The most recent spate of news coverage centering around unions came earlier this week in Michigan, where thousands of union members gathered outside the capitol in Lansing to protest passage of Michigan right to work laws.
Most have doubtless seen coverage from that day showing union members repeatedly tearing down an Americans For Prosperity tent, destroying a food vendor’s stand while hurling racial slurs at him, and assaulting Fox News Contributor, Steven Crowder.
Protesting legislation that merely creates for employees an option to join a union, instead of requiring that they do, is by most objective standards, a misguided protest. There is scant need to delve into the irony of a group that ostensibly “fights for the rights of the worker” while simultaneously condemning legislation that grants the Michigan worker more choices about how to pursue his employment.
However, the substance of the unions’ recent protests, while oftentimes misguided, is nothing compared to the methods being implemented to carry out these protests. These methods, I believe, are slowly but surely taking a toll on whatever benevolent public perception they might have accrued in recent years.
In recent weeks, Unions have staged a number of protests that garnered national attention, although probably not the kind of attention they would’ve liked.
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, members of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) staged a massive protest that nearly ground LAX to a halt during one of the busiest times of the year. Travelers and empathetic citizens nationwide were not pleased.
Frustrated travelers were forced to park about a mile from the airport and walk in with their luggage around throngs of excited protesters.
“I don’t think the protesters are making any friends,” David Britton said as he walked down Century with his rollaway luggage bag, hoping to make his flight to Dallas. “My daughter dropped us off about a mile back.”
Then, of course, there was the recent incident where members from the Cable Workers of America Union protested outside a charity event for pancreatic cancer research.
There are usually few things that the average citizen would consider crossing the line.
Beating puppies, throwing rocks at a station wagon full of nuns, and purposefully attempting to disrupt a fundraiser for one of the deadliest forms of cancer would arguably rate in the top three.
Yet the latter of the three is exactly what union members did recently in New York City.
The event, which raised $2 million for research of pancreatic cancer, was seen as little more than collateral damage to the union protesters.
In Michigan, union supported elected representatives are chanting that, “there will be blood,” while union members are destroying private property and violently assaulting people on the other side of the political debate.
None of this succeeds in creating any sort of public sympathy around unions or their causes, and it’s a contributing factor to why you see right to work legislation succeeding in even the most heavily unionized states.
To the unions, all I can say is this: You’re your own worst enemy.
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When I graduated from college, my took me on a tour of Europe ( she had a serious illness making travel difficult and it was great to spend time with her ).
We got to Geneva and the local hotel was protesting the travel company’s contract so they left our luggage in the lobby instead of next to the bus.
I turned to another tour passenger waiting with me in the lobby to go, commented that I needed a little exercise and maybe he did too. He winked at the suggestion and we both ran our luggage from the lobby to the bus to point out to the hotel staff that we we the customer and the one paying.
We encouraged the bus driver not to leave a tip there. He, of course, loved what we did. So did we.
Opps, left off that it was my mom.
The most hypocritical line I’ve heard against the right to work legislation is that it promotes freeloaders in the workplace. Yet all these union goons vote and support democrats.
Another example of Darwinism at play…
the unions can write their contracts in such a way as to exclude non members from the contracts they bargin for ….they don’t …. there have been several Supreme court rulings up holding this
the unions can write their contracts in such a way as to exclude non members from the contracts they bargin for ….they don’t …. there have been several Supreme court rulings up holding this
Disrupting a cancer-charity event? Tame compared with routine hijinks in Wisconsin during 2011. For example, the zombie protesters who showed up to protest Gov. Walker at a Special Olympics event — needless to say, this was confusing to some of the special-needs kids who were there to be honored. Some details on The Blaze here (including a link to video):
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/zombie-protesters-interrupt-special-olympics-event-to-protest-wis-gov-walker.
I’m afraid to say the Michigan protesters have a ways to go before they match Wisconsin leftists regarding ineffectual, unclassy behavior.
Let’s hope that the Unions continue to be their own worst enemy, and that the new media can keep up the Union Thug exposure level. If the new media can keep showing that these “protests” are merely groups of armed thugs attempting to extort the public, union support will crumble, and we may actually be able to force through the things necessary to finally strip them of power they should have never had in the first place.
By the way, does the new Michigan Right To Work law only say that the Unions can’t force members to join, or does it also say that Unions can’t automatically withdraw dues from members (meaning members have to make an affirmative action to pay AFTER they receive their wages)?
Two bills, two parts from each. You’re correct: each bill (one deals with public-sector unions, the other, private) makes it unlawful for employment to be contingent on union membership, and they also indicate that dues cannot be automatically assigned–a member would have to “opt in” like we do for direct deposit.
Full text of the bills here: http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/interactive/article/20121211/NEWS01/121211004/Right-work-bills-Read-complete-House-Senate-documents?nclick_check=1
This entire administration, and its supporters, are stuck in the past. They are trying to replay to the Marxist revolution Russia, where unions were used to divert a democratic revolution, take over the government, and impose a tyranny by a single political party.
They don’t know that American workers lost their chains long ago– everybody has snow tires, now. The funny thing is, Mad Magazine got it decades ago. They showed the classic Marxist slogan as a caption for a picture of a person kneeling by a car putting snow chains on a tire.
They are trying to replay to the Marxist revolution Russia, where unions were used to divert a democratic revolution,
Um, there was one union, of railway people, and the ‘democratic revolution’ was forcibly hijacked by the Bolsheviks, who first suppressed railway strikes, then outlawed unions altogether, with the assertion that under communism workers never had it so good and needed no other representatives than the Bolsheviks.
Notwithstanding the unfortunate spate of recent violent incidents, it should be as clear as day by now that members of industrial unions are a natural Republican constituency.
Republicans, in general, are more business friendly than Democrats. The better Big Business does, the better Big Labor does.
More specifically, Democrats decided to embrace radical environmentalism decades ago. Consequently, Obama refused to approve the Keystone pipeline to appease the radical environmentalists in the Democrat Party, which hurt the Pipefitters union members and others. Obama and the environmental extremists war on coal hurts the United Mine Workers. The environmental kooks are now on a jihad against fracking which threatens the livelihood of union members in the oil, natural gas, and related industries.
It seems rather straightforward that the union members are being treated like suckers by Democrats. The union dues confiscated from them is being used to help elect Democrats who puruse policies that are diametrically opposed to the interests of the industrial union members.
Why The Stupid Party can’t or won’t make this case is amazing.
It works with the blacks…
Michigan parents don’t have kind words for the unions either. Parents receiving State money to provide (unskilled) care for handicapped children have ‘Union dues’ sucked out of their check. Union leaders convinced the good Gov. Granholm to forcibly unionize family caregivers, patients and their caregivers get less so unions can get more.
The AG ordered this practice to stop earlier this year but it did not, since the order on 5/25/12 over $3 million has been siphoned off home care funds. Read all about it= http://www.michigancapitolconfidential.com/16001
In Minnesota the move to force people who receive government funds for home health care to pay union dues is back on the table. The workers get paid through Medicaid. They are hired individually by the disabled and their families. Many are family members. Imagine being forced to pay dues to SIEU because you have passed on the opportunity to work for more money outside the home in lieu of caring for a relative who might otherwise have to be institutionalized.
Union members are often tone deaf because unions are echo chambers. Often thuggish echo chambers.
To the unions, all I can say is this: You’re your own worst enemy.
Not really. Like oh-so-hip athletes and entertainers and Palestinian ‘martyrs’, they count on news of their ‘transgressive behavior’ to spread publicly and give them credentials as righteous beings who will go to the stake for their sacred Cause.
In combination with their media allies who black out news of the ‘transgressions’, the technique is pretty effective. See Richard Fernandez’s post of 12/13, discussing how the Nazis succeeded in gaining power by use of glamorous street mobs.