Trikki's Anti-Union Jihad: "Mission (Already) Accomplished"

EARTH TO HALEY: “THE BATTLE IS O’ER, THE VICTORY WON“

S.C. Gov. Nikki Haley has made going on the war path against unions her top priority of 2012 … assuming of course that your definition of “going on the war path” means issuing executive orders that duplicate existing state law and supporting state legislation that duplicates existing federal reporting requirements.

(To read more about Haley’s ridiculously non-consequential “anti-union efforts,” click here).

Anyway, rather than taking aim at unions – it would seem that Haley’s administration should have instead been taking credit for a job well done.

According to statistics published Friday by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), union membership in South Carolina plunged during Haley’s first year in office – from 80,000 to 59,000. As a result of this 21,000-worker decline, South Carolina’s union membership rate dropped from 4.6 percent to 3.4 percent – giving the Palmetto State the second-lowest percentage of union workers in the entire nation.

Woot woot, right?

Or as Haley says “get excited,” “let’s celebrate” and yes … “it’s a great day in South Carolina.”

And we’re sure that this decline is exclusively attributable to Haley’s promise to “talk smack” to the unions a year ago.

Anyway, as we’ve noted before we can’t stand unions either … but seeing as we’ve pretty much got them on the ropes in South Carolina at the moment (which isn’t surprising seeing as South Carolina is a right-to-work state), shouldn’t our leaders be focusing on other issues?

If Haley were smart, she would have declared victory on this issue. And if she were principled, she would have moved on to real reforms aimed at addressing real problems in this state.

Unfortunately for South Carolina, as she has demonstrated on numerous occasions since taking office a year ago, our governor is neither smart nor principled.

Oh well … we would encourage Haley to click on the BLS report below. We’ve even gone to the trouble of highlighting the relevant data on the document for her.