Vice-President, Joe Biden was quoted yesterday as saying on CNBC, “I do believe–and I make no apologies for it–that over the last 100 years the middle class was built on the back of organized labor. Without their weight, heft and their insistence starting in the early 1900s we wouldn’t have the middle class we have now, in my view. So I think labor getting a fair share of the pie is part of it.”

I’m not sure what Joe Biden is inferring here, as I believe every American is well aware of the work that was done with support from organized labor to give us the very protections we have today. Anti-discrimination laws, OSHA, FLSA, were all part of the decades long workers’ rights movement. While I understand that these were hard fought, I believe that there is something disingenuous about what is going on in organized labor today. The fight isn’t about strengthening the middle class, its about strengthening the power of unions. With SEIU president Andy Stern being quoted as saying “We will organize your employees or ruin your reputation,” I’m hard pressed to believe that he has the employees’ best interest in mind. What exactly does a union achieve by trashing the employer that gives your members benefits, good working conditions, and a fair wage? If you’re trying to send people to the competition, you are undermining your own membership.  If you send your employees’ customers to a competitor, you may very well be helping your members out of a job.

Joe Biden’s quote almost speaks of reparations.  He speaks as if Americans “owe” organized labor for what they did for American workers in the early-mid 20th century. So first the middle class needs a fair share (which I think can be accomplished without organized labor) and now organized labor needs a fair share of the pie as well? The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) alone has over two million workers and millions in assets.  They spend their member’s funds on pressing legislation that will ultimately help pad the pockets of union, not their membership. Even key provisions of the Employee Free Choice Act is far more beneficial to unions than it is to the employees they serve.

How exactly will this help the middle class? I don’t think the union deserves “reparations” any more than I deserve 40 acres and a mule.  The decline in union membership is not due to the inability for Americans to choose whether they want to be represented in a secret-ballot election. Its because America has grown up, put on her big girl panties, and its workers have evolved from organizational loyalists to free agents, choosing their own destination.