NUGENT: Bakers’ union ding-dong move endangers 18,000 jobs

November 28, 2012 | « back

Labor thugs make economic hard times worse

In yet another never-ending series of terminal ding-dong moves, members of the Bakery, Confectionery, Tobacco Workers and Grain Millers International Union went on strike and drove Hostess out of business, providing one more stinking example of how labor unions can no longer have their cake and it eat it, too.

More than 18,000 people will lose their jobs as a result of the bakers’ union going on strike and driving Hostess out of business unless a deal is reached through last-minute mediation.

Call me Motor-City-Madman-crazy, but in this Obama-inspired kamikaze economy, wouldn’t it be better to have a good job even with reduced benefits than to have no job? Are you kidding me?

In the words of President Obama, what we have here is a teachable moment: Labor unions are bad for business.

With just these four short opening paragraphs, the allergic-to-logic, empty Twinkie heads of anti-capitalism liberals are surely spinning ‘round and ‘round. They will ignorantly shriek that big business is greedy and needs more government regulation, that businesses have all kinds of obligations to their employees, that labor unions are still needed and that liberals know what is best for the economy.

They would be wrong again, as I’m sure many of the 18,000 Hostess employees would now agree.

Economic lesson No. 1: The reason business is in business is to make as much money as possible. Businesses are not social welfare experiments whose primary responsibility is to provide jobs and meet the demands of ever-shrinking labor unions.

Unemployed long enough, even liberals with noggins full of economic balderdash put there by comedians Jon Stewart and Bill Maher, and liberal college instructors who have never owned or managed a business will begin to understand that anti-business, pro-union liberalism doesn’t pay the rent. Ding-dong that.

There is good news. In the private sector, labor unions are quickly becoming extinct. Only about 7 percent of private-sector employees belong to labor unions in the private sector.

Were Mr. Obama honest with the American public, he would say labor unions are no longer needed, that labor unions are often the reasons large businesses fail, that labor union fantasy-driven, anti-business demands have been the reason many businesses have left America, that pro-union states are suffering much more than right-to-work states, and that 18,000 people would have secure jobs now had they listened to Hostess management.

Don’t hold your breath waiting for our pro-labor union president to make these statements. He knows that stacks and stacks of labor union cash has been the bread and butter of the Democratic National Committee. Even though he claims that creating jobs is his No. 1 priority, Mr. Obama won’t dare speak the truth about labor unions who drive businesses like Hostess into the dumpster.

The evidence is clear: Labor unions have a history of destroying companies and jobs, and have done much to kill the economies of states like Michigan, Ohio and Illinois — all states that supported Mr. Obama.

Conversely, right-to-work states are doing much better economically than those states handicapped by labor unions. Interestingly, the overwhelming number of these states voted for Mitt Romney over Mr. Obama.

We live in economically teachable times for those who want to learn instead of clinging to a self-destructive past that should be long gone.

Source: WashingtonTimes.com