According to Mayan calendars and some scholars, 2012 is supposed to be the end of an age and resulting in cataclysmic and transformative events. While the winds and storms are raging and the earth is moving and shaking both literally and figuratively, most everyone will agree the end of the world is not likely, though 2012 is shaping up to potentially bring to end the area of Big Labor as we know it.
While waning in membership and influence over the last few decades as the American job landscape transformed away from manufacturing, Big Labor had a political lifeline riding along into the White House in 2008. Labor was heavily invested in the 2008 victory and the paybacks were quick and continuous.
In my time as a business owner I have never witnessed such a deluge of pro-Labor, anti-business, job killing regulations and attitudes. Obamacare, going after Boeing for creating jobs in a right to work state, raiding Gibson Guitar, expanded workplace poster and organizing rules, and stacking the National Labor Relations Board with illegal appointees to push through illegal rules are just a few of the hundreds of instances. Big Labor has tried to preserve themselves into our laws though various means, including the horrid attempt known as the Employee Free Choice Act, and when that failed through various speedy election rules.
But while the flood of gifts to Big Labor have been unending, it has also attracted alot of notice to how crippling to the economy they are. Labor has steadily been declining in public approval ratings, and now it is even further cemented.
We’ve seen states like Wisconsin stand up to unions in ways never before imaginable, and emerge in better shape because of it. Arizona and a few others are in line to do similar reforms. We should also see more right to work friendly legislation at the state level this year.
If a Republican takes over the White House this year, and possible gains in the House and Senate as well, the end of their era could be in sight.
But they won’t go out without a fight, and they have hundreds of millions of union dues dollars ready to be spent on the President’s re-election.