You know, I wish I could say I felt sorry for them, but I just can't bring myself to do it. They are essentially the culprit behind their own demise. And of course I speak of the unions in this country. You see, this Wednesday, the Labor Department publishes 2012 data that will show that during Barry's first term the unionization rate, or the percentage of American workers belonging to unions, actually declined faster than it did during two terms of President George W. Bush. Now who would have ever guessed that that would've, or even could have, happened? Certainly not me! But it would appear that the total unionization rate declined from 11.8 percent of wage and salary workers in 2011 to 11.3 percent in 2012. Private-sector unionization fell from 6.9 percent to 6.6 percent, and the government unionization rate dropped from 37 percent to 35.9 percent.
Although Barry has always championed union causes, since even before becoming president, his tax and regulatory policies after becoming president have systematically discouraged business investment and therefore job creation in America for all workers, and that would be for both union and nonunion. U.S. corporate tax rates remain the highest of anywhere in the industrialized world. And an increasing number of inefficient regulations continue to add to production costs and end up turning employees into liabilities. And then of course, Barry vetoed the Keystone XL pipeline from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico, which would have provided literally thousands of unionized construction jobs. Instead, Canada is now planning to ship the oil it produces in its western provinces to China. So while it may be too bad for American members of the Laborers' International Union of North America, it means more jobs for Canadians.
And then we have Barry's rather rogue acting Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) whose regulations have resulted in the closure of more than 100 coal-fired power plants over just the past two years, with even more now being scheduled. That's too bad for the United Mine Workers of America and for the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. In 2009, Chrysler and GM were given government bailouts, disenfranchising existing creditors and transferring assets to the United Auto Workers. Despite the bailout, if your price can be beat, you can't compete. On Jan. 15, Chrysler announced that while it would be expanding Jeep production, it will be in Guangzhou, China, rather than in Toledo, Ohio. Again, too bad for the members of the United Auto Workers (UAW). But they won't be getting any sympathy from me, they really should have seen that coming.
And then it's because of Barry's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, under which firms with more than 49 workers face a $2,000-per-worker tax if they don't offer the right kind of health insurance. So these firms react the only way they can with the natural result being fewer full-time jobs, but more part-time jobs, because there's no tax on part-time employees. Barry did everything he could in his first term to help unions. His stimulus package was directed at public-sector unionized workers. His executive order on project labor agreements required large construction projects to hire unionized workers. Barry supported the misnamed Employee Free Choice Act, which would have taken away workers' right to a secret ballot in elections for union representation and would have imposed mandatory binding arbitration on employers and workers who could not agree on a contract.
Barry even went to far as to push the "recess-appointment" privilege to the absolute limit as he appointed three union friends members of the National Labor Relations Board when the Senate was not even in recess. One member, a rather sleazy character by the name of Richard Griffin, has been accused in a lawsuit of using threats and extortion to cover up an embezzlement scandal when he served as general counsel for Local 501 of the International Union of Operating Engineers. And then we've been saddled with his patently idiotic, and totally inept Labor Secretary, Hilda Solis, who's also the daughter of union activists, and who rolled back union financial transparency rules put in place by Bush Labor Secretary Elaine L. Chao. Rules, by the way, that were designed to show union members what their union was doing with their dues. Hell's bell's, we can't have that now can we?
But it seems to have all been for naught, because Barry's efforts to help unions have not stemmed the tide, and in what brings a tear to my one good eye, union membership continues to accelerate its decline. Right-to-work states, where workers don't have to pay dues to a union as a condition of working, have created more jobs than in forced unionization states. Over the past 25 years, the 22 right-to-work states (not including new right-to-work states Indiana and Michigan) created 1.5 times as many jobs as the forced unionization states. The lesson is quite clear, and it's that whether you like unions or you hate them, anti-business policies drive jobs offshore. That's why union membership has fared worse under Barry than under Bush. So, is it a lesson that unions will end up learning, albeit the hard way, or will they continue in supporting those whose policies are doing nothing more than to accelerate their demise?
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