When it comes to fortifying sanctimony with criminality, it is hard to beat the American labor movement, which we hear a great deal from on Labor Day weekend. The education monopolists may dabble in criminality, as with those teachers and administrators in Atlanta who soon will be reporting to prison, but they’re mostly sanctimony most of the time, and of course the union bosses have a hand in that, too, teachers’ unions being what they are. But for a really elegant balance of sanctimony and criminality, you want one of those Philadelphia union goons who talk about solidarity with working people while committing arson and vandalizing churches in the service of their own narrow economic interests. The good news is that in the real economy, the American labor movement is dead as fried chicken. It’s just waiting to keel over.

The Obama administration and its allies have done everything they can to prop up the labor syndicates, for obvious reasons: They are important sources of donations and manpower for Democratic campaigns — not to mention the occasional act of political terrorism — and they are an indirect source of influence in that the more tightly an industry is under political discipline, the more opportunities there are for political profiteering. The National Labor Relations Board’s improper persecution of Boeing, which had the temerity to go into a place that it owns and act like it owns the place, and the recent risible NLRB franchise decision are acts of desperation. And the union goons should be desperate: Private-sector union membership is steadily declining, down to 6.6 percent of the work force in the latest figures.

Read the article “What Makes American Workers Great” on nationalreview.com.