Union Thugs Calling You (From Inside The House!)

Yesterday the AP dispatched a telegram on the DARPA tubes to all the nation's leading broadsheets:  

The National Labor Relations Board proposed rules Wednesday that would allow unions to hold workplace elections more quickly by simplifying procedures, setting shorter deadlines and requiring businesses to hand over lists of employee phone numbers and emails to union leaders before an election.

Yo Yglesias, yo Ezra, yo P-Krug, where ya at? Yo liberal blogs, you on this? Salon had it, and even managed to make it click-bait with a nice "despised by right-wingers" in the headline. Good Salon! Everybody, be more like Salon (except sometimes don't). This is the type of stuff that everyone who's worried about working people, their rights, and their place in public policy should be cheering. They should be saying "Actual sincere thanks, Obama!"

Here is one stark difference between Obama and Generic Republican President that not even Ralph Nader can deny (okay, Ralph Nader probably could): Obama appoints NLRB members who favor working people over corporations. Could you see an NLRB controlled by President McCain Mitt-Nuts Palimney's appointees trying to force businesses to help union organizers contact their employees? Or proposing to streamline union organizing, giving management less time to frighten and lie to employees in one-on-one anti-union meetings? 

Shouldn't some smart econo-socialists be pointing out that while union membership has been declining virtually everywhere, it's much lower in the United States than in other nice countries like Germany and Sweden, both of which export more per capita than the US, and have grown their economies more since the Terrific Recession? Maybe this blogger would hedge a little, like a true pro, and note that this doesn't prove unions are responsible for these outcomes, but it also doesn't support the conservative view that labor unionism is a great throat-booting Soviet plot against the shackled golden throat of American prosperity, which might be your throat, maybe, if you're lucky and you work like a shrewd and thrifty horse until you die, or you're born with it.

Are these new NLRB measures likely to be ruled legal? Who knows! We haven't found anyone who's blogged about that part yet. Come on, people! Also too, people: This is why we vote for Democrats, even if it's not as interesting as Hillary Clinton's Benghina. Next, the courts. 

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[ Seattle Times;   Salon;   workplace fairness.org;   BLS;   bloomberg.com;   google table;   dlc.org;   behindthenumbers.ca:   WaPo ]