Unions Surprisingly Unpopular with… Their Own Members?

Posted by Solomon Kleinsmith

In full disclosure, I had the pleasure of being a part of a sheet metal workers bargaining unit while working for a manufacturing company for a few years (general factory work, shipping & forklift operation mostly), and for the most part thought the union had a positive impact on my time there. But there were some down sides, and because of those, the majority of people who worked there opted out of joining the union as full members, including myself.

I thought of this as I read a piece today at US News & World Report, where Paul Bedard discusses some numbers put out by republican pollster Frank Luntz, that should send shivers down the spines of union bosses around the country. It should be no surprise that union bosses are getting more ire from their members, as they helped push a number of unpopular legislative efforts through the last couple years, most notably the the card check provisions in the absurdly named Employee Free Choice Act, which polling showed didn’t even have majority support among union members, much less the general public.
Far before I ever even seriously thought about having my own blog, I posted from time to time at various blogs, under various names, and way back in March of 2009 I posted a critique of the EFCA bill at a left leaning political blog covering mostly Nebraska state politics. I just reread that post, and found a nugget near the end, where I made a prediction that ended out being somewhat prophetic:

“I knew it was bound to happen sooner rather than later, but in this case, I’m seeing the first bold faced example that matches the hyperpartisan nature of some of the W’s greatest hits… that even scare away some moderate D’s. If the Democratic majority continues to serve up bills like this, and pork laden omnibus bills, 2010 is going to be a year where it may become even more likely that Dems see themselves farther from that 60 vote majority in the senate than the other way around.”

They did, in fact, continue to put up pork laden bills, as well as push a slew of other unpopular legislation that, on top of over promising and under performing on job growth, has led to exactly what I predicted.
This all follows a trend… that Luntz picks up on in his analysis of the polling data:

“Congress got whacked by voters who felt they were being ignored or abused. Now it might be Big Labor’s turn to face the ire of its audience: dues-paying union members. “The trend is the same,” says pollster Frank Luntz. “Union employees feel their representatives just don’t represent them.”
Luntz’s group, The Word Doctors, has completed a new poll that finds union members angry with their labor bosses over several issues. Sixty percent say it’s a “wasteful and unnecessary use” of union dues to support Democrats; 72 percent say union leaders must be held more accountable; big majorities disagreed with union leaders backing health reform, Wall Street’s bailout, and stimulus spending; and 52 percent said the best days of unions in America are “behind us.”
And after unions spent some $53 million on Democrats in the 2010 midterms, which failed to hold off a Republican wave that put the House in GOP hands, Luntz predicts there will be a labor backlash. “They’ll ask, ‘How did we waste so much of our money? How did we have so little influence?”

Unions are the only organizations that have dues paying members in some places that have no choice but to give money to an organization that uses their money politically. I can see the logic of having to pay a small amount to cover collective bargaining costs and general union things, but paying dues money into political funds should be entirely voluntary and opt-in, meaning it only happens if the worker specifically asks to make it happen.
Nobody, under any circumstances, should have the choice made for them to put money into any kind of political organization. This is just another example of how concentrated money can twist rules to make exceptions that no other type of organization can get. Unions should never be limited in their efforts to organize their membership and motivate them to take action in support of candidates, causes and issue they support, but the power that comes from their concentrated money should be taken away, just as it should be taken away from corporations and the wealthy.