Unions are basically socialist constructs, huge businesses whose product is workers dues dollars. They cannot 
survive without them so they need to manipulate the business/worker environment to maximize their income earning potential.
The biggest union scam ever conceived was the public sector union. Taxpayer funded employees pay dues which are then used to influence elections at every level in favor of a political class that will then build union power by growing government, and adding more dues paying union employees whose additional funds will then keep the pro-union politicians in power.
Want to know why democrats care about public school class sizes? More teachers, more dues, more democrats. It has nothing to do with learning. Now project that thinking across the entire "grow government" universe and you have a massive scheme to swell the bureaucracy at your expense that should be illegal but is not. But with Obama serving as their Johnny Appleseed, using your money–provided by the democrat congress–he’s been creating and saving dues paying public union jobs (and democrat campaign coffers) all over the nation.
The big news this morning is that the democrats are eating crow. Yes, after all the caterwauling about Republican complaints over a push-poll conducted for the Hodes campaign–which they were unwilling to admit they commissioned, or that it was even a push poll–has resulted in a fine of $20,000.00 against the firm that conducted the poll, and an admission by the Hodes campaign that they did pay the company to conduct the poll for which they were fined.
Paul Hodes gets an ‘A+’ for toeing the Pelosi/Obama Party line, and a least an ‘A’ for recycling the party talking points. For example, Barack Obama has been wandering around claiming the Chamber of Commerce is using foreign money to affect local elections. Paul Hodes has been wandering around New Hampshire saying the exact same thing.
Democrats continue to insist that they created jobs. To do this they extracted trillions from our economic future in an effort to create jobs that did not yet exist–that perhaps were not needed yet. Looking at similar exercises, cash for clunkers–which moved car sales forward a few months but has since resulted in a collapse in the market; the home mortgage bail outs, supports, credits, and the "home affordable" programs which improved home sales briefly but which have since collapsed (also to historic lows); and then there’s the stimulus, several public sector employee bailouts, bank lending infusions, small business bills, and everything in between including health care reform–many trillions spent, all made with claims that they would create, save, or incentivize job creation.
I haven’t written a post about energy for almost a week so I’ll keep this one short.