The Realignment of Unions

Perhaps nothing signifies the transformation of the Republican Party into the party of the working American more than an estimated 45 percent of union households that voted for Trump in 2024. If public sector union members were excluded from the exit polling, that estimate would likely rise to a majority.

This reality puts America’s union membership at odds with union leadership, which generally remains loyal to the Democratic Party. The choice this presents union leadership in America is not subtle. They can continue to align themselves with a corporate uniparty establishment that is increasingly indifferent to the challenges facing American citizens, or they can honestly confront the consequences of establishment policies over the past 20-30 years. The implications are profound.

An honest reassessment of where uniparty policy has put the typical American worker would, at the very least, lead to a complete rejection by unions of today’s Democratic Party, which now fully embraces these failed establishment policies. And while such a reckoning might not drive candidate endorsements and donations completely over to the Republican side, it would stimulate a healthy debate over their role and their priorities. It’s about time.

Conservatives will never accept some union priorities. The so-called closed shop, whereby union membership is mandated as a condition of employment, is a perfect example. That debate isn’t going to go away. But it’s a mistake for conservatives to extrapolate that schism to a total rejection of any role for unions. If, for example, right-to-work were settled law throughout the United States, unions would still exist. Membership would be entirely voluntary, but when working conditions merited collective action, workers would have the option to join a union.

To dismiss the productive role unions can play in an America-First coalition would not only forfeit the tremendous political power they can contribute, it also would ignore the fact that unions, if they return to their core mission, would be in agreement on several critical issues. One of the biggest would be immigration policy.

A basic economic concept, utterly beyond debate, is the law of supply and demand. Yet America’s de facto immigration policy for the past several decades has been to encourage illegal immigration. This de facto policy was taken to an extreme by the recent Democratic administration of President Biden. It is impossible for wages to keep pace with inflation if American citizens are forced to compete with tens of millions of tax-subsidized migrants who are willing to work for a fraction of a living wage. The only political faction in America willing to enforce controlled, legal immigration and put an end to massive illegal immigration is the America-First coalition. Union membership supports controlled and limited immigration, and union leadership should represent their members. But there is much more.

An even bigger potential benefit of union realignment is if they use their political power to help roll back environmentalist extremism. This may be the only way sufficient political pressure can finally overcome the assorted special interests that are committed to consolidating private wealth and public sector power while using the “climate crisis” as their supposed moral justification. Union leadership can recognize, as their members already have, that environmental laws restricting development and mandating “renewables” have rewarded politically connected, tax-subsidized companies and investors and are the primary reason that land, energy, and housing are no longer affordable to the average American worker.

Consistent with the goal of reversing the excessive influence environmentalists and special interests have on government policy, America’s unions could demand practical infrastructure investments. To cite a now classic example, why did California’s unions support the High-Speed Rail project? It was not because that project would ever deliver practical benefits. It fails every imaginable cost/benefit analysis. It will never turn an operating profit, much less earn enough to pay back construction costs. And for those who care, it will never carry enough riders to even begin to offset the “greenhouse gas” emissions that train passengers might have otherwise spewed into the atmosphere by driving on freeways.

So why did unions support this project?

It was a pragmatic political choice. They could back up the environmentalist lobby in California, along with the politically connected construction companies that were bidding on the work, and in doing so they could guarantee thousands of their members high-paying jobs for at least the next few decades. Or they could oppose High-Speed Rail, fully aware of its sham benefits, and settle in for a bitter fight with environmentalists that could cost their members lucrative new jobs. They took the path of least resistance. Given the political realities in California, one can’t blame them.

In the rest of America today, however, the political equation has shifted. Projects that were being pushed by environmentalists and crony capitalists, such as offshore wind farms, are now falling under withering scrutiny and coming up short. At the same time, projects that make solid economic sense, such as the Keystone Pipeline, are being seriously revisited. And it is here that unions might recognize a fundamental upside to shifting their allegiance: There will still be plenty of employment opportunities. Equally significant, worker compensation will not be affected.

This aspect needs emphasis: rates of pay and benefits for union workers do not have to be affected if the projects unions endorse shift to ones that make sense. This is particularly true in an economy where the workforce isn’t being overwhelmed with an oversupply of potential employees because of uncontrolled immigration. And it calls to mind a concept that is typically associated with Democrat-leaning economists: Even if union workers are paid over-market wages, they spend that money in the local economy. But to be clear: it is not union pay and benefits that break the budgets of public works anymore. It’s the multiple government permitting fees, the countless bureaucratic delays, the endless mandated redesigns, the financing costs incurred because of delays, and the relentless litigation. That’s where most of the money goes.

Also, and there is simply no other way to say this, when useful results come from projects that go over budget, the waste is less wasteful. California’s High-Speed Rail will probably never be completed. But if it ever is finished, it will be at a price that could literally be ten times as much as it was projected to cost when it was fraudulently sold to voters in 2010. And the cost is only half the tragedy. The bigger tragedy is that High-Speed Rail in California is a completely unnecessary boondoggle that will only operate at a permanent economic drain on the state’s taxpayers.

Compare that to Boston’s so-called “Big Dig,” which took much longer and cost far more than was originally projected. So what? Anyone trying to get to Logan International Airport from downtown Boston can now do so in 15 minutes by driving through that fabulously expensive tunnel under Boston Harbor. It used to take an hour and a half in light traffic to make that trip. In contrast to California’s High Speed Rail, the Big Dig offers a permanent economic benefit to the people of Boston.

Finally, America’s private sector unions need to recognize how little they have in common with public sector unions. The inherent agenda of public sector unions is more public sector headcount and higher public sector pay and benefits. This comes at the expense of funding for private contractors to construct public works, as well as doing nothing to reduce the regulatory burden on privately financed infrastructure projects. Public sector unions are also inherently receptive toward unlimited immigration from destitute nations since it swells the ranks of government employees and programs providing services to these millions of new arrivals.

By embracing the America-First movement, America’s unions have much more to gain than they have to lose. They will help bring the supply and demand for labor into balance by supporting controlled immigration. And they will help our politicians stand up to environmentalists and special interests by supporting public infrastructure projects that make economic sense and yield long-term economic dividends to all working households. These strategic objectives are within the power of unions to help attain for everyone, benefiting all workers, and that is consistent with the highest motivations of their movement.

Union realignment offers the opportunity to make the historic election of 2024 represent a permanent shift in American politics. For everyone’s sake, we should seize this moment.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

Edward Ring

Edward Ring is a contributing editor and senior fellow with the California Policy Center, which he co-founded in 2013 and served as its first president. He is also a senior fellow with the Center for American Greatness, and a regular contributor to the California Globe. His work has appeared in the Los Angeles Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Economist, Forbes, and other media outlets.

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