Tuesday, April 10, 2012

Desperation Time for Unions in Indiana



Oh my. Talk about reverse of fortunes. The Unions in Indiana are scrambling to maintain their mafia style grip on members' wallets. Two articles from Indiana Business Journal illustrate just how desperate the unions have become.

But first a little background. The Indiana recently passed a law making it a right-to-work state. Effectively what this law does is end the extortion scheme the unions have enjoyed over the past 70 plus years where union dues are automatically deducted from members' paycheck to the tune of $2,000 to $2,500 a year.

If this sounds familiar it should, it's the same principle as the mafia's 'protection' scheme where local businesses are charged a 'fee' for protection (presumably from an unnamed outside force but in reality it is from the mafia itself). If the businesses didn't pay they would wake up one morning to find a brick thrown through their window or sometimes worse.

Now for the fun. Back in February the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 filed a restraining order in federal court to halt the right-to-work law:

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 contends in a motion filed Monday afternoon that the law will cause irreparable harm, saying it already has employers actively questioning its ability to sustain itself in the face of a loss of a significant portion of its dues. The union says its members pay on average between $2,000 and $2,500 a year in dues and a loss of just 10 percent in membership would cost it $500,000 a year.

Golly, that's a lot of scratch and I can see why there a bit upset over the new law. But here's what I don't understand, rather than extorting the dues from their members, why not justify the value of union membership so that members are lining up to dole out the $2,000 to $2,500 bucks every year.

Reading between the lines it appears that what the unions are saying is that apparently current membership dues are too high because given a choice some union members would prefer not to pay. In other words, some members just don't see the value of membership (don't you just love the free market system?). So in order for unions to survive they either have to either lower membership dues (not bloody likely) or resort to legalized extortion.

So after they failed to get their way February what's a corrupt  hard working union boss supposed to do now? Well they put on their thinking caps and decided to file a motion in court to have the law struck down because the law… wait for it… Violates the union's freedom of speech!: Yep you read that right!! Check it out:

Indiana's new right-to-work law should be struck down because it infringes upon unions' free speech rights by depriving them of the dues that fund their political speech..

Attorneys for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 argue in a court brief that Indiana's new law, which allows workers to not pay union dues even if a union bargains on their behalf, interferes with the union's free speech rights and "impinges on this fundamental right of union membership."

And what precedent did the Union's lawyers use to justify this nonsense?

[t]he union cites the 2010 Citizens United decision, which struck down on free-speech grounds restrictions on corporations' and union spending on advertising endorsing or opposing certain candidates.

Talk about a non sequitur. The union is arguing that because they anticipate a drop-off in dues that finance their political propaganda machine, their freedom of speech is somehow violated. So the remedy is to ask the court to force the members to pay their dues to preserve their first amendment right of freedom of speech. 

I just.. how do they.. SAY WHAT?

First of all the case the union lawyers are citing was struck down not because of where the financing was coming from, but rather, that the law put spending limits on corporations and unions.

So if I follow the unions' logic from their brief, we here at 6079 Smith, W can spend as much as we want and when we run out of money we can sue our advertisers for more money because if they don't payup our first amendment rights are somehow violated?

Um, hope that works out for you guys in Hoosier land..

Realistically the unions would be better off trying to make themselves relevant to their members and less time giving the rest of us a good chuckle at their abject desperation.

10 comments:

  1. Oh and wait til the employers are no longer required to deduct union dues from the paychecks but the employees are required to write a check each month. Sorta wish the withholding tax was done that way so people could realize how much they are paying.

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    1. Anonymous - Thanks for dropping by. You know I have thought of that as well. How much time at those townhall meetings would be spent griping about taxes do you think? Talk about accountability!

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  2. I have these discussions with family members all the time. What exactly are these unions doing for their members (my cousins, etc.)? They don't care about any of their members. They don't care about any of the companies that employ their members and would rather shut them down then help them survive. They don't even care about other unions and often harass a business for not hiring "their guys" and threaten to shut it down (bigger jobs are different unions). They finally are successful in shutting down a business that employed guys in their Union and now u have 25 members unemployed, but congratulations you really stood up for your members.

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    1. Anonymous - I couldn't agree more. The members are nothing more than an ATM machine. They have little say in what happens to the money once it is in the coffers of the union HQ. They've been taken advantage of and now that they get a chance to choose whether or not to pay their dues it looks like many will not. You can only abuse the system for so long before the folks revolt.

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  3. I think these unions are on to something. I hereby vow to sue anyone who doesn't agree to pay for my cell phone and internet bills, because they are violating my free speech rights by refusing to fund my speech.

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    1. Anonymous - I hear you. The tortured logic these folks have to go through to get their way is in credible.

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  4. I have a neighbor who is part of the Police Local Union and having a talk with her the other day, she made it clear that she and many of her fellow officers do not like the unions. They do nothing for their membership but take money from them, so the Union Big Wigs and their thuggery can live high on the hog. I once was part of the Teachers Union in California...and they did nothing for those who were members but take money and let bad teachers continue to ruin education, while good teachers were not receiving anything for their hard work and success as teachers. Unions are no more than Organized Crime extorting money from workers.

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    1. Anonymous - thanks for the comment - I like the distinction you draw here as well. It's not necessarily the union members that are the problem its those in charge. I particularly like your point where you are on the inside looking out and you see the level corruption from within where the union will defend a bad teacher just because its a revenue source and not what's good for the kids.

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  5. Second paragraph almost lost me--you need to change last word from "month" to "year".

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    1. Anonymous - thanks for catching that for me. I will now fire my editor in chief. Oh wait that's me - Doh..

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