Union Cry-Babies Demand Unfair Playing Field
By Chuck Muth
August 17, 2008

I really can't stand labor unions. Despise them, actually. Then again, I'm sugar-coating it because I hate to use the word hate.

They promote Soviet-style collectivism. They promote a herd mentality while quashing independent thought and action. They lie, cheat and steal. They beat people up. They destroy private property. They've undermined the American work ethic. They've dampened the American entrepreneurial spirit. They've ruined the American public education system. They've destroyed the American steel industry. And they've devastated the American automobile industry.

But other than that, unions are great.

And their #1 political goal today is to eliminate secret ballot elections.

The misnamed "Employee Free Choice Act" is anything but. How can you make a free choice in a union organizing election if some brass knuckled goon is looking over your shoulder watching who you vote for rather than being allowed to cast your ballot in the privacy of a voting booth? This bill would be better named the "Employee Intimidation Act."

Of course, the reason Big Labor is pushing for the end of secret ballot elections is because in the private sector union bosses are consistently losing secret ballot elections. Private sector employees, unlike their not-too-swift brethren in the government sector, are rejecting the "benefits" of union membership like never before. Today less than 10 percent of private sector employees are unionized. So if Big Labor can't win elections fair and square, the only thing for them to do is try to tilt the playing field. Thus their push to eliminate secret ballots.

And if Obama wins in November, he's already said he'll commit the full power and prestige of the White House to passing this very un-American, anti-worker, anti-consumer piece of..um, legislation.

Enter Wal-Mart.

The retail giant, thanks to its excellent pay and employee benefits, has been able to successfully keep organized labor out of its successful operations - no doubt a big factor in their success. Big Labor hasn't been able to win secret ballot elections to unionize the company, but the Employee Intimidation Act could well change the situation.

Unionizing Wal-Mart would hurt the company, hurt the company's workers and hurt consumers. So it should come as no surprise that the company opposes the proposed legislation as well as the man running for president who says he would sign it.

But being true to form, Big Labor isn't content with fighting opponents of the Employee Intimidation Act on a level playing field. You see, while Big Labor is busy extorting MILLIONS of dollars from union members' paychecks to be used to elect more Democrats to Congress and Obama to the White House, they are also whining like little babies over some Wal-Mart managers allegedly telling Wal-Mart employees that a vote for Obama is a vote against Wal-Mart and their jobs.

According to the Associated Press this weekend, "The AFL-CIO and three other labor rights groups have asked the Federal Election Commission (FEC) to investigate whether Wal-Mart Stores Inc. unlawfully pressured employees to vote against Democrats in November because their party would help workers to unionize." The malcontents, according to the AP story, claim "Wal-Mart broke federal election rules by advocating against Democratic candidate U.S. Sen. Barack Obama in meetings with employees."

As you bear in mind the fact that Big Labor will spend millions upon millions of dollars this campaign cycle urging workers to vote for Democrats from Obama on down, consider the absolutely anti-business bias of the federal election laws, as described in the AP story: "Federal election rules allow businesses to push for specific political candidates to shareholders, executives and salaried managers, but they prohibit such actions for hourly workers."

An employer paying the wages to its workers is not allowed to advocate specific candidates to those workers, but the union leeches can? What's wrong with this picture? Why can Big Labor spend millions of dollars to influence federal elections, but private employers can't even talk to its own employees about candidates whose political agenda could be harmful to the workers' jobs? Why are unions more equal than everyone else? Inquiring minds wanna know.