DJH: Last night my friend Mark Perry sent me a post highlighting a September Gallup survey showing how low public opinion has fallen for organized labor in America. The survey has a number of trend charts all showing organized labor in a negative light. Of all of the findings, the most powerful chart is the the one that shows that the majority of Americans now believe that labor unions are hurting the US economy.
“There has been an even larger jump in the percentage saying labor unions mostly hurt the U.S. economy, from 36% in 2006 to 51% today. This is the first time since the question was established in 1997 that more Americans have said unions hurt rather than help the economy. Americans’ general concerns about the current state of the economy could certainly be a factor in these more negative views of unions, in addition to specific perceptions about unions.”
This is a very interesting finding. I searched the report to find the reasons why most Americans think labor unions are hurting the economy and found a few more fun facts.
- A full 62% of America believes that labor unions “mostly hurt” workers who do not belong to unions.
- A small plurality of Americans (46% over 45%) actually believe that labor unions “mostly hurt” the companies who have organized labor unions.
Click here to read the full Gallup report
Dave
Dave,
Interesting. What I find distrurbing is the number of public sector employees who are represented by unions. Given the growth of employment in that part of the economy, one can easly envison a situation where they (the unions representing public employees) are able to continue to demand increases in pay and benefits which outpace the private sector – and we have to pay for it.
Scary stuff.
Dave
the department of transportation [DOT] highway laborers are a prime example of a union gone bad…10 men, & five trucks to fix one pothole ? they are over-nourished,over-staffed,under-worked & over-paid nepotism @ its best. then they want a retirement pension package to reward their career of laziness …really!?! since they cannot be fired,unions breed complacency, & celebrate doing the bare minimum…which is un-american. are country was based on working hard,not hardly working.
[...] labor than Barrack Obama (Two Americas: Public vs. Private Sector – How did this happen?, Labor Unions: Economic Cancer for America?, and Obama Sells Out The Amercian People to Union Cronies). And, unlike England, the people who [...]
the department of transportation [DOT] highway laborers are a prime example of a union gone bad…10 men, & five trucks to fix one pothole ? they are over-nourished,over-staffed,under-worked & over-paid nepotism @ its best. then they want a retirement pension package to reward their career of laziness …really!?! since they cannot be fired,unions breed complacency, & celebrate doing the bare minimum…which is un-american. our country was based on working hard,not hardly working.