By Mark Mix
Home day care providers would be forced into unions
Organized labor has long pointed to pensions as a key reason to join their unions, but many of those promised benefits are now in serious trouble. After decades of promising a secure retirement, unions need to chip in and protect their members' pensions.
"A doozy. A bombshell. It's a doozy wrapped in a bombshell exploding inside a Drudge siren." And so reads the headline from the L.A. Weekly, the West Coast insider publication that first broke news that Charles and David Koch — dutifully described as "infamous right-wing billionaires" — were interested in buying The Los Angeles Times, along with other media properties from the bankrupt Tribune Co. Nothing has been confirmed, but the idea already has gotten the press in a dither. A sampling of speculations that quickly emerged:
As furious union members vowed to carry their fight into the next election cycle, lawmakers pushed through historic right-to-work legislation Tuesday — making this bastion of industrial labor strength the 24th state and the second in the Rust Belt to adopt right-to-work laws for public- and private-sector unions.
Union bashing has been a unifying theme at this year's Republican National Convention, as few topics have generated louder, longer and more robust cheers and applause during keynote speeches.
Scott Walker's Wisconsin victory has bought the governor instant status as a conservative icon of historic stature among the seasoned observers of many a political race. He's a Republican stalwart, they say, a gutsy guy.
The number of people seeking unemployment benefits ticked up slightly last week after two months of steady declines.
In the wild, a wounded animal is the most dangerous kind. Right now, the labor movement in the United States is such an animal, reeling from a string of devastating injuries that have eroded its ability to raise money, organize and influence elections.
Union forces in Wisconsin and beyond were dealt a blow Tuesday night after Republicans held onto four of the six state Senate seats in recall races and kept majority control of the chamber.
Amid Labor Day's parades and picnics, union bosses will bellow today about workers' rights and the alleged greed of management, especially inside Big Business. Such class-warfare sloganeering would be easier to stomach if Big Labor were internally consistent. Instead, when their own workers channel Norma Rae and demand better wages and benefits, labor leaders imitate union-busting robber barons.
Teamsters union President James P. Hoffa, who joined a crowd of more than 10,000 who descended on the state Capitol, said right-to-work proponents "are waking a sleeping giant. ... I think this is going to really build up the union movement in the long run."
"The decision lets anti-worker extremists game the system," Mr. Hoffa said.
