In a new poll, Gallup finds public support for organized labor at its lowest level since it began taking the survey.
Gallup finds organized labor taking a significant image hit in the past year. While 66% of Americans continue to believe unions are beneficial to their own members, a slight majority now say unions hurt the nation’s economy. More broadly, fewer than half of Americans — 48%, an all-time low — approve of labor unions, down from 59% a year ago.
These results…
Two weekend Wall Street Journal editorials sum up well the ticking time-bomb of underfunded union pension funds. First, the dire state of many union pension funds:
On average, the asset to liability ration at so-called multi-employer plans, which union funds make up the bulk of, stood at 66% in 2006, according to the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation. By contrast, single employer plans, basically most company-provided pensions, were funded at 96%.
And on who will pick up the tab when these plans implode:
[T]his…
Today’s National Review Online editorial looks at the so-called Employee Free Choice Act’s arbitration provision, which would subject newly unionized companies to having a contract imposed on them by a federally appointed arbitrator.
The worst provision — worse, in fact, than the card-check gambit itself — would allow the National Labor Relations Board to impose contracts on businesses that cannot come to an agreement with a union. If a union enters the picture and the owners of a business are unable…
If anything could make finding yourself out of business overnight any worse, it is to have to pay a penalty for it. That’s what now threatens some GM and Chrysler dealers whose factory agreements are not being renewed as part of those companies’ government-led restructuring. Many of those soon-to-be-defunct dealers may find themselves exposed to having to pay withdrawal penalties into the union pension funds into which they will no longer pay.
Now, the Detroit automakers overextended their dealer networks —…
Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) appears to be working in tandem with the Obama administration on making executive pay subject to shareholder votes. That seems fair enough; shareholders deserve some say over companies in which they have a stake. However, as CNBC “Squawk on the Street” host Mark Haines noted in an interview wiht Rep. Frank this morning, the nature of such ownership complicates things.
As Haines noted, many public company shares are in the hands of large institutions — he mentioned mutual…
California Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein is withdrawing her support for the so-called Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA), organized labor’s top legislative priority, reports a California news station. She joins two Democratic colleagues, Blanche Lincoln (Ark.) and party switcher Arlen Specter (Penn.), in opposing the bill. (Log-in required to view KHTS news story.)
While this is a serious blow to EFCA in its current form, Democratic leaders are working on devising a “compromise” that would likely not include the current bill’s card-check provision,…
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