What's Wrong With This Picture: Good Enough For Your Kids, Not Good Enough For Me Edition

What are we looking at here? Well, it’s a Camry, that much is obvious. In the window is a sign for “Educators Against 5.”

What’s “5”? It’s a bill, recently passed in Ohio, which prohibits collective bargaining by public employee unions on issues such as health insurance, sick leave and pension benefits. Needless to say, it is massively unpopular among unionized public-sector workers in said state, many of whom view it as the first step towards “union-busting”.

The actual merits of the law are probably best discussed elsewhere. However, this is the third car I’ve seen in two days carrying the “No 5” sign… and all three have had a little credibility problem.

That’s right! The Toyota Camry is primarily built by non-union labor in Georgetown, KY. The other two “No 5” cars I saw were both Hondas — and Honda doesn’t play ball with the UAW in this country either.

During a recent press trip, I listened to an older journalist talk about the failure of certain newspaper unions in this country. He said, “I’m a union member. And I support the union. But one day I found myself shopping in Wal-Mart, and I guess at that point the whole idea of union solidarity had disappeared for me.” It’s a very interesting point. The unions in this country aren’t sticking together, and they haven’t stuck together in some time.

When I look back at the cars I’ve owned in my lifetime, the number of union-built cars far outweighs the non-union ones. I have five street cars and one race car at the moment, all built with union labor here, in Canada, or in Germany. Hell, I’ve purchased a few dozen suits that were made with union labor in the United States (Hickey-Freeman, Oxxford, and a few other American manufacturers continue to use unionized workers exclusively in the production of their American-made clothing.) Yet I’ve never belonged to a union. I’m not even a member of any automotive press association. Not much of a joiner, I suppose. I didn’t consider whether or not the cars were union-built when I bought them.

A lot of public-sector union member in Ohio have apparently decided that my tax dollars should go to support unionized labor… and it’s their right to feel that way. I do think it’s interesting, however, that they don’t seem to think unionized labor is good enough for them. They’re shopping at Wal-Mart, they’re buying clothing from countries where workers’ rights are less than a joke, and they are choosing their vehicles from providers which ban the UAW from their property. What message are they sending — and will they be surprised if a state full of temps, contractors, casual labor, and Honda employees fails to see things their way?