The phony union split on the Keystone pipeline.

Quick background: the Obama administration has rejected plans for an additional pipeline to transport ethical oil from Canada to the United States, despite the fact that support for this project is bipartisan, and in fact favored by traditional Democratic allies in organized labor (who were reasonably expecting that they’d be able to get some jobs out of it).  Anyway: while reading this darkly entertaining article on how proper, blue-collar labor unions are smarting over the way that Barack Obama prefers to cater to liberal environmentalists over letting a working man, well, work, I came across this passage: “Unions and environmental groups that praised Obama issued a joint statement lauding his decision to go slow – and blaming the House GOP…” – well, no need for Democratic party agitprop, is there? Particularly when it’s as clumsy as the default Green-derived pap that we typically get these days.

Still, let’s look at the unions that support the Obama administration on Keystone, shall we? List via here:

• CWA. That’s short for Communications Workers of America.  Self-explanatory: they’re a media/communications union.
• SEIU. Or, Service Employees International Union. Health care, government, property services.
• UAW. United Auto Workers, of course.  You probably remember them; they used to make cars and whatnot.  Well, they still do; just increasingly not the cars that people buy.
• Transport Worker’s Union.  Transit workers.  As in, subways and commercial air flight.
• United Steelworkers’ Union. If you’re wondering why they joined this one, it’s because they didn’t get the original pipe-making contract back in 2009. Oh, I’m sorry: did I type that out?  Oops.
• Amalgamated Transit Union. Best described as “Drivers who don’t drive industrial transport vehicles.”

So, basically, to spell it out: the unions broke down into three groups on this.  The first group consisted of the unions that actually would be employed during a pipeline project.  They’re for Keystone.  Then there’s the second group, which consists of unions that won’t make a dime directly off of a pipeline project.  They’re against Keystone.  And then there’s the USW, which apparently doesn’t give a tinker’s dam that their union brothers and sisters get work if they’re not getting a piece of the action.

I’ll leave you to decide which is the most reprehensible group of the three.

Moe Lane (crosspost)