Private Sector Union Membership Falls
Note that we’re talking about the private sector. Public sector – government – unions are thriving. Which illustrates what the real goal behind the “stimulus” spending spree was.
It wasn’t about rescuing the economy. It was about piping money into federal, state and local governments around the nation to create/save union jobs given that the public sector is the last bastion of organized labor.
The number of union workers in the U.S. employed by the government for the first time outnumbered union ranks in the private sector last year, the result of massive layoffs that plunged the rate of private sector union membership to a record low.
Local, state and federal government workers made up 51.5 percent of all union members in 2009, up from 48.7 percent a year ago, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Friday.
Overall, union membership declined by 771,000 workers, to 15.3 million. But with the number of nonunion workers also shrinking, the rate of union membership fell only slightly to 12.3 percent of all workers from 12.4 percent in 2008.
Private sector union membership plummeted by 10 percent, while government unions posted slight gains.
The auto bailouts were about saving union members for the UAW. The “stimulus” spending spree was about inflating government employment to keep public worker unions flush.
It’s safe to say that most of Obama’s policies in his first term in office were about paying back his friends in the unions as opposed to their stated goals.
