Freedom Line Blog

Below is one of the latest cartoons from two-time Pulitzer Prize-winner Michael Ramirez.

View more of Michael Ramirez’s cartoons on CFIF’s website here.

Pity Rory Reid.  The son of U.S. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), Rory is the luckless family scion getting blown out in his race for Nevada governor.  The newest Rasmussen Reports poll finds the younger Reid down 20 points to former federal judge Brian Sandoval.

Maybe Rory should have built up more chips with organized labor like his dear old dad.  According to multiple reports, the elder Reid is enjoying all kinds of “thanks-for-the-memories” tributes such as gift cards and free food for pro-Reid votes.  If Senator Reid hangs onto his seat, his son should remember that liberal success comes from union largesse.

As CFIF Vice President of Legal and Public Affairs Tim Lee explained in this week’s Freedom Minute, the largest American labor unions are promising to spend a combined $150 million of their members’ dues money to preserve Democratic control of Congress.

To put that into perspective, here’s a partial list of what President Obama did for unions after receiving $60.7 million from the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in the 2008 cycle:

»  Only 10 days after taking the oath of office, Obama signed three executive orders that, respectively, limited what federal contractors can say to employees during union organizing drives, made it harder to fire incompetent employees of government contractors, and directed federal contractors to insure that employees are aware of their organizing rights.

»  One week later, Obama signed another executive order that requires federal agencies to use union-favored Project Labor Agreements on large federally funded construction projects. Not only does that mean many state government construction projects must use a PLA, but so must many economic stimulus-funded projects.

»  Hilda Solis, Obama’s secretary of labor, has nullified disclosure rules issued during the Bush administration that were designed to increase union financial transparency on forms required to be filed with the government under the Landrum-Griffin Labor Management Reporting Disclosure Act of 1959. The disclosure requirements, which were not enforced before Bush, made it possible for union members to see what their officers were doing with their dues.

If Democrats do somehow hang on to power after this year’s midterms, expect at least double the payback for the unions’ doubled investment.

H/T: Washington Examiner

In this week’s Freedom Minute, CFIF’s Timothy Lee discusses the recent announcement by big labor unions to spend more than $100 million on the November elections while their individual members try to make ends meet in a struggling economy.

Following on from my column last week, Steven Greenhut, editor-in-chief of CalWatchdog.com, sits down with Reason to explore the excesses of public pensions and public-sector workers in general, especially in California. Enjoy, if you can stomach it:

The U.S. airline industry is slowly recovering from a worldwide recession and severe downturn in travel volume, and hasn’t completely righted course since the catastrophic 9/11 attacks.

So what do you if you’re a labor union representing employees of that struggling industry?  Threaten to strike and kill it off for good, apparently.

In recent weeks, union bosses representing airline employees are demanding pay increases and costlier benefits, even as the economy continues to shed jobs and unemployment remains stubbornly high.  They may also strike for the first time at a major U.S. carrier since 2005, despite rising fuel costs as summer approaches.

Few things illustrate the dramatic distinction between workers’ interests and labor unions’ interests than the unions’ continuing destructive behavior.  They have nearly killed the domestic automobile industry through decades of unsustainable demands, and states such as Michigan decay while employers hire in friendlier states.  Big Labor’s apologists like to argue that they provide better jobs and benefits to everyday workers, but the sad truth is that they kill jobs or drive them overseas, leaving unemployed workers and decaying communities to pay the price.

Hopefully, union leaders and the everyday workers whose livelihoods they control will regain sobriety rather than do to domestic airlines what they did for domestic automakers…