Jim Cramer's Best Blogs

Jim Cramer fills his blog on RealMoney every day with his up-to-the-minute reactions to what's happening in the market and his legendary ahead-of-the-crowd ideas. This week he blogged on:

• the hazards of broad unionization,
• housing's bottom, and
• how to beat this market.

Click here for information on RealMoney, where you can see all the blogs, including Jim Cramer's -- and reader comments -- in real time.

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Broad Unionization Would Hammer the Stocks
Posted at 2:19 p.m. EDT, March 24, 2009

What happens if the pro-union plans of President Obama go through Congress? What happens if secret ballots and quick elections occur?

I think that Wal-Mart (WMT Quote) would get unionized, eliminating its competitive advantage. More important, I think that we could see major unionization efforts at large banks, chiefly by underpaid tellers at Citigroup (C Quote) and Bank of America (BAC Quote), something that could be a big setback to attempts to rein in costs. We all know that if banks are going to keep costs down, the last thing they need is to be unionized. I worry that this drive could really hinder the next leg up of the banks, if there is to be one.

I am surprised that no one is talking about this as a risk factor to stocks. I think, regardless of how you feel about unions, a teller drive and a Wal-Mart union drive are NOT in the numbers.

I put it out there to keep on your radar screen because the return of union problems away from the auto companies is something that's been so long ignored that it will probably really take people by surprise...

At the time of publication, Cramer was long Wal-Mart.