Emboldened by the election of President Barack Obama and Democrat control of the House and Senate, Big Labor is no longer hiding their true beliefs.  They want total control of all business in the United States even if it means a huge leap backwards for American workers. 

In a recent commentary, Jonathan Tasini, former head of the National Writers Union and American Rights at Work (an AFL-CIO front group) and blogger who supports forced unionism, stated: “When it comes to unions, we should be more like China.” Tasini then went on to praise the Chinese government for their 2008 legislation that granted huge privileges to the communist Party controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions (ACFTU) but prohibiting all unions that were not part of the ACFTU.  

Under this new legislation, Chinese employees have no freedom to join any union that is not ACFTU nor do they have any right to stop ACFTU bosses from getting monopoly bargaining rights. They may not object to the union fees removed from their wages and benefits. This legislation, passed by the communist-controlled Chinese government, is another nail in the coffin of freedom for the Chinese people. 

Tasini went on to confirm what every liberty-loving American already knows: the proposed “Employee Free Choice Act” (otherwise known as “Card Check”) is the top item on America’s Big Labor’s agenda.  Tasini’s support for the Chinese crack down on unapproved labor unions indicates that Big Labor wants to put the US one step closer to making us more like China.  How ironic that China has never been the poster child for safe working conditions, worker rights and individual freedoms.  

Americans overwhelmingly believe that unionization should be a choice, not mandatory. That conviction is based on the understanding that Americans believe they have the right to association with those people and groups that share their interests and values.  

Americans also believe that union fees should not be mandatory.  They don’t like or appreciate the notion that they might be forced to pay for something they never supported to begin with.

Unionization of private industry has been on a gradual decline for years and, based on recent statistics, has fallen below 8% of the American work force.  This means that Big Labor is not only teetering on a complete loss of it’s political and social clout but it also failing to raise the kind of revenue ala dues it was able to in the past.

Consequently, Big Labor is turning to Big Government in order to push through legislation like “Card Check” in order to salvage what influence they have left, and it does not matter how many individual worker rights are lost in the process.   

“Card Check” should be a wakeup call to all freedom loving Americans.  Unions who promote forced union legislation are the problem, not the solution. America has always been the beacon of Freedom but if “Card Check” is passed, how long will it be before we start carving at other critical individual rights of the people in order to satisfy the whims of a few power brokers?   
 

Toland lives in Lebanon County and is an advocate for open labor policies in Harrisburg.

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