This morning at the Louisiana capitol building, a bunch of what we’ve taken to call “idiots in red t-shirts” will be on hand to mob the state’s legislators and make demands about legislation – in this case, that being items which the public-sector unions don’t like.

The t-shirts aren’t always red, and the people aren’t always idiots, but the point is always the same: you gin up a few hundred people to act all huffy and attempt to intimidate lawmakers either to pass bills you want or, much more likely in the current case, lose their nerve over bills you don’t.

This is a tried and true Democrat ploy, but it has lost most of its value over the last couple of decades. Even during the eight years of John Bel Edwards’ time in office, when the bills the public sector unions didn’t like were generally not going anywhere thanks to his assured veto, the “idiots in red t-shirts” campaigns were of declining value.

And now that the public sector unions have been demonstrated to be utterly impotent when it comes to electing people in legislative and statewide races, today’s idiots in red t-shirts aren’t likely to get anywhere at all.

Nevertheless, they managed to generate some media coverage. From BRProud.com, the website of NBC33 in Baton Rouge…

Union members of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees will come to the Louisiana State Capitol at 10:30 a.m. Thursday, April 4, to advocate for their rights at work.

AFSCME Council 17 will hold a Labor Lobby Day Rally on the Capitol steps to share their experiences as public service workers and urge state legislators to oppose several bills they say are anti-union.

Members said the bills attack their freedom to speak up for the vital services they provide to Louisiana’s communities, their safety on the job and the taxpayers they serve.

Supporters of the bills, including business lobbyists and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry, said these measures are needed and would strengthen companies and limit improper flow of tax dollars.

Members will share their experiences as public service workers and ask legislators to oppose the following legislation they believe will gut their rights at work: HB 523, SB 292, HB 571, HB 572, HB 712, SB 263 and SB 264.

BRProud had a pretty good summary of what those bills do…

HB 712 and SB 263 propose that teachers or other parish or city school board employees can authorize their school board to deduct earnings for regular dues owed to any organization of teachers or other school employees but prohibits dues from being used for political activity.

HB 523 proposes that a third-party election facilitator conduct a secret ballot election to certify the collective bargaining representative.

HB 571 would provide for certain designated labor organization activities in employment contracts including prohibiting the use of public funds under certain circumstances.

HB 572 would prohibit collective bargaining agreements for public officers and employees.

SB 292 proposes the creation of recertification requirements for public employee labor organizations.

SB 264 would require any organization receiving membership dues from salary deductions of public employees to provide the governmental employer with a thorough breakdown of the spending of membership dues.

Most of that is actually awfully mild.

HB 523 is a big hit to AFSCME and SEIU, because the odds are pretty good that neither one would survive long as the affiliate if there were straightforward, secret-ballot elections to certify them in most of Louisiana. And HB 572 is the gold-medal winner of what they’d call public sector union-busting.

But there are likely the votes, and it wouldn’t be a big surprise at all if Gov. Jeff Landry would sign it, to pass a bill that would outlaw public sector unions in Louisiana, period. Such a piece of legislation would bottle the state up in court for a while, but this legislature would almost certainly lend 53 votes in the House and 20 in the Senate to killing those unions altogether.

The only thing that saves them is that some of the public sector unions in the state involve firemen and cops, and nobody wants to be seen as antagonists against firemen and cops.

But teachers, school cafeteria workers and low-level bureaucrats at state agencies and city governments? Psh. It’s tough to find more than a tiny handful of people within the Republican supermajorities in both houses of the legislature who would give a fig for their “union rights.”

And the fact is, there is very, very little justification for public employee unions in Louisiana.

Government workers make, on average, better salaries than private sector workers do. They absolutely get better benefits. The idea that they require collective bargaining rights to stay out of the poorhouse is idiotic to the point of comedy.

The challenge for those government agencies is in finding decently competent people to staff those positions. It isn’t in treating them with humanity or paying them livable wages.

There will undoubtedly be some fireworks as some of today’s idiots in red shirts go to the microphone at various committee hearings to screech about how the Republicans at the legislature are enemies of the workin’ man. But nobody is buying any of that stuff anymore. People associate public employees, and particularly public employees who are in SEIU, AFSCME and the other unions much more with the corrupt Deep State and the ruling class than they do the downtrodden and wretched poor.

And very few of those legislators owe those unions anything. In fact, most of them are in office because they beat a union-backed opponent.

So the response to the whining about bills like the ones described above is going to be “Pucker up, buttercup!” far more than to be intimidated.

That won’t make the idiots in red t-shirts disappear. But it will contribute to the continuing loss of energy their intimidation campaigns suffer from.