The tide has turned - UPDATE

What once had noble purpose in protecting and serving the average working man unfortunately mutated over time into gluttony, financial excess, and political power mongering.  The tide has turned, however, as the American people view the abuses perpetrated by organized labor with disdain.

Right to work laws are passing in red and blue states, perhaps no where more prominently covered by the media than Wisconsin.  In Tennessee, the workers at the VW plant rejected organization by the United Auto Workers.  In California, arguably the most union friendly state with a legislature well-known, if not infamous, for being puppets of organized labor, Americans are fighting in the courts against forced, mandatory dues (including so-called agency fees) being used for political campaigns and purposes the union members do not approve.  In one California case, students are bringing action against the union policy of granting teachers near bullet proof tenure after 18 months.  Indeed, the tide has turned.

The more traditional unions are working hard to build up their rapidly dwindling numbers.  In one major California university, an office provides funded tutoring to select students.  The hired tutors are almost exclusively graduate students at the university.  Due to the arcane laws impacting public education in California, the office was required to permit a labor organizer to speak to the tutors about joining a union.  Care to guess which union?  If you said the UAW, you'd be right.  Now what on earth does the UAW have to do with university tutors?  The same UAW to which some commentators attribute a great deal of the tremendous financial distress in the city of Detroit.  With rapidly declining memberships, the unions now search for any and all opportunities to foist themselves upon the American way of life.

 2-19-14 Update:  Just read a report that labor, United Steelworkers to be specific, is trying to organize college football players at Northwestern University into a union.  Absurd!

The primary focus of organized labor, collective bargaining, has been totally overwhelmed by the political actions of the unions.  (Excessive benefits and pensions rank as #2 and #3, particularly for public sector unions.)  They spend enormous amounts to elect "labor friendly" candidates who do their bidding in the states houses and city councils around the nation.  In California the situation is so bad that pedophile teachers can't be fired, because of the protective laws written by unions and voted for by their lackeys in Sacramento.  Further, the job protections for teachers are actually state laws, written into the state constitution again by the unions and voted for by their paid servants in Sacramento.

At virtually every level of government, legislators and chief executives curry the favor of organized labor, in return for massive amounts of financial support.  The favors continue to flow all too liberally, such as organized labor being exempted from major portions of the Affordable Care Act; mandates to employ companies filled with union workers, rather than those companies who provide the best bid for local contracts; and the manic pursuit of pre-kindergarten, which has been proven time and again to have no lasting impact on our children, but will swell the coffers of unions as new workers are forced to join their rolls and pay mandatory fees.  Most insidious of the current union tactics is its work in the public service sector, coincidentally the one sector whose employees are members of the very governments controlled by labor lackeys.  

But the tide had turned.

It won't occur over night, but the influence and political power of organized labor will be reduced across the country.  And it is about time.  What was once noble now reeks with the stench of corruption, greed, and perversion.