Unions aim to collect on White House clout

So much for getting rid of lobbyists and "special interest" groups in Washington. The only thing that is changing is the color of the lobbyists' collars - instead of white, they will now be blue. Hello class warfare.

Republicans buy more American vehicles and Democrats buy more foreign. The United Auto Workers are among the largest donars to the Democrats. Republicans should consider this when they buy their next car. How about a PAYBACK and a BOYCOTT of the UAW. In two years the UAW will be nonexistent.

Two things are very obvious 1. All this talk about BHO being a 'fresh' face and not owing anyone is a bunch of cr@p. 2. Campaign finance reform was a one way street - it killed republicans and left the democrat power base unscathed. Good luck trying to repeal it or to provide fairness - I still think McCain is a democrat stalking horse and NOT a republican.

Hey, I guess hussien still hasn't figured out why OUR big automakers are failing. I just can't understand why the democrats (hussien) blamed the Republicans for the economy, but they won't take responsibility for the automakers.

I do not comment from lack of experience. I come from a blue collar, labor union family. In my youth, the unions, ours especially, ruled society. In our town of 15,000 people 3,000 of them worked in our plant. The pay and benefits were like being on another planet. I remember in particular one year we had a 150 day wildcat strike to support three men who had been caught red handed stealing. At fifteen I remember telling my dad I was tired of eating beans to support thieves. We were and still are a Democratic family. At election time my father was always more frightened of the Union Steward than he was of God. Our sprawling plant building has been slowly rusting away for many years. As I earlier stated our salaries and benefits defied imagination for that day. Yet we had to strike for more at the end of each contract. This was done just because the union policy said it should be done. Today, twenty-three years later, my salary and benefits are not half what my fathers were at that time. The union was warned the plant would close yet chose to pursue their agenda. It closed and not only the families employed there suffered, the entire society surrounding it suffered. In many ways it has never recovered. For reasons such as that our labor union movement is only a small percentage today of what it was at that time. President Obama has made much out of the present administrations causing manufacturing to leave our country. I firmly believe that the unions are more of the cause than the government. I think the government should stay out of the union business. If they cannot stand on their own what good is a union?

Maxegoins, The only problem with your argument is that you are appealing to experience and common sense. The majority of Americans have neither. May God bless you - as He is the source of all good (not our government, nor our unions) Maranatha.

Hmm, the labor unions have made GM and Ford uncompetitive in the world market, such that they are now asking for multi-billion dollar bailouts from the taxpayers. Perhaps we should simply pass laws that every worker must belong to a union, so that we can have those unions destroy the rest of the businesses in this country. Then we can call for more federal bailouts, and the government can take over management of all the businesses in the U.S. Utopia at last.

The card check provisions should have been early in the article and more fully described. It's like giving union organizers a proxy from every worker to beat the employer into line. Once signed by a worker he/she can't exercise any free choice different from the union organizers, probably from out of town and willing to use any methods to win union control. Unions have outlasted their value in America.

I have the audacity to hope that a President Obama will realize that the secret ballot, which was used to elect him, is just as important in a union election as in a presidential election. BTW, after the litany of union work for Obama, can anyone doubt that union leaders are simply an arm of the Democrat party? Perhaps if unions did not take money from members that don't support Democrats, more people would want to unionize. I for one will never vote to unionize because I will not be forced to financially support any political party.

Yes, that's what we need in this country. MORE unions. Forget the realities of the global economy. Just turn back the clocks of time to the days when unions ruled the roost!

The Unions have driven most of the manufacturing jobs out of the US, they are not trying to force the rest out. The Union members need to wake up and realize that their leaders are after personal power and wealth and don't care about what happens to the members.

Unions have done a marvelous job with the auto industry, who is next? I for one prefer employee pay for performance not pay increases based on intimidation. Thugs garnering dues to support their political agendas.

We are beginning to see more of the Democrat philosophy to run our lives. Heaven forbid. With Obama’s, Biden’s and the Democratic leadership’s rhetoric, or I should say, lack of we will be in a world of hurt. Obama is promising legislation that would make it more difficult for workers to hold a private ballot vote in unionization drives, which critics say would lead to harassment and intimidation, has spurred a pitched battle between powerful labor unions supportive of Sen. Barack Obama and big business in the presidential campaign. Seen by the AFL-CIO as a way to boost union rolls by hundreds of thousands of new members, the hotly-contested bill has become this year's No. 1 election issue for organized labor. Mr. Obama, the Democratic president-elect has promised union bosses that the Employee Free Choice Act will become law in 2009. This is just another example of Obama buying the election. Unions, you scratch my back and I will scratch yours.

I wonder if VP Biden will be holding secret meetings with Union Bosses, like Cheney did with the CEO's of Big Oil?? Will VP Biden also fight releasing the names of the people he meets with, like VP Cheney fought all these years?? I bet Republican wingnuts are real scared that Obama and Biden will follow the game-plans of Bush and Cheney!!! Republicans just go crazy when Dems play by Republican rules!

By: Maranatha.Shalom So much for getting rid of lobbyists and "special interest" groups in Washington. The only thing that is changing is the color of the lobbyists' collars - instead of white, they will now be blue. Hello class warfare. ------- Since many of those who voted for McCain and Pain were blue-collar workers, they might find out how wasted their votes really were, huh.