Even the NYT Noticing that Unions Losing Friends and Allies

06 Jul, 2010 by Warner Todd Huston

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You know its bad for unions when even the New York Times publishes a story reporting that Big Labor is losing friends and allies in formerly well controlled political spheres. But such is the times in which we live where fiscal disaster is highlighting the illicitness that is unions in general, but public employees unions in particular. (You know our mantra here: Unions are antithetical to good government)

For the Times Steven Greenhouse writes that Big Labor is finding new critics among “old allies in elected office.”

Greenhouse reports the words of former union member turned New Jersey State Senator Stephen M. Sweeney who has turned against his former compatriots in Big Labor and its unnecessarily high compensation packages. “At some point, you reach the limit of your ability to pay,” he told the Times.

One State Senator in Jersey isn’t the only apostate against unions.

In Oregon, Gov. Theodore R. Kulongoski, a former lawyer representing the state employees’ union, is insisting upon wage concessions from those very workers. In Los Angeles, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, a former teachers’ union organizer, is battling once-friendly unions, demanding $100 million in concessions.

In New York, Gov. David A. Paterson, a longtime union ally whose father is a top adviser to several unions, is threatening large-scale layoffs unless public sector unions agree to a pay freeze and re-open contracts.

The story is repeating itself everywhere from the federal government to the smallest governmental agency.

Naturally, unions are lashing out and trying to turn their former allies in government into targets. I don’t suppose that Big Labor might come to realize that the trouble isn’t with their distanced friends, but with the actions of unions themselves!

I mean, you don’t lose allies and friends by the dozens because of them you lose friends because of YOU!

In any case, when even the left-wing editorial board of the New York Times allows a story exploring the lost friends of Big Labor, you know things are going badly for that once powerful political force.

Public employees unions are wearing out their welcome all across the country as taxpayers and politicians both are coming to see the fiscal disasters they cause, the waste they thrive on, the criminal activities they perpetrate and the drag on the budget they represent.

As a racist friend of President Obama once said, “them chickens are coming home to roost.”