America’s jobless are unionizing, or at least furthering an agenda of one of the nation’s biggest unions. The Union of Unemployed (UCubed) Activists is an Internet-centric “community service project” of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) — one of the country’s largest industrial trade unions.Okay, sounds harmless enough. The unemployed could use all of the assistance they can get, right? The IAM might succeed in gaining a few new pledges through this campaign, but such a small percentage of the assisted unemployed would be applying for aerospace jobs that the threat of union expansion would be negligible. So the campaign is just good PR, right? Read on.
“Our objective is to pull together unemployed Americans in a way that allows them to connect, communicate and press their political leaders for policies that will get them back to work,” Rick Sloan, UCubed’s executive director and IAM communications director, told The Daily Caller.Ah ha! The IAM is offering assistance to the unemployed in exchange for political infantry work. In essence, the union is using a massive pool of people at their rock bottoms--people who are often willing to go to any length to secure employment--to press its political agenda. What political agenda? Pushing for government-funded manufacturing and construction projects that would potentially utilize union work! Specifically, New Deal projects:
The group is currently pushing passage of New Jersey Democratic Sen. Frank Lautenberg’s recent “21st Century WPA Act” to reinstate the New Deal employment program and Ohio Democratic Rep. Marcy Kaptur’s attempt to rejuvenate another New Deal program with her “21st Century Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) Act”.So the IAM is amassing instant grassroots support* of keynesian Great Depression programs from which unions would directly benefit! The annual cost of these programs? $250 billion and $16 billion, respectively. Considering that these estimates are coming from the government, the real numbers would likely be in the neighborhood of $300 billion and $20 billion. How nice!
*Before you say "but Seth, you expressed support of government-funded infrastructure programs", please note that I said "considering the trillions in Keynesian spending over the last several years, you would have figured that a good bit of money would gone to repairing the country's crumbling infrastructure." The stimuli were wasted. It would be a laughable understatement to say that we can't afford another one.
Excellent insight. Thanks for sharhing this.
ReplyDeletePeople don't understand that the win in Wisconsin is fleeting. Unions have been on the decline over the last few years, but they're fighting back. Although unions have left formerly prosperous cities like Detroit and Dayton in shambles, unions have not become repugnant enough to the average American so we can go back to sleep. Some unions are still very strong, and, as Seth has pointed out, they're working hard to spread their influence.
ReplyDeleteBob, I just found a great union watchdog blog: http://laborpains.org/
DeleteEmployers are also taking advantage of the unemployed. I have a couple of friends who have worked white collar "McJobs", as Seth likes to say, because they were so desperate for employment. They tell me horror stories of profane bosses, pseudo sexual harassment, and even one case of identity theft. These two are educated and used to have good jobs. Now they're reduced to dealing with BS like this. Thank you, Greenspan!
ReplyDelete