Corporatists have been feeling even froggier than usual lately:

Fifty years ago, more than 30 percent of private-sector workers were organized. That share today is 8 percent. Globalization and the new, technology-driven economy have contributed to the decline, but advanced economies in Europe survive these same developments and still have union coverage rates of around 80 percent.

Much of the falloff in the United States is not due to the “new” economy or waning worker interest; it’s instead the result of illegal intimidation by employers. Our recent analysis of cases brought before the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), which oversees union-management relations in most of the private sector, shows that employers illegally fire as many as 1 in 5 union organizers. […]

The National Labor Relations Act (NRLB) makes it illegal to intimidate or fire workers for union activity. Yet, according to our study of data from the NLRB, there has been a steep rise in illegal firings of pro-union workers in the last few years. Currently, 1 in 53 is dumped during an election campaign, more than 50 percent higher than the chance of being fired in the late 1990s. (emphasis mine)

They shouldn’t be fired anyway — if the employers can organize for their interests, why not the workers?  However, that they’re ESPECIALLY aggressive about it now, smacking down labor movements like Mannie Fresh smacks drum machine pads, says a lot.

Needless to say, every action has a reaction…

Interestingly, union membership has actually increased in the public sector. Whereas the private sector — the bulk of the U.S. economy — has seen unionization fall by three-quarters over the last 50 years, public-sector union membership has tripled over the same period to about 36 percent. Persistent, illegal activity by employers in the private sector explains this disparity. Illegal firings exist in the public sector too, of course, but they are far less prevalent. Civil service protections that most private sector workers don’t enjoy ensure that firings are more onerous for the government than they are for a business.

It used to be (long before my time, unfortunately) that organized labor was generally ambivalent about government, and in many cases hostile to it.  Now, thanks to the nonsensical classing of public government workers as on a higher level simultaneously while attacking people who don’t get their checks directly from the government, a new labor class is rising — one fiercely loyal to the State, and self-perpetuating.  These are people for who the seeping of politics into everything is a net gain, because it keeps them employed & multiplies their ranks.

Nothing personal here, but since in the long run I would rather that the central authority that they kneel before not exist, this has to be said: Government labor can kiss my ass.