The Right to Work: A Fundamental Freedom
The following article by National Right to Work Legel Defense Foundation President Mark Mix appeared in the June/July issue of Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College sent each month to 1.9 million subscribers. The article is adapted from a lecture given at Hillsdale College in January 2011.
The Right to Work: A Fundamental Freedom
BOEING IS A GREAT AMERICAN COMPANY. Recently it has built a second production line—its other is in Washington State—in South Carolina for its 787 Dreamliner airplane, creating 1,000 jobs there so far. Who knows what factors led to its decision to do this? As with all such business decisions, there were many. But the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB)—a five-member agency created in 1935 by the Wagner Act (about which I will speak momentarily)—has taken exception to this decision, ultimately based on the fact that South Carolina is a right-to-work state. That is, South Carolina, like 21 other states today, protects a worker’s right not only to join a union, but also to make the choice not to join or financially support a union. Washington State does not. The general counsel of the NLRB, on behalf of the International Association of Machinists union, has issued a complaint against Boeing, which, if successful, would require it to move its South Carolina operation back to Washington State. This would represent an unprecedented act of intervention by the federal government that appears, on its face, un-American. But it is an act long in the making, and boils down to a fundamental misunderstanding of freedom.
Where does this story begin?
The Wagner Act and Taft-Hartley
In 1935, Congress passed and President Franklin Roosevelt signed into law the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA), commonly referred to as the Wagner Act after its Senate sponsor, New York Democrat Robert Wagner. Section 7 of the Wagner Act states:
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.
Union officials such as William Green, president of the American Federation of Labor (AFL), and John L. Lewis, principal founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO), hailed this legislation at the time as the “Magna Carta of Labor.” But in fact it was far from a charter of liberty for working Americans.
Section 8(3) of the Wagner Act allowed for “agreements” between employers and officers of a union requiring union membership “as a condition of employment” if the union was certified or recognized as the employees’ “exclusive” bargaining agent on matters of pay, benefits, and work rules. On its face, this violates the clear principle that the freedom to associate necessarily includes the freedom not to associate. In other words, the Wagner Act didn’t protect the freedom of workers because it didn’t allow for them to decide against union membership. To be sure, the Wagner Act left states the prerogative to protect employees from compulsory union membership. But federal law was decidedly one-sided: Firing or refusing to hire a worker because he or she had joined a union was a federal crime, whereas firing or refusing to hire a worker for not joining a union with “exclusive” bargaining privileges was federally protected. The National Labor Relations Board was created by the Wagner Act to enforce these policies.
During World War II, FDR’s War Labor Board aggressively promoted compulsory union membership. By the end of the war, the vast majority of unionized workers in America were covered by contracts requiring them to belong to a union in order to keep their jobs. But Americans were coming to see compulsory union membership—euphemistically referred to as “union security”—as a violation of the freedom of association. Furthermore, the nonchalance with which union bosses like John L. Lewis paralyzed the economy by calling employees out on strike in 1946 hardened public support for the right to work as opposed to compulsory unionism. As Gilbert J. Gall, a staunch proponent of the latter, acknowledged in a monograph chronicling legislative battles over this issue from the 1940s on, “the huge post-war strike wave and other problems of reconversion gave an added impetus to right-to-work proposals.”
When dozens of senators and congressmen who backed compulsory unionism were ousted in the 1946 election, the new Republican leaders of Congress had a clear opportunity to curb the legal power of union bosses to force workers to join unions. Instead, they opted for a compromise that they thought would have enough congressional support to override a presidential veto by President Truman. Thus Section 7 of the revised National Labor Relations Act of 1947—commonly referred to as the Taft-Hartley Act—only appears at first to represent an improvement over Section 7 of the Wagner Act. It begins:
Employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any and all such activities. . . .
Had this sentence ended there, forced union membership would have been prohibited, and at the same time voluntary union membership would have remained protected. Unfortunately, the sentence continued:
…except to the extent that such right may be affected by an agreement requiring membership in a labor organization as a condition of employment as authorized in section 158(a)(3) of this title.
This qualification, placing federal policy firmly on the side of compulsory union membership, left workers little better off than they were under the Wagner Act. Elsewhere, Taft-Hartley did, for the most part, prohibit “closed shop” arrangements that forced workers to join a union before being hired. But they could still be forced to join, on threat of being fired, within a few weeks after starting on the job.
Boeing’s Interest, and Ours
It cannot be overemphasized that compulsory unionism violates the first principle of the original labor union movement in America. Samuel Gompers, founder and first president of the AFL, wrote that the labor movement was “based upon the recognition of the sovereignty of the worker.” Officers of the AFL, he explained in the American Federationist, can “suggest” or “recommend,” but they “cannot command one man in America to do anything.” He continued: “Under no circumstances can they say, ‘you must do so and so, or, ‘you must desist from doing so and so.’” In a series of Federationist editorials published during World War I, Gompers opposed various government mandate measures being considered in the capitals of industrial states like Massachusetts and New York that would have mandated certain provisions for manual laborers and other select groups of workers:The workers of America adhere to voluntary institutions in preference to compulsory systems which are held to be not only impractical but a menace to their rights, welfare and their liberty.
This argument applies as much to compulsory unionism—or “union security”—as to the opposite idea that unions should be prohibited. And in a December 1918 address before the Council on Foreign Relations, Gompers made this point explicitly:
There may be here and there a worker who for certain reasons unexplainable to us does not join a union of labor. This is his right no matter how morally wrong he may be. It is his legal right and no one can dare question his exercise of that legal right.
Compare Gompers’s traditional American view of freedom to the contemptuous view toward workers of labor leaders today. Here is United Food and Commercial Workers union strategist Joe Crump advising union organizers in a 1991 trade journal article: “Employees are complex and unpredictable. Employers are simple and predictable. Organize employers, not employees.” And in 2005, Mike Fishman, head of the Service Employees International Union, was even more blunt. When it comes to union organizing campaigns, he told the Wall Street Journal, “We don’t do elections.”
Under a decades-old political compromise, federal labor policies promoting compulsory unionism persist side by side with the ability of states to curb such compulsion with right-to-work laws. So far, as I said, 22 states have done so. And when we compare and contrast the economic performance in these 22 states against the others, we find interesting things. For example, from 1999 to 2009 (the last such year for which data are available), the aggregate real all-industry GDP of the 22 right-to-work states grew by 24.2 percent, nearly 40 percent more than the gain registered by the other 28 states as a group.
Even more dramatic is the contrast if we look at personal income growth. From 2000 to 2010, real personal incomes grew by an average of 24.3 percent in the 22 right-to-work states, more than double the rate for the other 28 as a group. But the strongest indicator is the migration of young adults. In 2009, there were 20 percent more 25- to 34-year-olds in right-to-work states than in 1999. In the compulsory union states, the increase was only 3.3 percent—barely one-sixth as much.
In this context, the decision by Boeing to open a plant in South Carolina may be not only in its own best interest, but in ours as well. So in whose interest is the National Labor Relations Board acting? And more importantly, with a view to what understanding of freedom?
Public Sector Unionism
As more and more workers and businesses have obtained refuge from compulsory unionism in right-to-work states in recent decades, the rationality of the free market has been showing itself. But the public sector is another and a grimmer story.
The National Labor Relations Act affects only private-sector workers. Since the 1960s, however, 21 states have enacted laws authorizing the collection of forced union dues from at least some state and local public employees. More than a dozen additional states have granted union officials the monopoly power to speak for all government workers whether they consent to this or not. Thus today, government workers are more than five times as likely to be unionized as private sector workers. This represents a great danger for taxpayers and consumers of government services. For as Victor Gotbaum, head of the Manhattan-based District 37 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, said 36 years ago: “We have the ability, in a sense, to elect our own boss.”
How this works is simple, and explains the inordinate power of union officials in so many states that have not adopted right-to-work laws. Union officials funnel a huge portion of the compulsory dues and fees they collect into efforts to influence the outcomes of elections. In return, elected officials are afraid to anger them even in the face of financial crisis. This explains why states with the heaviest tax burdens and the greatest long-term fiscal imbalances (in many cases due to bloated public employee pension funds) are those with the most unionized government workforces. California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio and Wisconsin represent the worst default risks among the 50 states. In 2010, an average of 59.2 percent of the public employees in these nine worst default-risk states were unionized, 19.2 percentage points higher than the national average of 40 percent. All of these states except Nevada authorize compulsory union dues and fees in the public sector.
* * *
Fortunately, there are signs that taxpayers are recognizing the negative consequences of compulsory unionism in the public sector. Just this March, legislatures in Wisconsin and Ohio revoked compulsory powers of government union bosses, and similar efforts are underway in several other states. Furthermore, the NLRB’s blatantly political and un-constitutional power play with regard to Boeing’s South Carolina production line is sure to strike fair-minded Americans as beyond the pale. Now more than ever, it is time to push home the point that all American workers in all 50 states should be granted the full freedom of association—which includes the freedom not to associate—in the area of union membership.
Reprinted by permission from Imprimis, a publication of Hillsdale College.
Worker: Why I sued Labor Secretary Hilda Solis
Chris Mosquera, a Maryland county government employee filed a federal lawsuit in May with free legal aid from National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys to stop the Obama Administration from allowing union bosses to conceal lavish and corrupt union expenditures from workers.
In today’s Washington Examiner, Mosquera discussed why he filed the lawsuit against Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis:
As a member of the United Food and Commercial Workers union, I’m more knowledgeable than most about the ins and outs of union finance.
In fact, I’ve learned some interesting things about my own local’s spending habits over the years. Like the $2 million office condo they bought in Gaithersburg, or the fact that the president of my local makes over $200,000 a year, plus other undocumented benefits.
…
Disclosure is a simple but effective tool for fighting corruption and encouraging accountability. If union officials know their spending habits are part of the public record, they’ll be less interested in expensive getaways and more interested in effectively managing their members’ hard-earned dues.
Click here to read the entire op-ed.
For more of the Foundation’s coverage of the union-boss disclosures here, click here.
The Foundation relies completely on voluntary contributions from its supporters to provide free legal aid. To make a tax-deductible contribution in whatever amount, please click here.
Union Boss Militancy and Violence on Display During Verizon Strike
Days into the Communications Workers of America (CWA) and International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) union boss-ordered strike against Verizon, disturbing reports of union militancy — and their effects on workers and customers alike — are becoming widespread. The Associated Press have reported over 70 instances of sabotage in just the first few days of the strike.
In the video below (warning: explicit language), a striking union militant uses his young daughter as a prop, demanding she block a Verizon truck from moving while he curses out the Verizon employees in the truck.
Here’s a rundown of some of the other disturbing reports:
- One non-striking Verizon worker in New York was shot with a BB gun by union militants.
- The Boston Herald interviews a 64-year old mother of five about union strikers who picketed outside of her house while Verizon technicians repaired her broken phone line
- Senior citizens at an independent living facility in Maryland whose phone lines were knocked out in a recent storm have been forced to share phones, if they’ve been able to reach families members at all, reports the Baltimore Sun
The National Right to Work Foundation issued special legal notices informing CWA and IBEW union members of their rights to resign from union membership and return to work (see the notices here and here). Foundation attorneys have provided free legal aid to victims of union violence.
Legacy of Big Labor Violence: A Growing Problem
As previously reported on the Freedom@Work blog, union militants are certainly making headlines of late using violent tactics and vandalism to prove their point.
Stunningly, union thugs in Michigan may have taken this to the next level last week when John King, owner of King Electrical Services, was reportedly shot by a union goon spraying the word "scab" on the side of his car in the driveway.
Of course this should surprise no one familiar with the violent legacy of Big Labor, including that of AFL-CIO union boss Richard Trumka. But for good measure, the Investor’s Business Daily (IBD) opined today about union bosses’ reliance on violence to get their way:
The attack on King is emblematic of the sad fact that the leading perpetrators of political violence today are U.S. labor unions.
They’ve grown more violent in their rhetoric as their political power grows and their appeal to workers diminishes.
According to the National Institute for Labor Relations Research, a right-to-work think tank in Washington, there have been 4,400 incidents of union violence in the last 20 years.
The Teamsters are the leading perpetrators, with 454 incidents. But IBEW, which some suspect in the King incident, is in the top 10, having engaged in 125 incidents.
All told, there have been 11,600 incidents of union violence against workers, management and the public since 1975.
In 1973, the United States Supreme Court actually ruled to grant union officials the special privilege to be exempt from federal prosecution for union violence. And shocking these numbers may seem, the National Institute for Labor Relations Research states that for reported incidences of union violence between 1975 and 2000, only three percent of those incidents have led to an arrest and conviction.
The numbers used by IBD also don’t account for the fact that most incidents of union violence go unreported (a study of one strike found seven instances of violence for every on reported on in the media) meaning that the already staggering numbers the article cites are just the tip of the iceberg.
Biting the Hand: Pro-Forced Unionism New York Times Slams Obama Labor Board Over Boeing
In the New York Times, columnist Joe Nocera writes how the National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) unprecedented persecution against Boeing for locating additional production of its Dreamliner airplanes in South Carolina — in part because South Carolina is a Right to Work state — has changed the game for job providers:
It is a mind-boggling stretch to describe Boeing’s strategy as "retaliation." Companies have often moved to right-to-work states to avoid strikes; it is part of the calculus every big manufacturer makes. The South Carolina facility is a hedge against the possibility that Boeing’s union work force will shut down production of the Dreamliner. And it’s a perfectly legitimate hedge, at least under the rules that the business thought it was operating under.
That is what is so jarring about this case — and not just for Boeing. Without any warning, the rules have changed. Uncertainty has replaced certainty. Other companies have to start wondering what other rules could soon change. It becomes a reason to hold back on hiring.
When even the staunchly pro-forced unionism New York Times and its columnist most known for calling the Tea Party «terrorists» acknowledge the dangerous precedent President Barack Obama’s NLRB is creating, you know there is a problem.
It’s worth noting that the International Association of Machinists (IAM) union hierarchy actually enjoyed monopoly bargaining control of the South Carolina facility before the Boeing workers removed the union. If IAM union officials can retaliate against companies for locating work in a Right to Work state and against independent-minded employees for choosing to shake off union control, then the rules haven’t just changed for job providers, but also for America’s workforce.
Right to Work: Good for Business, Good for Jobs, and Good for Workers
As reported on the Washington Examiner‘s "Beltway Confidential" blog, Development Counselors International (DCI) recently asked corporate executives and representatives which states they thought were the best to locate for business. As the Examiner notes, America’s job providers overwhelmingly favored states with Right to Work laws.
Of course this should come to no surprise. The results of DCI’s survey largely mirrors that of CNBC 2010 "Best for Business" list, in which states with Right to Work protections for its workers were ranked seven of the top 10 and 10 of the top 15.
But despite the economic benefits business enjoy from Right to Work, the real beneficiaries are America’s independent-minded workers. As the National Institute of Labor Relations Research (NILRR) has found time and again, workers and their families benefit immensely from Right to Work protections: from higher incomes and purchasing power to an increased likelihood of sending their children to college and having private, employment-based health insurance.
And most important of all, workers in Right to Work states get to exercise their fundamental freedom of association — a quintessential American value supported by 80 percent of Americans and even 80 percent of union members.
Worker Speaks Out Against Obama Labor Board Before Congress
In the wake of National Labor Relations Board’s (NLRB) move to kill the only protection workers have against card check forced unionism, the U.S. House Committee on Education and the Workforce held a hearing yesterday about the recent onslaught of the NLRB’s pro-forced unionism rulings as former-Chairwoman Wilma Liebman’s term expired late last month.
Testifying at the hearing was Barbara Ivey, who works at a Portland, Oregon-based IT unit at Kaiser Permanente.
Ivey and 60 of her coworkers were subjected to a Service Employees International Union (SEIU) card check forced unionization campaign (via a neutrality agreement).
Many of Ivey’s coworkers reported that they were misled or pressured by SEIU organizers into signing union cards, and didn’t even know what they meant.
After the SEIU succeeded in gaining enough cards to claim monopoly bargaining privileges over the workers, the workers were told that if they didn’t like it, they could file with the NLRB for a secret-ballot decertification election (per Foundation-won precedent in Dana) to overrule the card check campaign and remove the unwanted union.
After leaning about her rights with the assistance of Foundation staff attorneys, Ivey collected the necessary amount of signatures on a petition for a secret-ballot election. But then, on August 26, 2011, the Obama NLRB overruled the Dana precedent in Lamons Gasket and the election was summarily cancelled.
Now, the employees in the Kaiser IT department are stuck with the SEIU for anywhere from one to four years before they will even have a chance to force a secret-ballot vote (and getting a decertification vote is a major uphill battle for employees who will have campaign against an entrenched union with full-time paid professional organizers).
Yesterday, Ms. Ivey shared with Congress her experiences with the unfairness of card check unionization and the one-sidedness of the Obama NLRB. You can read Barbara Ivey’s testimony by clicking here (pdf).
You can watch the video of the hearing here.
Charter School Teachers and Employees: Know Your Rights!
Today, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has published its newest "Know Your Rights" page, this one geared to charter school teachers and employees who are forced to accept union officials’ "representation," even if the workers want nothing to do with the union.
National Right to Work Foundation staff attorneys compiled a list of rights charter school teachers and employees have in the workplace with the specific goal to enlighten charter school employees that they can make decisions in an atmosphere free of threats, harassment, coercion, or misrepresentation.
The Foundation is also publishing a new brochure (pdf) for workers who want to know more about their rights working in a unionized charter school workplace. You can download the tri-fold brochure here (pdf).
New Fact Sheet Confirms: Right to Work States Benefit from Faster Growth, Better Pay
Regular Freedom@Work readers are already familiar with a growing body of evidence that points to Right to Work states’ superior economic performance. A new fact sheet from the National Institute for Labor Relations Research further bolsters the economic case for worker freedom. The Institute’s findings show that citizens in Right to Work states enjoyed faster growth and more purchasing power than their counterparts in forced unionism states over the past 10 years. Here are a few of the highlights:
Right to Work States Benefit From Faster Growth, Higher Real Purchasing Power – 2011 Update
Percentage Growth in Non-Farm Private-Sector Employees (2000-2010)
Right to Work States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . +0.3%
Forced-Unionism States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . -5.5%
National Average . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . -3.3%
Source: Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS)Percentage Real Growth in Private-Sector Employee Compensation (2000-2010)
Right to Work States . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 11.3%
Forced-Unionism States. . . . . . . . . . . . . . 0.7%
(2000-2010) National Average . . . . . . . . . 4.3%
BEA; BLSCost of Living-Adjusted Compensation Per Private-Sector Employee (2010)
Right to Work States . . . . . . . . . . . . . $56,575
Forced-Unionism States . . . . . . . . . . . $55,420
National Average . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . $55,896
Missouri Economic Research and Information Center (MERIC);
BEA; Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census (BOC)
Right to Work is first and foremost about protecting employee freedom, but the economic performance of Right to Work states is a nice bonus. For more on the economic benefits of Right to Work laws, check out this op-ed from Foundation President Mark Mix in The Washington Examiner.
October/November 2011 Foundation Action Available Online
The October/November issue of the Foundation’s bimonthly newsletter is now available online.
In this issue:
- Obama NLRB Exceeds Legal Authority in Payback to Big Labor
- Foundation Overturns Union Schemes that Forced Nonunion Workers to Subsidize Big Labor’s Radical Political Agenda
- Beyond Boeing: The Obama Labor Board’s Forced-Unionism Agenda
- Connecticut Police Officer Wins Forced Dues Refund
- NLRB Shreds Secret Ballots after Overturning Landmark Foundation-won «Card Check» Precedent
- National Right to Work Labor Day News Round-Up
To view the October/November issue of Foundation Action in full screen, click on the viewer below. Use the left and right arrows to flip from page to page and click on any page to zoom in. Press ESC after you have finished to return to this screen.
Or, to download the newsletter as a PDF, please click here.
