In other labor news, Republican Sen. Jim DeMint of South Carolina has said he hopes to see all federal employees lose the right to collectively bargain. He made the comments in an interview with the website ThinkProgress.org.

Scott Keyes: “Senator, would you like to see some of these bills that we see at a state level curbing the collective bargaining rights of public employees’ unions, would you like to see that on a federal level?”

Sen. Jim DeMint: “Well, I don’t believe collective bargaining has any place in government.”

Scott Keyes: “Including at a federal level?”

Sen. Jim DeMint: “Including at the federal level. That’s what elections are, collective bargaining, for people who are [inaudible]. So I think it just doesn’t make sense, when we’re elected as representatives, to determine the fiscal condition of the government, then to have an unelected third party bargaining at the table with monopoly power. It just doesn’t make any sense.”