An interesting look at labor unions

A good article over at the Washington, DC The Examiner:

Irwin Stelzer: Unions need growth to save unfunded pensions
"We've lost touch with a whole generation.... The problem is that they [under-30s] don't think we have much to offer them," Richard Trumka, the incoming head of the 11-million-member AFL-CIO told the Wall Street Journal.

He plans to rectify that by making union membership more attractive to the 30-and-under set by upping the benefits of union membership. And, of course, by eliminating the secret ballot that unions think reduces their ability to, er, persuade potential recruits of the virtues of membership.

One tool in the kit of the 1,000 organizers Trumka plans to field in support of his 56 unions is the promise of great retirement benefits.

Anyone finding that promise a lure to membership would do well to read a just-released study by my Hudson Institute colleague Diana Furchtgott-Roth and economist Andrew Brown -- "Comparing Union-Sponsored and Private Pension Plans."

It seems that "collectively bargained pension plans perform poorly when compared to plans sponsored unilaterally by single employers for non-union employees."

Among plans covering more than 100 workers, only 17 percent of union plans were fully funded, compared with twice that figure for non-union plans. Perhaps more significant is the comparison of union and non-union plans' ability to meet the test laid out in the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

That Act defines pension funds that have less than 80% of assets they will need to meet their obligations as "endangered." Only 14% of non-union funds are in the endangered category, while 41% of union funds have been so tagged.

By contrast, plans that cover staff and officers of unions are probably much better funded. Sauce for the union-official goose is just too good to be sauce for the rank-and-file gander.

Unions very much had their place 100 years ago. People were not mobile then -- the idea of picking up and moving to a different part of the country was something you only did under great duress. The corporate bosses knew this and could be heavy-handed when it came to setting salaries and benefits as they were, literally, the only game in town. The rise of unions helped re-educate these people and established better working conditions and remunerations. Now, they have faded into a top-heavy oligarchy -- a prime example of Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy:

Pournelle's Iron Law of Bureaucracy states that in any bureaucratic organization there will be two kinds of people: those who work to further the actual goals of the organization, and those who work for the organization itself. Examples in education would be teachers who work and sacrifice to teach children, vs. union representative who work to protect any teacher including the most incompetent. The Iron Law states that in all cases, the second type of person will always gain control of the organization, and will always write the rules under which the organization functions.

This is not lost on the general public either -- from The Union Label Blog:

Unions Take Beating in Public Opinion Poll
The Gallup polling organization recently revealed a poll that shows employee unions are at an all time low in popular opinion. Gallup found �organized labor taking a significant image hit in the past year.�

While 66% of Americans continue to believe unions are beneficial to their own members, a slight majority now say unions hurt the nation�s economy. More broadly, fewer than half of Americans � 48%, an all-time low � approve of labor unions, down from 59% a year ago.

That is a pretty hard fall in just one year. Almost 10% of Americans have changed their opinions toward the negative on unions in just a year. Worse, the once high of 75% approval as it stood in 1957 is now down to 48%. That is also a pretty hard fall. According to Gallup, it has never been that low.

Jumped the shark and the leaders never planned for this -- they planned as though there would be a steady stream of new recruits. Guess what guys -- the ride is over and the rank and file members of unions like SEIU are being used as political pawns and at the end of the day, they will be used up and thrown away...