UNION BULLSH*T WATCH: The Dirty Dissection of a Union Boss' Claims that EFCA will Create Jobs

Vol. II, Ed. 2

Yesterday, speaking at the National Press Club, union kingpin and AFL-CIO top boss, Richard Trumka made an outlandishly fictitious claim about the hallucinogenically-named Employee Free Choice Act.

In fact, it was so outlandish that we immediately felt the need to call it out as another example of Union Bullsh*t. 

Here is Mr. Trumka's statement [WARNING: We urge you to protect your olfactory senses when reading the statement below]:

"I think you'll see the Employee Free Choice Act pass in the first quarter of 2010," Trumka said. "You'll have it have some real effect. We'll start creating and making new jobs in this country again."[Emphasis added.]

Were it not for the fact that unemployment is over 10% right now and likely to climb, we would have been doubled over in laughter at the outrageousness of his highness' claim. However, given that there are too few of us pointing out today's union emperors' naked mistruths, we are obliged to pull apart the fabrications of Trumka's claims one thread at a time:

1. Unions do NOT create jobs, companies do.  While this should seem obvious to all, it is apparently a foreign concept to union bosses and government bureacrats who believe that stealing from the private sector to pay for public sector 'make work' projects will build properity.
2. Unions hinder job creation.  Even President Obama's Director of the National Economic Council, Larry Summers, wrote that unionization is a cause of long term unemployment.
   
   

   Another cause of long-term unemployment is unionization. High union wages that exceed the competitive market rate are likely to cause job losses in the unionized sector of the economy. Also, those who lose high-wage union jobs are often reluctant to accept alternative low-wage employment....
   
   There is no question that some long-term unemployment is caused by government intervention and unions that interfere with the supply of labor....
   

   
   
3. The "union tax" burden can cripple both large and small businesses, putting union-free competitors (both foreign and domestic) at an economic advantage (see American auto, steel, textile, and trucking industries for examples).
4. EFCA will kill up to five million jobs.  A 2009 study revealed that the economic (read: job-destroying) consequences of EFCA could be disastrous for an economy already teetering on the brink of a depression.

Needless to say, as we saw Mr. Trumka's remarks at the National Press Club yesterday, we knew that the more discerning reader would be able to ferret through the fecal matter of his statements.  However, we felt obliged to call his comments out for what they are: more Union B.S.

If Mr. Trumka were being intellectually honest with himself and reporters, he would have explained EFCA for what it is:

1. EFCA is a Big Union Bailout at the expense of jobs, rights and freedom.
2. EFCA is a bill that will allow unions to unionize workers without a secret-ballot vote
3. EFCA is a bill that will force workers and their employers into government-imposed contracts
4. EFCA is a bill the will cause greater job loss and greater industrial strife
5. EFCA is a bill that will dump billions into the pockets of union bosses and into their puppet-like politicians' coffers. 

For more on the job-destroying and delusionally-dubbed Employee Free FORCED Choice Act, go here, here, and here.
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"I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes." Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776