Obama Has Ultimately Hurt Unions!

 After reading George Wills recent column, entitled, "Liberals' Wisconsin Waterloo,"  it appears that Barack Obama's effort to insulate unions and their bosses from his edict of "shared sacrifice" has failed. Shared sacrifice didn't apply to unions during the GM and Chrysler bankruptcies. He made sure that the UAW was given preference over the preferred creditors. The stimulus was an obvious payback to unions, especially public employees, as much of it was directed to states to avoid layoffs due to ballooning deficits. Andy Stern, head of SEIU was Obama's most frequent White House guest during his first year in office. Richard Trumka, head of the AFL-CIO was seen admitting that he visits the White House two or three times a week and has conversations with someone there every day.

Obama's political arm, "Organizing for America," was front and center during the Wisconsin demonstrations against Scott Walker and the newly elected republican legislature this last spring. The administrations National Labor Relations Board's...NLRB's attempt to sue and stop Boeing from relocating a production plant to South Carolina, a right to work state, for their new 787 jetliner, is yet another attempt to insulate unions from "shared sacrifice." The public has caught on, and they realize that Obama doesn't mean what he says. He has over reached in his attempt to empower unions and the push back has been immediate and severe. 

Millions of dollars poured into Wisconsin to recall enough republicans to block Walkers agenda. Union bosses looked at the expenditure as the cost of doing business. They knew if the legislation was sustained they would lose millions in automatic union dues taken from members paychecks. They lost and lost big, and the voters of that state are watching their deficits shrink and business boom. Now that the stimulus has run out of funds, we see public employees being laid off in droves in state and local governments all around the country. Now, even though democrats lead republicans in fund raising for 2012 much of the union influence and cash is being muffled. They will still spend, and spend every dime they can to elect democrats, but their power has been shrinking. If Wisconsin was the liberals Waterloo, as Will says, 2012 may be the Unions swan song.

The midterms of 2010 will be remembered as not just a smack down of progressive theory, but the beginning of the end of union influence over our political system. Obama's intent to reward his friends and punish his enemies has ultimately backfired, much like his economic policies. I wonder if he's learned the lesson that when you over reach you will get a stinging slap to the back of your hand.. After reading the comments associated with the George Will column, I found that many of those union members have nothing left but invective and name calling. If I were them, I'd change my attitude because the American voter is in no mood to further pay for their so called entitlements. We know he never meant it, but they should embrace their  saviors edict of "shared sacrifice," because if they continue to reach into the cookie jar, they may just lose more fingers.
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