Friday, August 12, 2005

Leslie's Faux Pas on Virginia's First Principles

It appears that Leslie Byrne's attack on Virginia's tradition of freedom, exemplified by the Right to Work law, is getting some much-needed attention. Jim Bacon discusses it over at Bacon's Rebellion, as do our friends at Sic Semper Tyrannis, along with Norm Leahy at his unduly humbly titled One Man's Trash.

At least one organ of the mainstream media has picked up the story, as well. The Richmond Times-Dispatch discusses the contretemps here, and Leslie Byrne is singularly dishonest in her comments. She calls the law "institutionalized mooching" because "non-union employees get to live off the bargaining of union employees."

What Leslie doesn't tell you is that the "mooching" results from the union bosses' receipt of a monopoly bargaining privilege, granted by Federal law. What Leslie doesn't tell you is that, during her one term in Congress, she failed to support any effort to prevent "mooching" by repealing those provisions of the National Labor Relation Act and the Railway Labor Act which grant monopoly bargaining privileges to union bosses. What Leslie doesn't tell you is that, had she done so, her union boss friends would have savaged her, since the monopoly bargaining privilege is lobbied for and jealously guarded by union bosses.

Union bosses bought a horse (monopoly bargaining), but complain about the price of oats ("mooching"). They can either sell the horse, or stop complaining. But they should not be allowed to add the insult of forcing Virginians to pay dues to the injury of denying Virginia's workers in a unionized workplace from bargaining for their own wages and benefits.

2 comments:

Ben Kyber said...

Tell me James...and i'm just curious...why its better to be completely subject to self-interested, profit hungry big business leaders, then it is to be subject to people who may at least SLIGHTLY have workers' best interests in mind?

You are incredibly anti-labor, but I don't have to tell you that. Have you ever WORKED alongside Union workers? Leslie is right, it is institutionalized mooching in the Commonwealth.

Right to work is necessary, I AGREE, but for God's sake man, at least admit that it has SOME flaws!

James Young said...

As usual with Lefties (like Leslie), your problem is in your caricatured premise: "self-interested, profit hungry big business leaders." Since the notion that such is contrary to employee interests in the modern world, I can't even contemplate your question. You don't and can't refute the facts stated in my post; like union bosses, you prefer to ignore the nagging inconvenience of the historical facts.

Here's another question: what makes you think that union bosses aren't self-interested and power hungry? I'm skeptical (get it?) of anyone who presumes to have someone else's best interests in mind, particularly those who can express their own interests themselves. That's an arrogance common in politics, but most common among the far Left.

Contrary to your caricature, I have no problem with someone who freely chooses to allow someone else to speak for them. That's a choice, too, and the fact that I recognize it as such belies your claim that I am anti-labor, which you apparently equate with "anti-union boss." Why do you have such hostility to those who can and choose to speak for themselves? Is the problem then that you (in the generic, far Left sense) and the big government you champion would become irrelevant?

You ask, have I "ever WORKED alongside Union [sic] workers"? The answer is no. But I have worked FOR union workers, union workers who freely chose to have me work FOR them, against union bosses who arrogate unto themselves the presumption that they ALWAYS speak for a worker's best interests.

And a final question: why are business monopolies bad, but union monopolies good?