The City of Los Angeles allowed SEIU demonstrators to gather at the Century Blvd. entrance to LAX Wednesday, forcing passengers to park a mile away from the airport and walk with their bags, because shuttles could not get through. Arriving passengers could not get out. This is what a Democratic Mayor and City Council do when a union decides to shut down one of the world´s major airports. If we had a Republican Department of Justice, the demonstration would have been enjoined as interference with interstate commerce.

Having heard from many well-meaning conservatives that "Unions served their purpose, and saved us from abuses by bad employers, but they have outlived their usefulness," I take this occasion to point out that unions never served any useful purpose.

Workers, individually or collectively, exercised rights that have always been theirs under the ideals of the free market. They left the employers who paid too poorly or didn´t allow enough safety measures. They went to work for the competitor or started their own company.

And the era of child labor was an unfortunate period in which the children who had no factory work were starving in the countryside.

Our do-gooders who have "ended child-labor" in some Third World nations have condemned the young people and their families to worse poverty than ever, and in some cases to child prostitution.

No, the unions have never done anything but extort from both employer and employee, while successfully promoting the urban legend that they were our saviors.

Unions, since the 1880´s have been nothing int he world but organized extortion of workers under their rule. They are a disgrace to freedom, and the right of the common man to rule his own destiny. Now, they seek to enslave the non-union free citizens. My experience from the inner echelons of high ranking AFSME union was a real eye opener. They openly talked about how to get the fools (rank and file) to do what ever they wanted- and were proud of their easy to use mind control tactics. They even had paid shills working every meeting, who themselves were non-union, masquerading as union members full of support for what ever the leadership was trying to cram down people´s throats. It was more of an insane religious cult than an organized labor group.

Unions have contributed to raises in wages, better working conditions and higher retirement benefits, but, only for the union officials!!!!

They all have a cushy job and make 6 figure paychecks at the expense of the union member.

The member is the sucker!!!

Art

"Shoppers seemed unaware that a protest was occurring."