81 years ago, today Japan attacked our navy at Pearl Harbor. Thousands of servicemen lost their lives. Even today there are somewhat wild theories as to why Japan did so.
I just read in the paper that Congress has passed a law that prevents the railroads from striking. A railroad strike would have been devastating, especially since the rails haul a large percentage of our needed supplies. This includes a lot of hardware as well as our groceries.
The rail unions did not get all that they had wanted, and some have said that they will quit over this. Now, no one can stop them from quitting, but one has to wonder if it is just an idle threat since rail workers are among the highest paid in the nation. Surely, they will not quit and take a job that pays much less than they are presently making.
This sets a terrible precedent for the government to tell an industry what they can or cannot do. Since we see this as something that benefits consumers no one is apt to complain, but it is a terrible law, nonetheless.
There is a much more American way to handle the problem: remove all the government programs that protect unions. Under the Right to Work, each person could then negotiate his salary. Many who are more valuable would make more and it would remove a number of union policies that appear to be insane, at least on the surface.
Congress will never pass any laws against unions simply because unions have for many years supported left-wing politicians. Very few politicians will ever take a stand against the hand that feeds them.
Samuel Gompers, the father of American unionism said: A company without Profits is a company without jobs. Things are far different today.
The National Education Association is one of the largest unions in the United States. During the pandemic, they continued to lobby to keep schools closed “to protect the children” when in fact the children did not need any protection.
One has to wonder if they continued to pay teachers while we were shut down. Many businesses were classified as non-essential and suffered greatly, and some even went out of business, especially restaurants. But teacher and administrator salaries went right on. Had they not been paid when we were locked down there would have been a strong cry to re-open the schools.
As with any union, job performance is often below what it could have been. Teachers want more money but as long as our schools are turning out graduates with socialist positions on economics and un-American views about our culture, we ought not give them anything.
Congress just needs to be careful to stay out of the labor market. Their efforts can only make matters worse.
