Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen's Latest Gift to Unions
The Biden administration's use of federal agencies and the administrative state to pursue Democrats' political goals has been a trademark of the last two-plus years of crises and chaos that began in January 2021. Now, it's the Treasury Department and Secretary Janet Yellen who are diving headfirst in an attempt to bolster labor unions, often considered an unofficial wing of the Democratic Party.
On a call with Vice President Kamala Harris, Secretary Yellen announced that the Treasury Department had concluded a report — created at taxpayer expense, mind you — making "the case that unions can play a role in addressing the challenges faced by the middle class." According to Yellen, the report "is the Administration’s latest action to strengthen the important role of labor unions in our economy and it is the Treasury Department’s first major effort to lay out the rationale for why we think this is so important."
In other words, unions have been taking a lot of heat — especially teacher unions — and the current administration owes them a little something for their work to get Biden and Democrats elected.
According to Yellen's gift-to-unions report, "unions raise the wages of their members by around 10 to 15 percent" and give workers "greater access to critical fringe benefits, such as retirement benefits, medical benefits, and life insurance."
Notably, a union is not necessary for employees to receive such benefits which are commonplace across the U.S. economy. What's more, all employees — union and non-union — saw their real wages turn negative for more than 24 consecutive months as a result of the inflation triggered by the Biden administration's tax-and-spend binge.
The union-hyping report also claims that labor unions bring about "better workplace grievance systems and improved workplace safety," identified by Yellen as "a key driver of job satisfaction" and "critically important to workers' well-being."
Yellen conveniently omitted the fact that the Occupational Safety and Health Act of 1970 means employers already have a responsibility to provide a safe workplace for their employees and there are plenty of state and federal entities to which employees can report — often anonymously — issues in their workplace.
Seeking to give unions credit for any positive effects in the job market, Yellen said that "nonunionized firms may see increased wages" as a result of unionization."
Turning to another pet project of the identity-obsessed Biden administration, the Treasury Department's "research" apparent found that "unions fuel equality" that "reduce race and gender wage gaps by encouraging explicit anti-discrimination measures and egalitarian wage practices." According to Yellen, "Black men...may be particularly poised to benefit from unionization."
Either Yellen is admitting that federal agencies supposedly dedicated to ensuring equal employment opportunities to all Americans while penalizing discrimination haven't worked, or she's pretending such protections don't exist.
Ironically, it was the Biden administration that shrieked and whined when the Supreme Court struck down race-based discrimination in college admissions in a decision that could soon see workplace quotas and preferences challenged as well. As the administration's response to the high court's opinion showed again, preventing discrimination is clearly not a priority for Team Biden.
In addition, Yellen claimed that her agency's study found that unions "could contribute to reversing the stark increase in inequality we've seen in recent decades" and promote "economy-wide growth" as well as "improving productivity."
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