PORTLAND, Ore. – A growing coalition of unions want to force employers to hire felons in an effort to counter the perceived injustices of the country’s criminal justice system.

The AFL-CIO union is leading a nationwide campaign alongside numerous other labor unions, the Urban League, and other left-wing organizations to pressure lawmakers into enacting ordinances that prohibit employers from asking about criminal records on job applications, nwLaborPress.org reports.

“Advocates will push the City of Portland to pass an ordinance later this year, and they’ll lobby for a state law in the 2015 session of the Oregon Legislature,” according to the news site. “The effort is part of a national campaign to ‘ban the box,’ and the labor support follows a September 2013 resolution by the national AFL-CIO that criticized America’s system of mass incarceration.”

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The union mentality is the country’s criminal justice system favors rich white folks, but is hopelessly stacked against minorities and the poor. The liberal unions contend much of the problem stems from the nation’s “war on drugs,” and mandatory minimum sentencing laws. The “ban the box” campaign also seeks to prohibit landlords from asking about past convictions on housing rental applications.

“We know that our criminal justice system isn’t just,” Oregon AFL-CIO spokeswoman Elana Guiney told nwLaborPress. “People who have money can afford to get themselves off the hook.”

“The Portland campaign is part of a wave of ban-the-box legislation appearing before state legislatures and city councils in 2014. At least six cities now prohibit private employers from asking about criminal history early in the application process: Baltimore, Newark, San Francisco, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Seattle,” the news site reports.

In Oregon, the push has garnered support from major labor groups like the Northwest Oregon Labor Council – which counts the American Federation of Teachers union among its supporters.

The Portland ordinance, dubbed the “fair chance for all” ordinance, would prohibit employers from conducting a criminal background check until after the interview stage, at which point ex-offenders are given an opportunity to explain their convictions.

Employers would not be allowed to ask about criminal history on the initial job application, and would be banned from denying a criminal employment based solely on their past behavior. The ordinance would not supersede laws that prohibit those with certain convictions from working in certain jobs, and wouldn’t specifically force schools to hire convicts, according to the news site.

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The Portland proposal is currently in draft form, but it’s expected to be introduced for discussion in the near future.

It seems anyone with an iota of common sense can see that forcing employers to hire criminals they wouldn’t normally hire is a recipe for disaster, particularly for public employers. The ‘ban the box’ campaign may not force public schools to hire convicted criminals – if there’s a law already in place prohibiting schools from hiring them – but says nothing about the potential impact on schools in areas without such a law. Labor unions, particularly teachers unions, are quite skilled at navigating the technicalities in labor laws to force these types of ridiculous rules on employers.

The unions, of course, likely aren’t truly concerned with the plight of convicted criminals, but rather view the “ban the box” campaign as a means to increase its membership by loosening hiring restrictions.

It follows the same reasoning the National Education Association used to justify its opposition to federal legislation that would require schools to conduct criminal background checks and prohibit them from hiring rapists, murderers, kidnappers, wife beaters and others with a history of violent or abusive behavior.

NEA officials have argued that the federal legislation would disproportionately impact minority educators because minorities are more likely to have a criminal record.

The bottom line is labor unions couldn’t care less about the efficiency of the nation’s workforce, the safety of its schools, or the poor minority they purport to help.

Union bosses are using the racial disparity in the criminal justice system to lobby for a means to expand their membership, regardless of the impact on employers, schools or the economy.

Organized labor groups are simply pandering to the less fortunate to stir up animosity against “the system,” and to recruit both a new generation of members and Democratic voters to support their distorted political agenda.