The Choice Democrats Oppose

The choice to not be press-ganged into a labor union:

Following a two-month media circus at the University of Miami that included strikes, high-profile visits from national politicians and activists, and even a hunger strike, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) officials are now claiming victory.

What’s the victory? Workers will have less freedom to choose whether to unionize, of course!

The union will now be allowed to use its weapon of choice—the notoriously abusive procedure called “card check” to sweep university janitors into union ranks. Under this scheme, rather than allowing employees to choose whether to unionize through the less-abusive election process run by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), union officials will now only have to collect the signatures of an agreed-upon number of employees before UNICCO, the employer, will recognize the union.

Having been armed with employee’s home addresses by UNICCO—a standard concession in such card-check arrangements—union organizers know it will be easy to coerce the signing of “authorization cards” from harassed and browbeaten employees.

Under card check, workers frequently report that union organizers lie to them about the cards’ true purpose. Some are told that they are health-insurance enrollment forms, requests for a unionization election, or even tax forms. These lies, along with outright threats, bribes, and stalkings suffered by others have triggered a legal backlash by workers with help from the National Right to Work Foundation.

My father worked as a bricklayer for 42 years, and I have never forgotten the luxury in which the union bosses lived while he hefted 12-inch block up 4 flights of staging so that they could buy Democrats with his wages.

What did he get after four decades of sweat and blood?

A small pension and a bottle of supermarket champagne. He'd quit drinking 20 years prior.