Public Employee Union Boycott Threat Backfires

By  •  Monday April 11, 2011 6:56 AM PDT  •  4 Comments

It’s not often we get a real market test of the popularity of public employee unions, so this recent experience from Wisconsin provides an interesting peek at the real public’s perception. If a harbinger of broader public opinion, members of public employee unions may want to rethink their tactics.

Owners of businesses from large banks to Mom-and-Pop stores in Wisconsin have been approached to display pro-union signs in their windows. Those who refused—like Dawn Bobo, the owner of a Dollar Store in Union Grove, WI—subsequently received letters from union reps threatening boycotts:

With that we’d ask that you reconsider taking a sign and stance to support public employees in this community. Failure to do so will leave us no choice but do [sic] a public boycott of your business. And sorry, neutral means ‘no’ to those who work for the largest employer in the area and are union members.

After local media picked up the story, business at Ms. Bobo’s store quadrupled.

Tags: Business, Employment, Free Market, Labor, Property Rights

4 Comment(s)

  1. We need more people like Ms. Bobo who won’t let themselves be intimidated by the unions and I am glad her business increased so much—just too bad all those people rushed in to support her stand against supporting the unions and had to buy merchandise that was not made in AMERICA!

    Jo Geary | Apr 11, 2011 | Reply

  2. Good for her! It just proves that unions don’t care about others, just their own advancement.

    Mary Larkin | Apr 12, 2011 | Reply

  3. And as an FYI – the police DON’T like to be called “blue gangsters”.

    daddysteve | Apr 12, 2011 | Reply

  4. It was from your colleague Bob Higgs that I learned the term “participatory fascism” to describe the welfare state (I think its coinage is Charlotte Twight’s). If this is accurate, then surely the mob at Wisconsin’s State Capitol can be compared to what, exactly? The Beer Hall Putsch? The March on Rome? If the NRA Eagle was a doppelganger of the Star of David on businesses during Kristallnacht, then surely these signs echo a sinister past.

    David | Apr 15, 2011 | Reply

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