France, Here We Come

Barack Obama recently endorsed card check legislation, which would make it much easier for unions to organize a work place by doing away with a secret ballot. Instead, voting would be public and occur over time, so workers could be intimated by union advocates to vote for the union. Given the history of union violence in this country, this is both a profoundly unjust effort to coerce employees to vote a certain way and an economically destructive path.

It only exacerbates the capital strike occurring in the country, where businesses and investors are refusing to take risks with their money due to deep concerns over the ability for such investments to be profitable given Obama's plans to raise taxes significantly, engage in a radical restructuring of the health care and energy sectors, spend vasts amounts of money, and run budget deficits at unprecedented levels forever.

To the extent increased unionization leads to higher wages, that would be the fast track to job losses and higher unemployment, particularly in a recession. If workers are too expensive to hire, employers will hire fewer of them or lay them off. Studies of the Great Depression, where FDR pursued a policy to raise wages and to support aggressive unionization, indicate a significant part of the unemployment was due to wages that were above market.

Card check will lead to higher unemployment, reduced business investment, and weakened confidence. A terrible policy at any time, yet alone during a recession.