“Right
to Work” laws prohibit “Union Shops” by prohibiting workers from negotiating
collectively bargained, union security agreements which are contract provisions
which insist all employees covered under that contract join the Union. This
keeps the costs of Union action and Union Representation from being fairly
distributed among all employees who share the benefits of representation.
Non-union employees can then enjoy all the conditions, wages, and work of their
Union counterparts without sharing any costs. According to a 1977 Supreme Court
decision: “A Union Shop arrangement has been thought to distribute fairly the
cost of (representative) activities among those who benefit, and it counteracts
the incentive the employees might otherwise have to become “free riders” when
they refuse to contribute to the union while obtaining benefits of union
representation that necessarily accrue to all employees.”
The
idea of a “Union Shop” is that everyone benefits from a contract and it’s
protections and that all who benefit share in the costs. “Right to Work” laws
effectively undermine worker organization, and benefits and protections derived
from that organization.
Proponents
of “Right to Work” legislation would like to protect their ability to keep
workers from bargaining freely and, while they establish restrictions to
workers rights, they pass their actions off to the uninformed public as
“protecting the workers right to get a job”.
Fact
is that, as with all other provisions of a contract, union security agreements
must be approved by the workers and the employer. If the majority of workers
don’t want a “Union Shop” they won’t ask for it. “Right to Work” proponents
would like to make sure that you don’t have the right to ask.
In
1947, the GOP controlled Congress passed an amendment to the National Labor
Relations Act (Wagner Act) allowing states to ban Union security agreements.
Since that time, 21 states have done so, most of them in the South right after
the amendment was passed. Union membership plummeted in those states.
Today
Union membership in “Right to Work” states is about half of what it is in free
bargaining states.
In
Washington State, “Right to Work” initiative’s sponsored by open shop employer
associations in 1956 and 1958 were defeated by voters. In 1986 Idaho became the
21st state to pass “Right to Work” legislation. After passage the
average annual wage of carpenters dropped from $33,000 to $22,000 per year.
At
a 1996 congressional hearing, the President of the National Right to Work
Committee refused to identify their financial contributors saying those allied
business interests “preferred to remain anonymous.”
There are 21 states with “Right to Work Laws”. Only three of those states achieved job fatality rates below the national average. 23 of the 29 “free bargaining” states did.
Not
one of the “Right to Work” states have an average annual pay level above the
national average.
In
1991 24.2% of the children in “Right to Work” states had no private or public health
insurance of any kind.
In
1990, sales tax, considered a regressive tax because it hits people with the
lowest incomes the hardest, accounted for 60.3% of state tax collection in
“Right to Work” states.
If
you outlaw a workers right to organize, to collectively exercise “free
bargaining”, you have taken a freedom from that individual and governmentally
destroyed the free man, free market philosophy that is fundamental to a free
country.
We
are living in an era of little or no job security, stagnant wages, diminished
health care benefits, and a startling increase in temporary, low wage jobs. We
should be strengthening workers rights, not eroding them.
This Position Paper was produced by the Political Action Committee
of UA Local 32.
Send all Questions and/or Comments to Wayne Stedman,
UA32PAC Chair by clicking on this link.