting theory but it doesn’t fit the facts. America’s workers no longer need union representation as they once did. Employers in the post-industrial era are smarter, offer better pay and benefits, greater flexibility on the job site, and more input into operations than many union shops allow.

The unions, of course, would argue against this. But what do they have to show in the way of success? The high-profile 2021 effort to organize workers at an Amazon warehouse in Alabama failed when then voted against 2 to 1.

The federal government gave the unions a do-over on that vote, but we’ll see if it changes the outcome. It’s not likely. The continuing decline is evident. Even strikes are becoming problematic as in Colorado, where members of a United Food and Commercial Workers local found themselves betrayed by their president, Kim Cordova, and Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders.

Throughout the month of January, negotiations over a new contract between the King Soopers supermarket chain and UFCW Local 7 became tense amid a strike that restricted access to food and dealt a devastating blow to area residents. All this on top of a Biden economy that has inflation is eating away at rising wages like it hasn’t in decades.

Hours before the strike began, the union rejected an offer by King Soopers to bring the minimum starting wage up to $16 per hour and pay increases of up to $4.50 per hour for its members. For ten days, members of the union sat at home or marched on a picket line while Local 7 President Kim Cordova continued to collect her $200,000+ annual salary while promising she would get a better deal.

The offer eventually a majority of Local 7 members accepted appears to include many of the same proposals Cordova called “concessionary” days earlier according to theWorld Socialist Web Site. That same week, Senator Bernie Sanders hosted a virtual panel that amounted to little more than “damage control for the union” and praised Cordova’s efforts to get a deal that probably could have been had before the strike. If this doesn’t seem fair, it isn’t. Yet it’s happening repeatedly as union bosses like Cordova choose what’s good for the union and its officials over what’s good for the rank-and-file.

We’ve seen this before. In the 1960s, the New York City newspaper unions let several prominent but marginally profitable dailies shut down rather than make concessions that would have kept them open and their members on the job. During the Obama-led reorganization of General Motors, the unions killed an effort by a private sector entrepreneur who wanted to run the Saturn brand as an independent, non-union company. The union survived. The workers didn’t.

Politicians like Biden and Sanders who say the labor movement is dying need to face up to the fact union leaders like Cordova are killing it. It’s not murder. It’s suicide.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Editorial
KEYWORDS: berniesanders; bidenadmin; residentbiden
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To: PTBAA

BS. We need a Physicians union otherwise MD’s are going to be replaced by H-1B visa imported scabs. I see it coming.


21 posted on 02/09/2022 6:09:45 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: BobL

Since 95% of manufacturing in NON union ( what’s left of it anyway) this shows a need for protectionist import tariffs to promote and revitalize domestic industry.


22 posted on 02/09/2022 6:12:25 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Maris Crane

As a teacher, the Teachers’ Union is a total con. My coworkers who are union flacks are the biggest sh*theels I’ve ever met.

I put the students and their needs (and their parents) before my own. But I’m one of those rare ones.

We had a sick-out recently where the brats all called out last minute. We had to house five or six classes in the cafeteria all day. No learning time, kids just wasted time and went on their phones...

It’s a travesty.


23 posted on 02/09/2022 6:13:50 AM PST by Mermaid Girl
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To: daniel1212

I think there should be a law that says government unions must collect their own money rather than have dues, vacations, pensions, healthcare deducted.


24 posted on 02/09/2022 6:14:40 AM PST by McGavin999 (To shut down the border tell the administration the cartel is smuggling Ivermectin )
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To: central_va

“Since 95% of manufacturing in NON union ( what’s left of it anyway) this shows a need for protectionist import tariffs to promote and revitalize domestic industry.”

I realize that having unrestricted trade makes the unions powerless, which is why it was necessary in the first place.

But, without OUTLAWING unions, they will seize power once they get the protection and the rest of the country will live like shit because of it. After all, when we used to have protection (both formal and informal), the unions RULED over manufacturing, and there is NOTHING to show they won’t make their move, if given the opportunity again. The 95% number you keep posting means NOTHING without unrestricted trade, just as it meant nothing before unrestricted trade.


25 posted on 02/09/2022 6:17:44 AM PST by BobL (Money is the most important thing in my life.)
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To: central_va

“BS. We need a Physicians union....”

Commies gotta’ commie.


26 posted on 02/09/2022 6:23:44 AM PST by PTBAA
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To: cdcdawg
I’ve noticed how strongly the Teamsters are in solidarity with their “brothers and sisters” in Canada. Telling, as if we needed more confirmation of what they are.

The Teamsters aren't much of a trucker's union anymore and haven't been for a long time. Only 6% of American truckers are unionized and 92% of those work for UPS.

27 posted on 02/09/2022 6:25:00 AM PST by SeeSharp
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To: PTBAA

I see what’s coming. MD’s and nurses are going to be replaced by imported workers. It’s so fu—ing obvious.


28 posted on 02/09/2022 6:34:29 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Kaslin

Union leaders have historically set a bar for corruption that politicians have been trying to match for years.


29 posted on 02/09/2022 6:34:40 AM PST by wbarmy (I chose to be a sheepdog once I saw what happens to the sheep.)
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To: BobL
So to you the reason the USA should not return to much needed trade protectionism is the remote possibility that unions might, could, maybe sort of try one day to reconstitute themselves in the USA? The solution is to not make ANYTHING in the USA? That is where we are headed...

Bob for the most part we agree on most issues but regarding this issue you are a complete buffoon. Grow up, this is the 21st century.

30 posted on 02/09/2022 6:40:58 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Kaslin
When the labor unions couldn't even rally themselves to fight for those members who refused the jab mandates, that said to me that they are dead, at least as they were intended--as protectors of the working man's rights.

What they remain useful for is as a disciplinary arm of the political left to keep politically undesirable people out of certain professions. Same goes for "professional organizations."
31 posted on 02/09/2022 6:48:07 AM PST by Antoninus (Republicans are all honorable men.)
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To: central_va

“Bob for the most part we agree on most issues but regarding this issue you are a complete buffoon. Grow up, this is the 21st century.”

Maybe so, but why are you being a LEFTIST here, using personal attacks? But don’t worry, I do know EXACTLY why, as every time I come across personal attacks, it is because of the same reason.

As to unions, if it’s remote, let’s make a compromise. Pass a law that PREVENTS union organizing when unions make up more than 6% of the private workforce. Since you claim, without evidence, that the growth of unions is a ‘remote possibility’, the law should be fine with you. If unions due reach the 6%, simply PREVENT further organizing, until they are back under 6%.

So a compromise that I can live with, and no doubt, you can too (since, to you, unions are no longer a threat to grow). But without it, I will continue to support unrestricted trade as that has PROVEN to be the only way to weaken unions in this country (something, by the way, you seem to agree with).


32 posted on 02/09/2022 6:52:19 AM PST by BobL (Money is the most important thing in my life.)
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To: BobL
Pass a law that PREVENTS union organizing when unions make up more than 6% of the private workforce.

That is a pipe dream. Industry is dying. We can't wait, we need protectionism now!! That law you wish for will never pass.

33 posted on 02/09/2022 6:57:47 AM PST by central_va (I won't be reconstructed and I do not give a damn...)
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To: Maris Crane
This piece also has another major flaw: It doesn't even mention the conflicting goals of union members in unions where retirees vote for the leadership.

The United Steelworkers are a perfect example of this. People here on FR often wonder how the union's leadership can support politicians who have helped destroy the steel industry in the U.S. The answer to this is that the union has something like nine retirees for every active worker, and the retirees are all voting members.

What this means is that the union leadership doesn't represent the workers. It represents the retirees. So they will always support politicians who promote issues like Medicare expansion, Social Security spending, pension bailouts, etc. over those who want to keep the U.S. steel industry solvent.

34 posted on 02/09/2022 7:00:58 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("Mr. Potato Head ... Mr. Potato Head! Back doors are not secrets.")
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To: Kaslin
From FDR to Nixon, the American labor movement held considerable sway over the nation’s economic destiny.

Right. The unions held considerable sway over the nation's economic destiny at a time when the U.S. was the only major industrial power to operate freely without competition from countries that had been decimated by war in the first half of the 20th century.

As a result of this, the U.S. economy was a fascist system run for the benefit of that triumvirate of government, corporate management, and labor. The labor unions provided the votes to elect the government leaders, and the government leaders spent billions of dollars buying things from U.S. corporations at inflated non-competitive prices.

35 posted on 02/09/2022 7:06:42 AM PST by Alberta's Child ("Mr. Potato Head ... Mr. Potato Head! Back doors are not secrets.")
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To: central_va

How about YOU TELL US why unions are so beneficial to conservatives, since you seem to defend them non-stop. Might be better than just personally attacking people here.

I can tell you the harm they do - they force ‘contributions’ from workers that go to the DNC (nearly all). They make it next to impossible to manufacture.

So, I’ve done my part, now your part: Please TELL US WHY conservatives should support labor unions? You’ve NEVER done that here - now is your big chance!!!


36 posted on 02/09/2022 7:13:51 AM PST by BobL (Money is the most important thing in my life.)
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To: central_va

“That is a pipe dream. Industry is dying. We can’t wait, we need protectionism now!! That law you wish for will never pass.”

Great argument for you being NEUTRAL on unions. But now answer my question: Why do you constantly SUPPORT unions by attacking people who want them gone? Again, what good are they doing to the conservative side?


37 posted on 02/09/2022 7:15:46 AM PST by BobL (Money is the most important thing in my life.)
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To: central_va

Profound totally biased ignorance from a union troll


38 posted on 02/09/2022 7:16:37 AM PST by bert ( (KE. NP. N.C. +12) Promoting Afro Heritage diversity will destroy the democrats)
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To: bert

“Profound totally biased ignorance from a union troll”

Well, I’ve given him the chance to say why unions are good for our conservative cause. If he can’t, then he needs to be removed from this site, as you’re right - he’s just trolling.


39 posted on 02/09/2022 7:19:20 AM PST by BobL (Money is the most important thing in my life.)
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To: central_va

The STEM folks are the ones that voted for the people that are bringing I all the STEM workers.

Pres Trump did everything he could to help them. And did. And they still helped get rid of him.

Soooooooo…….EFF’ THEM!!!


40 posted on 02/09/2022 7:55:05 AM PST by qaz123
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