Do the Tuesday Results Show Unions Are Irrelevant?

In a discussion on Tuesday's results at Politico's Arena, Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute, writes:

Unions are becoming less relevant. The percentage of private sector workers belonging to unions has been declining steadily, and reached 7.2% in 2009. Only partially offsetting this is the increase in the percentage of unionized government workers, 37% last year, up half a percentage point from 2008. This is because workers see that their dues go to political campaigns such as the one to unseat Blanche Lincoln. Ordinary Americans are tired of union corruption that takes money from rank-and- file union workers and uses it for politics.

The Service Employees International used its 2.2 million members’ hard-earned dues to finance an intense, expensive lobbying campaign against Senator Lincoln because she opposed the public option in health care reform, the appointment of union activist Craig Becker to the National Labor Relations Board, and the Employee Free Choice Act, which would take away the secret ballot in union elections. The union's past president, Andy Stern, is reported to have been the most frequent visitor to the White House over the past year.

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The SEIU wasted the hard-earned dues of its low-income members in its attack against Blanche Lincoln. No wonder membership is declining and unions are becoming less relevant.