Union workers for Verizon have been protesting for weeks.  You’ve read the stories and seen the videos of their antics throughout this strike: putting children in front of moving cars driven by “scabs” or staging a mock funeral outside a Verizon executive’s home.  Well you will be happy to know that they will be heading back to work on Tuesday, though without an agreement.  But in all of the shenanigans, we have lost sight of exactly why these people were protesting in the first place. 

Enter: ObamaCare.

Thanks to ObamaCare .. which these unions supported, by the way .. Verizon is looking at healthcare cost increases of as much as $200 million.  Why the increase in cost?  Because ObamaCare levies a 40% excise tax on Cadillac health plans, which have been negotiated by these unions.  What’s amazing is that Verizon warned about the consequences back in March 2010 when ObamaCare was passed.  Apparently these union employees must have thought they were kidding. 

Now here is where the unions fail to understand how taxes work.  You see .. Verizon isn’t going to just bend over and take this $200 million increase in taxes.  Nope.  These costs are ultimately passed down to us: the workers and/or the consumers.  In this case, Verizon is asking its union employees to pay a portion of their health plan premiums .. which, by the way, is what non-union Verizon workers are already required to do. 

The other lesson that these union employees can’t seem to understand is why Verizon must adjust now (in 2011) when the law doesn’t go into effect until 2018.  Businesses, apparently unlike government, must plan long-term in order to survive.  They re-work business models in order to adjust to changes in the market or expected cost increases (like ObamaCare).  This is what a Barack Obama presidency has been so detrimental to businesses in this country .. his big government policies combined with his love of government regulation and pending tax increases, makes it nearly impossible for businesses to create long-term plans.  Hence, they sit and they wait and all the while our economy suffers.  Can’t blame ‘em.