Chicago Daily Observer

THE financial crisis has unfortunately deflected attention from our next major meltdown: ordinary labor markets. The early days of an Obama administration will likely see passage of othe so-called Employer Free Choice Act – which will put a union noose around the neck of every US business, large and small.

Union membership has dropped relentlessly from about 35 percent of the work force in 1954 to about 8 percent today. The main factor is the massive attrition in failed unionized industries such as steel, automobiles and rubber. A chorus of labor advocates falsely attributes this collapse to management’s alleged unfair labor practices of management in union elections, about half of which labor wins anyway.

George McGovern, 1972 Democratic candidate for President speaks about the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The EFCA would eliminate secret ballots from union representation voting.

(T)he real thrust of the message that Mr. Obama and he gave to the cheering multitudes in Denver was: You are entitled to your job. If you are hit by a foreign competitor who is leaner and hungrier and less coddled than you, get down and stay down, and expect the government to put you back on your feet.

When Mrs. Thatcher became Britain’s prime minister in 1979, she assumed leadership of a country that had been devastated by several decades of ruinous economic and social policies. This was due to the same aversion to competition and international trade, and the same misplaced faith in the ability of government to act as the engine of progress and the guarantor of jobs.