Americans can still take a trip to the beach, grill in the backyard or just relax and enjoy a three-day vacation from work during the Labor Day weekend.
It’s not a celebration of marriage.
They should be thanking you for the scandalous amount of taxpayer-funded freebies that were given to organized labor during Joe Biden’s first two years as president.
Biden pledged to be the most union-friendly president by accepting more campaign contributions from labor groups than any other funding category.
It seems that it is the only promise that the president has kept.
Here are some of the lowlights
In an unprecedented move to pack NLRB — the federal agency that investigates and remedies unfair labor practices within the public sector — with union stooges, President Biden was also sworn in as president.
He appointed union cronies as the independent oversight agency of the Department of Labor.
He demanded the passage of the Protecting the Right to Organize Act (PRO), which would effectively eliminate right-to-work provisions within the public workplace and force millions of government workers to join or support a union as a condition to their employment.
His American Rescue Plan helped to redirect millions of COVID-19 relief dollars to previously ineligible labor organizations;
He overturned a rule that prohibited mandatory deductions for union fees taken from the paychecks of millions of Medicaid-compensated homecare providers.
The deceptively-named “Inflation Reduction Act” was signed by him. It will allow 87,000 new officers to be hired at the Internal Revenue Service. They can expect to harass the president while paying union dues.
His Office of Personnel Management assists federal agencies in identifying and accessing the personal contact information of non-union employees to allow them to be “recruited”, or become members of unions.
You get the idea. Regardless of any marginal workplace improvements that the American labor movement may have advocated in the early 20th century, modern unions have long since given up on advocating for workers and serve almost exclusively to fund the extreme left.
The National Education Association (NEA), the largest teacher’s union in America, spent $183 million last year on politics, lobbying, and contributions to ideologies, while only $32 million was spent on representational activities.
This is just the tip of the iceberg. The union spent $71million on its officers and employees, and $56.5million on benefits.
These figures do not include non-staff lawyers, accountants, and consultants. Nor does the $61 million just spent on overhead and maintaining the lights in Washington, D.C.’s ivory palace.
Representational activities accounted only for five percent of the $615million NEA spent last fiscal year — about the same amount as the average American family pays on their cell phone bill.
These union bosses would like credit for an annual vacation.
However, despite or maybe because of Biden’s generosity with another person’s tax dollars only 10.3 percent of America’s wage and salary workers currently pay dues to a union.
Currently, only 34% of public sector employees — including teachers — are unionized. Despite this, the number is on the decline due to a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court decision that ended forced membership/or dues deductions in nearly half of the country.
Biden is a vocal critic of the ruling. He believes workers should have to choose between maintaining their jobs or supporting an organization that cares less about improving pay, benefits, and working conditions.
According to the Department of Labor’s website, Labor Day is, “a holiday dedicated to American workers’ economic and social achievements. It is a national tribute to workers’ contributions to our strength, prosperity, and well-being each year”.
It is not intended to be a tribute to organized labor, its methods, or its leaders.
It has never been. Given the extent to which unions and public perceptions of them have fallen, it is less relevant today than ever.
Labor Day should be a day when we don’t think about unions, but it should also provide us an opportunity to examine the corrupting influence that powerful and well-funded special interests have on our governance processes.
In any event, Joe Biden has given all his union allies (and plans to give them more in the second half of his term), so a Labor Day celebration that is more appropriate would be a one-day vacation from them than for them.
