RUSH: Here is Jeff in Utica, New York, as we head back to the phones, keeping my promise to do so. Great to have you, Jeff. Welcome to the EIB Network.
CALLER: Greetings, Maha Rushie. Super mega dittos from the People’s Republic of New York. How are you today, sir?
RUSH: I’m fine, sir. Thank you very much.
CALLER: The reason I’m calling, when you started the last segment you talked about Jefferson. You can’t have one without the other, so when they knock out — and I say “they,” the liberals in the Obama administration and all the people that buy into it — they knock out that brick of the foundation, it’s gonna be there for a little while, but then they’re gonna knock out another one. They’ve been doing it for the last 50, 60 years. Just look at the their actions. Everything they say is all fine and dandy. Just look at their actions anywhere. Which brings me to my point on executive action for immigration.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: Here’s my question. You look at these unions, now they’re gonna see all these people coming over the border that are already here. This excludes the 2012 DREAMers Act. He just made five million, maybe six million, who knows the actual number, they’re all gonna be working in the workforce. The unions, the average union dues per worker per week is $10. That’s, what, $240 a year — or, excuse me, $520 a year, you do the math at 2.5 million, you’re looking at $1.3 billion in union dues —
RUSH: Wait, wait, wait, hold it. It’s not $520 a year. Oh, you’re talking about dues, not salary.
CALLER: Yeah. I’m talking about —
RUSH: I thought you said hourly — $10 — I thought you said hour. I’m sorry.
CALLER: I’m sorry Rush, I wasn’t clear enough.
RUSH: No, no, I misheard you.
CALLER: So they paid $520 a year in union dues.
RUSH: Hm-hm.
CALLER: And 2.5 million illegals.
RUSH: Hm-hm.
CALLER: That comes to $1.3 billion a year. That’s a conservative estimate, because the union bosses and the liberals and politicians all want that money. My question is what happens to the union guy, you, me, the little guy. I’m not a union member, I’ve never been a fan of unions, but what happens to the average union guy that’s been paying into this union his whole life, and now all of a sudden not only is he getting competition, but he’s getting competition from somebody who’s here illegally.
He’s gonna be getting the same benefits from the unions, and the guy has no skin in the game. Not only that, he’s gonna be working for a lesser wage, so it cuts out the competition. And these people — when I say these people, the union members, are listening to them. They tell union members where to shop, where to vote, who to vote for, where not to shop. Are they gonna continue to follow this administration blindly and see just another pillar of this great American country just knocked apart?
RUSH: Well, I’ve always been confused about this, because it wasn’t that long ago where your average rank-and-file union guy was dead set against this, dead set against flooding the American job market with ill-educated, low-skilled, poor workers. I mean, what was the point? Obviously, because they’re cheaper, they’re gonna be competitors against union jobs, and it might in fact impact union employment negatively. But I think the answer to your question is in the dues and the money and the union leadership is more concerned with maintaining its seat —
CALLER: Correct.
RUSH: — at the table of power of the Democrat Party than anything else. Look, union membership is dwindling. I think we’re almost down to just 10% of the workforce is unionized, in the private sector. Now, in the government sector, it’s half of it.
CALLER: Well, reason in the private sector it’s only 10% is because government does nothing with the exception of the military, it functions nowhere reasonably, or economically. It just doesn’t. The private sector does that because people have to be held accountable. Government unions, they don’t — listen, you can go postal and never go to jail, you shoot somebody, you stole a postal number, or the old joke goes. It’s absolutely sad and embarrassing that the people will sit there and say one thing and the union bosses, they’ll take that money and they’ll just crap all over their members.
RUSH: Well, that’s my point. The private sector union membership is plummeting, and the reasons for it basically are rooted in prosperity and freedom. If you work for a union, you’re giving up — I mean, this is just the way it is. If you work for a union you’re giving up your individuality. What you get paid is negotiated for you, and you’re lumped into a group and you get paid whatever everybody else gets paid, whatever union you’re in. The only way you can do better is to work overtime. Maybe become a shop steward, you know, climb the ladder within the union, but in terms of getting more money where you work, you’re not gonna get paid any more if you do twice the work, if you do a better job, because your contract has been negotiated in the collective bargaining agreement.
And a lot of people say, “You know what, I can do better than that on my own.” And they’ve struck out. That’s why the peak of private sector union membership way back in the glory days of Walter Luther and Jimmy Hoffa was like 35%. It’s been hovering at 15% and falling for the last 20 years, but the union bosses are just as powerful as ever. But this is gonna have an impact on the amount of money that they can raise via dues and other things. That’s why the government’s throwing money back at them in the form of letting ’em buy General Motors when Obama took it over and so forth.
As far as the illegal aliens flooding the job market, you’re making the assumption that all of them are gonna be working. And not all of them are, by definition. I mean, statistically they’re not all gonna find jobs. They’re all gonna eat and they’re all going to vote. And that’s what this is all about. The illegal immigrant, this influx is simply the Democrat Party guaranteeing that it has a never ending, permanent underclass that is uneducated and totally dependent and therefore subservient to the government. That is from where the Democrat Party derives its power.