Labor statistics

Bad news for organized labor last week — and ominous news for taxpayers.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that union membership fell again last year to 12.3 percent of all workers. The drop was particularly significant in the private sector, where union membership slipped 10 percent.

The numbers reflect why labor bosses are so adamant about pushing “card-check” legislation through Congress. Rigging the game by getting rid of secret-ballot organizing elections — which unions often lose — might help reverse years of membership declines.

Of particular interest in the statistics, though, was the fact that a majority of union members — 51.5 percent — now work for some level of government.

Thus it also becomes apparent why most labor organizations embrace the modern Democratic Party and its tax-and-spend, big government philosophy.

Notes Daniel Henninger of The Wall Street Journal: “The central battle in our time is over political primacy. It is a competition between the public sector and the private sector over who defines the work and the institutions that make a nation thrive and grow.”

As union membership in the public sector has exploded, “They broke the public’s bank. More than that, they entrenched a system of taking money from members’ dues and spending it on political campaigns. Over time this transformed the Democratic Party into a public-sector dependency.”

A political party that has evolved into the party of government. Labor unions that increasingly depend on government growth for survival. Where does that leave the taxpayers, who must pay the bills?