A Union-Approved Candidate
Here at Labor Pains, we often talk about the political clout of unions, how they funnel millions upon millions of dollars into elections, the vast majority of which goes to Democratic candidates. But it’s not often that a union makes a power play this blatant: A government studies teacher at Washington Irving High School in [more...]

Posted Tue, 31 Aug 2010 .

What They Are Really Thinking
The recent kerfuffle over the Los Angeles Times releasing scads of data on LA’s teachers has provided some interesting insights into how defenders of teachers unions think. The head of the LA teachers union, for example, said he was “outraged” that the Times would publish data revealing which teachers were effective and which teachers weren’t [more...]

Posted Mon, 30 Aug 2010 .

Memo to John Sweeney: Get a Better Pollster

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Union bosses have been cooking the books. As they attempt to end secret ballot elections for employees deciding whether to join a union, labor chiefs claim to have a groundswell of support. The real numbers tell a different story.

The AFL-CIO commissioned a study – which they won’t release – claiming that 60 million Americans want a union. But prestigious polls, including questions originally crafted on behalf of the AFL-CIO and recently commissioned by the Center for Union Facts – suggest most Americans don’t want to join a union and they don’t want union bosses stealing their right to a personal, private vote. Consider:

Fully 74% of non-union workers say they would not “personally like to be a member of a labor union.”
— Zogby International poll, August 2006

64% of workers say they would prefer their present job to be non-union.
— Opinion Research Corporation Poll, March 2007
78% of Americans prefer secret ballots for union organizing.
— Opinion Research Corporation Poll, March 2007
87% agree that “every worker should continue to have the right to a federally supervised secret ballot election when deciding whether to organize a union.”
— McLaughlin and Associates, January 2007