Their desperation is a function of two realities: First, only 7 percent of all private sector employees are union members. Fewer members means less dues revenue, which in turn reduces how much campaign cash the leaders have to give, thus slashing their political leverage. Second, labor finances are in bad shape. The SEIU, for example, owes $156 million, including $94 million to Bank of America and other corporate lenders tapped to finance its 2008 political contributions to Obama and congressional Democrats.

Thus, card check, which union leaders think would enable them to recruit new members, is critically important to labor’s future. Big Labor has spent an estimated $400 million since 2006 seeking to elect enough Democrats to assure that card check becomes law. Just last month, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees’ Gerald McEntee said his union would spend another $50 million trying to protect Democratic incumbents in 2010. Here’s to hoping card check opponents in every congressional district in America make ‘em flush it all.

In March, the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision struck down campaign finance limits on political expression by individuals working through corporations and unions as a violation of the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of speech. A cry ensued among liberal Democrats predicting doom if they and their special interest allies were required to follow the Constitution. Big Labor’s bosses promised to spend millions to protect the Democratic majority if it would speedily pass legislation to circumvent the decision (and thus the Constitution), but restore limits on their corporate foes.

The resulting DISCLOSE Act, according to its backers, will ensure transparency in campaign ad funding. Thursday, the House of Representatives approved the bill 219-206, with 36 Democrats and 170 Republicans in opposition to the measure, which was written by Rep. Chris Van Hollen, the Maryland Democrat who heads the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee this year, and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer, who led the Senate Democrats’ campaign panel in 2008.

The bill is full of draconian restrictions on individual political speech expressed via corporations, but gives privileged status to the Democrats’ union masters. A provision pushed by Pennsylvania Democrat Rep. Bob Brady, for example, allows unions to transfer unlimited funds among affiliated groups to pay for political ads with no disclosure whatever. That makes campaign funding more transparent? (more…)

You know that the union bosses were asking for too much when a New York state Senate Committee voted down their effort to unionize family farm workers.  From the New York State Farm Bureau:

Farmers from across New York applauded the Senate Agriculture Committee’s “No” vote on the Omnibus Farmworker Labor bill that would have cost the state’s struggling family farmers millions of dollars. This bill would have placed family farms squarely in the crosshairs of big money corporate unions seeking to increase their membership by driving agriculture out of the state….New York Farm Bureau was at the forefront of a furious grassroots lobbying effort to defeat the bill and to educate the public, countering defaming rhetoric of the self appointed advocacy groups that included well-funded big labor groups from New York City.

In March, dozens of farmers testified at a Senate Agriculture Committee hearing, urging legislators to defeat the Omnibus Farmworker Labor bill. Following the hearing, farmers hosted a rally on the Capitol steps. The theme of the rally was“Don’t plow us under!”

The Farmworker legislation would have driven up costs and labor regulations to a level that would rank New York second only to California, a state with a much a larger agriculture industry, better growing degree days and significantly larger farms.

New York already is a high cost labor state, recognizing that workers are valuable and critical to the farm’s success. For every $100 in food produced, New York farmers paid $13.82 to farm workers on average – compared to the national average of $8.88.