Unions are in an
interesting business. Like any business they provide a service or
product that the customers, the members, purchase. Standing up
for the working man occasionally requires standing up to big
business. This has traditionally been a rallying cry of
unions. Just because someone says they are working for your best
interest, doesn't mean that they are speaking either truthfully or
intelligently. Politicians are the first example of people who
either lie or are incompetent. Businesses are not immune from
these foibles and that includes the businesses we call
unions.
What the working person needs most is a job. Standing up for the
working person means promoting job growth, not just union growth.
It is up to the unions to make sure that there is no conflict between
the two goals, because we can't have one without the other.
When market realities change, businesses have to either adapt or
die. My favorite union was the American Garment Workers
Union. They had a nice jingle and they advertised to get people
to buy union made clothing. The pace of innovation in the American
manufacturing of clothing was, for a variety of reasons, not sufficient
to overcome the lower cost of labor in India and eventually almost all
clothing has come to be purchased from overseas sources. Other
unions, seeing this, have not modified their business model to promote
manufacturing efficiency. Instead, they lobbied, generally
unsuccessfully, for tariffs and for regulation on other
businesses. Our manufacturing jobs have moved overseas and one of
the reasons, along with taxes and regulations, has been the restrictive
contracts won by the businesses we call unions. Supporting one
business over another is not the proper function of government,
standing up for America's workers is. And, just as I disagree
with and am running against politicians who tax our earnings and use it
to buy votes, I won't support some businesses that claim to be
supporting the working man but which actually drive jobs overseas.
Unions have been following the same template since the 1800's. A
lot of them are pursuing policies that ignore global market realities
as did the American Garment Workers Union. I will be fair to all
businesses by promoting their ability to make choices and adapt to the
market place as they believe will further their ends. Not to give
individual or group advantage by legislation, nor to share the wealth
that ensues, nor to have the taxpayer suffer the loss from poor
decisions.
National Right to Work Committee