Unions and their mouthpieces continually bombard us with the catch phrases about standing for “working people,” “working families,” and the poor, oppressed and exploited “working” classes. Truth is, unions represent a privileged minority, a politically connected class, the aristocrats of middle-class workers. And the mainstream of American workers, the real working people agree; it’s why only 6.9% of private sector workers are in unions and union membership overall has decreased from nearly one-third of all workers in the 1940s.

People understand that unions are about everything but work, because unions generally mean less work for everybody else. When unions go on strike, work stops, even for non-union workers. By demanding higher wages for less work they drive down productivity and the possibility of business growth and more jobs for everyone. Companies move to get out from under union pay scales that kill business – look at Detroit, the scene of Mr. Hoffa’s Labor Day rant and sadly, also the scene of the union movement’s greatest catastrophe, the dismantling of the American auto industry. Unions’ proclivities for killing jobs are illustrated their “concerns” that are holding up free trade agreements and could add 250,000 jobs to the economy. Additionally, Unions and their accomplices at the National Labor Relations Board are trying to kill thousands of  jobs under the dubious charges that Boeing broken the law by building non-union production lines in South Carolina.

Unions’ comfortable pay, sweet pensions, and gold-plated health plans are paid for by people – taxpayers in the case of public sector unions and consumers in the case of private sector unions – who in many cases do not enjoy the same pay and benefits that the union workers receive. Many true “working people” labor at two or sometimes three jobs, pay their own benefits, and get no pay for taking days off to protest or demonstrate.

Union members are in conflict with everyone and represent a narrow special interest that flourishes at the expenses of other workers and the economy at large. They are a monopolistic enterprise. They are adversaries to business-owners, other workers, consumers and taxpayers. Look at what has happened in states with traditions of strong unions and union support – Wisconsin voters have said enough to funding public-sector union workers who have better pay and benefits than their employers. Voters intuitively understand that unions are a drag on the economy and taxes; they benefit only themselves at everyone else’s expense.

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Connecticut residents are awaiting the results of the second vote of its state’s unions on a concessions package that will, allegedly, allow rank and file union members to participate in the “shared sacrifice” of Governor Dannel Malloy’s budget. To the dismay of the Democratic-led legislature, their Democratic governor, and union leaders, state workers voted to reject the package in late June, leading the coalition of union leaders to change their bylaws and lower the bar required for ratification of contracts to a simple majority.

Obviously, union leaders knew their members were unhappy with, or perhaps unaccustomed to, having to make concessions. Requiring less of them to accept it should do the trick and ensure a successful vote, right?

While the governor has done his urging through threats of thousands of continued layoffs and elimination of some state services, Connecticut state workers have also received encouragement to vote, “Yes,” from outside the state’s borders.

In an editorial in the Hartford Courant’s online edition, Wisconsin union leaders Marty Beil, executive director of Council 24 of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, and Michael Thomas, president of the SEIU Wisconsin State Council, urged Connecticut unions to accept the concessions package because, quite frankly, they’re jealous they couldn’t get a deal as good as this one.

The union leaders write:

“We know that the proposed agreement contains real sacrifices, but we also know that it contains four years of job security, offered nowhere else in the country; and extension of your pension, health and retiree health contract; and has good wage increases in the latter years.

Like Connecticut’s working families, we are outraged by the direction our country has moved in, by how much is asked from middle-class workers and how little from billionaires like the Koches [sich]. There is a long fight ahead before working families in Connecticut, Wisconsin or anywhere in our nation will again be treated the way we ought to be.”

Let’s “decipher” some of this:

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