Can Big Labor Protect Its Puppet President?

Union Bosses Working to Keep Congress Under Biden Allies’ Control

After spending billions of dollars on electioneering and other politicking during the 2019-20 campaign cycle, union bosses were ecstatic to find themselves in control, as of early 2021, of the White House, the U.S. House of Representatives, and the U.S. Senate.

But today, less than a year and a half later, top union officials are confronting what for them is a bitter truth:

Most Americans, including most of the blue-collar family members of all races and ethnicities whom they purport to represent, believe rule by President Joe Biden, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), and Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) has been a disaster.

Left to themselves, a majority of the union members who go to the polls could be expected this year to band together with their fellow citizens to elect a new House and Senate that would stand up to Mr. Biden, rather than cater to his worst instincts.

Contrary to AFL-CIO Chief’s Insinuations, ‘Workers Know What’s Not Good For Them’

But Big Labor is determined not to let that happen.

National Right to Work Committee President Mark Mix commented:

“Starting shortly after he entered the Oval Office in January 2021, polls have shown steadily falling support for President Biden among the hardworking blue-collar Americans whom private-sector union officials regard as their core constituency, as well as among other key groups. 

“Powerful union bosses like to attribute the often intense opposition of blue-collar Americans to Big Labor’s favorite chief executive in decades, if not of all time, to ‘misinformation and disinformation,’ as AFL-CIO chief Liz Shuler often puts it.

“But contrary to Ms. Shuler’s insinuations, American workers know what’s not good for them.”

Perhaps the single most important reason worker support for the Biden Administration has plunged since January 2021 is that the average purchasing power of paychecks is now, as a consequence of rapidly rising inflation, shrinking more rapidly than it did at the 2008 nadir of the Great Recession.

From March 2021 through March 2022, the last 12-month period for which data are available as this Newsletter edition goes to press in early May, inflation as measured by the U.S. Labor Department’s Consumer Price Index (CPI) soared by 8.5%.

Multi-Trillion-Dollar Biden Spending Hikes, Fed Accommodation Fuel Inflation

By comparison, year-over-year CPI inflation as of January 2021, the month Mr. Biden was inaugurated, was just 1.6%.

As an April 4 New York Post editorial noted, skyrocketing inflation appears to be a made-in-Washington, D.C., problem: Other advanced economies “haven’t seen anything like the soaring prices now punishing workers across America.”

From the beginning of the Biden presidency through April 21, 2022, according to a financial analysis published that day, house prices were up by 69%, foodstuffs were up by 58%, gasoline was up by 72%, and mortgage rates were up by 83%. And despite White House claims that Vladimir Putin’s war against Ukraine caused these increases, “most of the inflation was baked-in prior to the Russian invasion” this February.

A wide range of economists agree that the multi-trillion-dollar 2021 spending hikes rubber-stamped by the President and the apparently politically intimidated Federal Reserve’s decision to accommodate, rather than offset, this fiscal madness are the principal reasons why inflation is now worse than it’s been in decades.

On the fiscal front, economists ranging from Trump adviser Larry Kudlow to Obama adviser Larry Summers agree, that the $1.9 trillion mislabeled as the “American Rescue Plan” (ARP) and dumped into the economy in March 2021 by Congress and Joe Biden is the key factor behind the recent surge in inflation.

By far the biggest beneficiaries of the ARP were union bosses, especially government union bosses, and their allied politicians.

Over the Past Year, Real Weekly Earnings Have Fallen by 3.6%

For example, the ARP included a flabbergasting $470 billion in state and local government bailouts.

And, as economist Stephen Moore explained at the time, most of that was allocated according to a formula that rewarded forced-dues states like New York, California, and New Jersey that have been unusually slow to recoup from their COVID-19 job losses.

But the ARP has been no boon for ordinary workers. Primarily because of America’s recent ARP-related inflation surge, their average real weekly earnings fell by 3.6% between March 2021 and March 2022, the worst year-over-year decline since 2007, the beginning of the Great Recession!

“Liz Shuler and other union bosses know full well that wage-earners are unhappy about what President Biden has done so far, and worried about what he will do next,” said Mr. Mix.

“And Big Labor bosses also know workers, their families, and other citizens who care about the future of our country have good reason to be angry about the President’s job performance, and eager to elect a Congress that will rein him in this November.”

Union Bosses ‘Determined To Protect Their Own Interests, Not Workers’

“However,” added Mr. Mix, “union bosses are determined to protect their own interests, not workers’.

“And thanks primarily to the monopoly privileges union officials wield under federal and state laws, they have a massive amount of money available to influence the outcome of this year’s elections. If they have their way, the results will be far better for Joe Biden than pundits are now predicting.”

An August 2021 analysis by the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, relying almost entirely on reporting forms filed by union officials themselves with federal and state government agencies, estimated that Big Labor spent $1.8 billion on politics and lobbying in 2019 and 2020.

And this analysis did not even attempt to factor in additional billions of Big Labor annual expenditures that union officials do not acknowledge as “political,” but actually are geared towards influencing public policy.

“This year, Big Labor will once again be using its enormous campaign war chest to pay thousands and thousands of union organizers to do politics full-time for weeks, or even months, up to Election Day,” said Mr. Mix.

“No other interest group can compete with Big Labor financially. But the Committee is nevertheless an effective counterbalance, thanks to our over two million members and supporters.”

The Committee Survey Program 2022 is the main weapon Right to Work is deploying to fight back against the union hierarchy.

Thanks to Survey 2022, Union-Label Politicians Will Be Held Accountable

As many Committee members know, the federal survey asks U.S. House and Senate candidates to commit themselves to oppose forced unionism and support national Right to Work legislation if elected.

Thanks to Survey 2022, union-label politicians who voted for the ARP and support still-pending Big Labor schemes that would, if enacted, be even more damaging have a choice:  pledge to change course and support Right to Work in the future, or face the potential political fallout.

“As long as Right to Work members and supporters keep turning up the pressure on candidates in key House and Senate races through Election Day, I am confident union-label politicians will be held accountable, despite Big Labor’s forced dues-funded efforts to protect them,” concluded Mr. Mix.

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This article was originally published in our monthly newsletter. Go here to access previous newsletter posts.

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