Unions, Collective Bargaining, Bad Polling

The Left is desperately trying to prove that most Americans support the stranglehold that public sector unions have on many state governments.

It seems that each day a new poll supposedly reveals the "truth" that the American people stand in solidarity with the protesters and union thugs occupying the Capitol in Madison.

Example, from the New York Times:

As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, according to the latest New York Times/CBS News poll.

Labor unions are not exactly popular, though: A third of those surveyed viewed them favorably, a quarter viewed them unfavorably, and the rest said they were either undecided or had not heard enough about them. But the nationwide poll found that embattled public employee unions have the support of most Americans — and most independents — as they fight the efforts of newly elected Republican governors in Wisconsin and Ohio to weaken their bargaining powers, and the attempts of governors from both parties to cut their pay or benefits.

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them.

Those surveyed said they opposed, 56 percent to 37 percent, cutting the pay or benefits of public employees to reduce deficits, breaking down along similar party lines. A majority of respondents who have no union members living in their households opposed both cuts in pay or benefits and taking away the collective bargaining rights of public employees.

Read John Steele Gordon's analysis of the Times' poll.

He writes:

The New York Times published a poll in today’s paper with the headline “Majority in Poll Back Employees in Public Sector Unions.” The Times thought the story so significant that it put it on page 1, above the fold, and even sent out a news alert last night via e-mail. According to the Times:

As labor battles erupt in state capitals around the nation, a majority of Americans say they oppose efforts to weaken the collective bargaining rights of public employee unions and are also against cutting the pay or benefits of public workers to reduce state budget deficits, …

“Asked how they would choose to reduce their state’s deficits,” the Times adds, ”those polled preferred tax increases over benefit cuts for state workers by nearly two to one.”

How do you square these figures with the results of last November’s elections, in which anti-tax, anti-deficit, anti-public-union forces swept to historic victories in federal and state elections across the country? Well, you can’t, of course. The Times doesn’t even ask this blindingly obvious question, let alone try to answer it.

But if you read down to the seventh paragraph of the story, which is on page 17, not page 1, an answer emerges:

The nationwide telephone poll was conducted Feb. 24-27 with 984 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points for all adults. Of those surveyed, 20 percent said there was a union member in their household, and 25 percent said there was a public employee in their household.

Although less than 12 percent of the workforce is unionized today, 20 percent of the households in the survey had a union member. Although government workers are 17 percent of the workforce, 25 percent of the households surveyed had one living there.

Clearly, the poll relies on a sample that is heavily skewed to reveal alleged "facts" about opinions on unions meant to fit the liberal agenda.

The shoddy poll, the "science," is really propaganda intended to advance a Leftist cause, nothing more.

What the poll results reveal is that the Left is once again employing this dishonest tactic to sway opinion. The poll doesn't expose existing opinion accurately. It attempts to create it.

Sleazy liberal business as usual.