It’s the workers, stupid.

As a Libertarian and staunch individualist, I have been frustrated by a growing Socialist presence in our government. If you’re reading my site odds are better than even that you feel the same way.

Well who is the leading champion of the socialist ideals that threaten our freedoms? Is it politicians? The students?

It’s the unions.

A while ago I came across a statistic from a January report by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, stating that for the first time in American history, more union members are employed by the various levels of government than in the whole of private industry. Since that time I’ve been working on an article on labor unions, trying to put my finger on exactly what bugs me about them only to conclude it’s…everything. There’s so much information regarding the negative impact they’ve had on our economy and government, that I may not even scratch the surface. But I will try.

The whole idea of organized workers is one that originated with Marx and Engels, infused into unions by the father of the American labor movement; Eugene Victor Debs. Founding member of the International Labor Union, as well as the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Debs went on to run for President of the United States as a member of the Social Democratic Party in 1900, and later as the Socialist Party of America candidate in 1904, 1908, 1912, and 1920.

He recruited blue collar Marxists, attracted to union organizing for the same reason white collar Marxists are attracted to community organizing, because they are failures who could not succeed in the competitive environment of a free market. Unions and government are the means by which they gang up, and confiscate the success of others. That is the essential notion of labor unions. Forming a labor cartel, for centralized planning and negotiation by the workers, with the express purpose of redistributing wealth from “upper class” owners to the “under class”; until at last ownership of the means of production is vested solely in the workers.

But like it’s political cousin, labor organizing seldom works as advertised.

Wealth re-distributors would have you believe that wealth is redistributed from the wealthy to the poor, or in the case of unions from the "management" to the "employee" class. In reality it is the middle class managers and non union employees (regardless of income) who suffer from a unionized workforce’s redistribution.

Unions increase the wages of 10 to 15% of workers by as much as 15% at the cost of reducing the wages of the other 85 to 90% of workers by about 4%, and because labor unions raise the cost of labor above the median, employers ultimately can afford to employ fewer people, thus reducing productivity and adding to unemployment. Think about it: steel workers, auto workers, virtually all of our manufacturing sector; unions have run these industries into the ground, and forced much of it overseas in an effort to compete.

So why are union jobs in government surging when their private sector brethren are on the unemployment line? Because union bosses finally stumbled upon their niche. Government has no competition, no market forces. With the right people in power, government can grow and grow until it’s near collapse, but not before fattening union coffers.

But with union workers having infiltrated every level of government, and big labor owning the Democratic party, how could labor get any more powerful? Why, forced unionization and forming their own political party of course.

Are you worried yet?

Vote for leaders that fight for smaller government, who are not beholden to labor, and support National Right To Work...or you will be forced to join a union, sooner or later.