Unions Cut Own Nose To Spite Face

'We've Got Your Back, We Will Join You in the Streets, and We Will Not Let Up Until We Bring Good Jobs Back to Our Communities' Washington, D.C.'--Service Employees International Union ...

Labor’s death wish, New York Post -
Organized labor joined the Wall Street Occupiers yesterday, milling about Downtown, snarling rush-hour traffic and fundamentally working against the unionists’ long-term best interests.

It was no doubt a pleasant way to spend a glorious autumn afternoon. But even as the demonstrators were targeting Wall Street and other financial firms for their “corporate greed,” City Hall was getting set to trim its budget sails -- chopping some $500 million through this year and $2 billion more in Fiscal 2013.

Why the cuts?

In large part, because -- as Budget Director Mark Page put it -- “the outlook for the economy, as evidenced by the chaotic stock market and other indicators, has become increasingly uncertain.”

Seems Wall Street and other local financial firms -- that is, the part of the economy smack in the protesters’ crosshairs -- aren’t strong enough to pump out sufficient tax revenues to keep the city afloat.

Thus, Mayor Bloomberg has ordered immediate cuts at every city agency -- and this time that will include even the NYPD.

The entire municipal workforce (the folks represented by the very unions that put on such a show yesterday) might want to prepare for ... layoffs.

So why, pray tell, would labor want to further weaken those companies?

These firms, after all, are footing the bill for public-sector salaries and helping keep folks employed.

And it’s not just municipal jobs and salaries that Wall Street makes possible: Financial firms help manage some $120 billion in city-employee pension funds -- including $72 billion in equities.

Sap the resources of companies in which labor’s funds are invested and you lower their value. The unions’ own funds, in other words, will be worth less.

Explain to us, again, how that helps union members ... Read more