Labor thugs pack Obama health care meetings

Washington Times:

Andrew Carillo and Melissa McCollister cheered loudly from near the back row of the Central High School gymnasium as President Obama stepped on stage to make his pitch for health care reform.

The two organizers for the United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 7 proudly wore their union T-shirts, and boisterously supported the president because of what they think his initiative will do for the 25,000 grocery stockers, meatpackers and warehouse workers that they represent.

"We have to negotiate for health care every time a contract comes up," said Mr. Carillo, 24, a union employee. "Year after year, it just gets more and more expensive."

Members of the nation's labor unions have made up a hefty segment of the audiences that flocked to town halls Mr. Obama held in the past week, and they have played an even larger role in a nationwide campaign for an insurance overhaul. Financially, and with boots on the ground, unions have become the backbone of the president's effort.

Last week, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) was part of a group, largely funded by the pharmaceutical industry's lobby, that launched $12 million in television ads to support the president's health care push, and the coalition Americans for Stable Quality Care could spend tens of millions of dollars more this fall.

The AFL-CIO, the American Federation of Teachers and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees are among the partners in another group, Health Care for America Now, which has committed millions more dollars to advertising that is running now in a half-dozen states.

But money is only part of the equation; the most potent contribution from labor has been its people. Last month, opponents of the president's health care efforts began protesting, at times vociferously, as members of Congress convened town-hall meetings in their districts.

The Obama administration decried the opposition movement as a cynical, fake grass-roots campaign manufactured by the insurance industry to undermine his effort. To respond meant galvanizing a movement of his own. That began to take shape, at least visibly, when AFL-CIO President John J. Sweeney sent an Aug. 6 memo to union officers across the country to mobilize.

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Usually unions brag to their members about the health care packages they get from employers. Some of them have been extravagant in the extreme including Viagra for retirees. The dirty secret is that the unions want to shift the health care obligations from the employers to the government so they can try to squeeze more money for wages. But they would only wind up paying more of the earnings in taxes to pay for the health care in the end.

Then there is the politics of seeing that many people openly oppose their agenda that is motivating them. Some have tried to intimidate opponents by using thuggish tactics. In the end, I think they will not matter much, because Obama has lost this debate, even if he is not willing to recognize it yet.