Pro-Union Is Not Pro-Regulatory Reform

President Obama pledged allegiance to the free-market this week, arguing for a 21st Century regulatory system that is balanced and pro-growth.

Fine.

But one thing he didn’t mention is his unbalanced policy that favors unions over business.

The Department of Labor is full of former union executives and short on business people. The DOL policy is to promote high rates of union membership. That still includes card check, which would deny the secret ballot to workers in unionization quarrels. It also includes a neighborhood-watch-style system to investigate wage and hour violations by companies, all while there is no investigation of rampant union fraud.

The current Solicitor of Labor, Patricia Smith, specialized in corporate intimidation when she served in a similar post in New York. And Labor Secretary Hilda Solis has turned fraud investigators at the DOL into business-intimidation tools.

I’m not against private unions. But there must be a hands-off attitude, rather than a full-scale, pro-union push.

Right now, the Obama administration is totally pro-union and anti-business. That needs to be fixed if the president is to make good on his regulatory-reform promise.