WITHOUT AUTOMATIC DUES, UNIONS HAVE PROBLEMS

The Washington Examiner – Union Cash Cutoff has National Implications – Scott St. Clair – 8/22/2011

http://campaign2012.washingtonexaminer.com/article/union-cash-flow-cutoff-has-national-implications#.TlKVl0PZehg.email

For the 2011 recall election, WEAC spent $500,000.

The nearly $40 million all of labor spent on the recall elections, where just over 450,000 votes were cast, comes out to about $89 per vote. Of that, $5 million was local union money with the rest coming from national union sources.

WEAC isn’t alone. Government-sector unions across Wisconsin are cutting staff and trimming expenses.

It goes deeper. Wisconsin is the 16th most unionized state in the country with 355,000 workers, 14.2 percent of total employed, belonging to unions. Of these, nearly half, more than 175,000, are government workers. Nationally, there are more government workers in unions than private-sector workers. Annually, the private-sector numbers decline, while the government-sector numbers go up.

Kick the props — the union shop and dues check-off — from government-sector unions and you kick the props from more than half of what’s left of the American labor movement that represents a scant 11.9 percent of American workers in total. In Wisconsin the props are gone, and the movement is listing worse than the Titanic.

Soon more workers will have the right to decide whether to join a union and face compulsory deduction of dues from their pay.   That will shut off the automatic millions of dollars flowing to union leaders’ pockets and campaign war chests.

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