fbpx
Politics Foreign Affairs Culture Fellows Program

The Unions Are Coming! (Not Exactly)

Consider too a country in which the trade unions recapture political power. The Democrats remain dependent on the unions for funds and doorstep activists, and even though the unions are not the power they once were, they can still call the tune to which many Democratic politicians dance. Joined by right-wing Republicans who have rejected […]

Consider too a country in which the trade unions recapture political power. The Democrats remain dependent on the unions for funds and doorstep activists, and even though the unions are not the power they once were, they can still call the tune to which many Democratic politicians dance. Joined by right-wing Republicans who have rejected the President’s call for a sensible immigration policy that includes both more secure borders and regularising of the eight, or ten, or 11, or 13 million illegal immigrants, union-beholden Democrats will be able to wreak havoc with any sensible reform programme. ~Irwin Stelzer, The Spectator

Take the above as Exhibit A of a stereotype that is over 10 years old (reliably anti-immigration labour unions) continuing to have currency in Britain after it has ceased to be substantially true.  If labour unions still were hostile to amnesty and mass immigration, a union-dominated Democratic Party would be excellent news for all of us anxious about the prospects of a Democratic House’s immigration legislation.  Lou Dobbs and Tom Tancredo could unite the disparate forces of opposition to mass immigration, and all would be well.  Dobleve would be left singing to Felipe Calderon, Ay ay ay ay, canta y no llores! Porque cantando se alegran, Cielito Lindo, los corazones!   Alas, this is not likely.

Unfortunately, the big unions are no longer strongly opposed (though their old membership might be), adopting the “if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, or rather let them join us” view of immigrant labour.  It is quite funny that Mr. Stelzer laments the rise of the union-dominated Democrats (in point of fact, the party is not quite as dominated by them as it once was–such are the fruits of the DLC’s influence) as a blow to the immigration side of free trade (it is worth noting here that a great many free-traders here and there assume that mass immigration is integrally tied in to free trade arrangements, which might tell us something about what “free trade” really entails). 

It is the case that Democrats will probably be more inclined to nix free-trading legislation in terms of trade agreements and fast-track authority, but it will have nothing to do with their attitude towards immigrant labourers, who have now become the new lifeblood of these otherwise decaying bureaucratised institutions.  That is precisely the problem with a Democratic majority that conservatives will have to face in the coming Congress, should tomorrow go as many of us expect.  If only we had the “problem” of which Mr. Stelzer wrote!

Advertisement

Comments

The American Conservative Memberships
Become a Member today for a growing stake in the conservative movement.
Join here!
Join here