In drafting my latest Labor Film of the Week diary, a stray thought came to mind about so-called “right to work” laws. “Right to work” is an anti-union concept I’m sure a great many Daily Kos readers are already somewhat familiar with. I am no legal expert, and I invite corrections and clarifications as always, but I will briefly summarize the gist of it for the benefit of those who are not very familiar with these laws.
Basically, the Wagner act grants the right to Americans, employed at a given facility, to organize and vote in order to form a union. Such a facility could be a hotel, a factory, a school, a mine, a hospital, a call center, a municipal maintenance shop, or a grocery store just to name a few examples.
That’s the good part.
The Taft-Hartley Act states that it is, in every case without exception, the obligation of a union to represent and advocate in good faith for each employee working under a collective bargaining agreement.
Sounds pretty good so far, but just wait.
Taft-Hartley goes on to say that it is the option of each state to formally grant workers at these facilities the right to join, or to not join the union.
Wait. So an employee has the option to not join a union that is obliged to represent them regardless? So what about union dues?
As for union dues, Taft-Hartley states that a union may collect an “agency fee” from non-members it represents.
Oh, so willful non-membership is essentially moot political speech in terms of cost in representing these employees?
Wrong.
Taft-Hartley also gives the states the option of allowing or not allowing the collection of agency fees from non-union members.
See the problem here? It’s economics. Why pay for something you can get for free? As much as I curse the memory the greedy men who conceived this unfair abomination, I must give these evil geniuses credit for understanding how to weaponize human nature against itself. A special place in hell for those who voted to make it law as well, btw.
There are 27 “right to work states,” each having such laws as stand alone legislative statutes, or as formal constitutional provisions. The original 4 “right to work states,” Arkansas, Florida, Arizona and Nebraska, all have such constitutional provisions that predate the Taft-Hartley Act. Enactment of these laws by the states began in 1944, and continued as late as 2017. The majority of these states did not allow the collection of agency fees from non-union members the union represents. The 2018 US Supreme Court decision in Janus v. AFSCME found the collection of such fees unconstitutional.
Despite its true purpose, to ultimately destroy workers rights, the “right to work” is falsely presented in its very name as being all about workers rights. “Right to work” is classic republican bullshit.
So what can be done?
At the risk of oversimplification, narrowly defined, there are two models of unions; I call them “plant” unions and “craft” unions. I have belonged to unions of both models, but my chosen career involves membership in a craft union. There are many differences between these two basic types of unions, and a detailed explanation of the differences is a lengthy diary in itself. A quick example is that teachers, factory production workers, hospital workers and the like have plant unions, whereas electricians, painters and plumbers have craft unions. Plant unions represent workers with “permanent” employment, generally in one or a few locations with one employer, whereas craft unions represent those performing inherently temporary work within a given geographic jurisdiction with multiple employers signatory. The point is that plant unions are very vulnerable to “right-to-work” laws, whereas craft unions are functionally immune.
What is heartbreaking here is that there is little that can be lent from one union model to fortify the other. At the risk of making a value judgement, it comes down to quantity vs. quality. A plant union is reliant on numbers, and in a “right-to-work” state, that means the percentage of employees who choose to join the union must remain viable, mostly in order to be seen as the legitimate voice of the affected employees at the bargaining table, but also in some cases for survival of the union itself as that voice.
It was an upfront provision of Wisconsin’s “right-to-work” legislation, effective as of 2015, that public sector union workers vote periodically to re-certify their standing as the negotiating body representing affected workers. Conversely, although Iowa has been a “right-to-work” state since 1947, this provision is the result of very recent legislation. Given this viability threshold, it behooves these unions to protect every member as best they can, and unfortunately, sometimes even those otherwise not worth having. Conversely, a craft union only wants the best people who are able to learn and perform the skilled work better than the non-union competition. If a member is messing up, and shows no inclination to improve, a craft union can and will be the first to show that member the door, and it is in their best interest to do so. Both are systems run by humans, prone to incumbent human failings, and both have plenty of past mistakes they work to rectify, but again, that’s the oversimplified difference.
What it really all comes down to the contract language, and what labor and management can agree to. The specific expertise and training that a craft union can provide is why management agrees to labor having an equal say in who they hire. This is an economic incentive that a plant union has little or no mechanism of offering in return for such a say in the matter. Although it is illegal to not hire someone based on union affiliation, or suspicion of an inclination to affiliate with a union, it happens all the time, at both non-unionized and unionized places, but for reasons stated otherwise of course.
There is a less tangible, but potentially an equally effective way that I myself experienced success in lending from the craft union model to help fortify the plant union model to help fortify the later. Early on, I got very interested in the organizing aspect of my craft union. One way that we take on new members is by “organizing” non-union workers who do the same work. As the opportunities present themselves, we talk to non-union workers as friends, respectfully as dignified equals, and share the advantages of membership, comparing and contrasting with the disadvantages of non-membership. Should they choose to join, and many do, there may be some remedial training needed, but it is a way we take on new members that we stand to benefit from representing, just as they stand to benefit from representation.
When I first became interested in union organizing, I asked a long time organizer for some advice. Like so many younger people though, in sometimes asking for advice, I was really asking for confirmation of what I already assumed. I was looking some kind of “wrap,” the magic words I could include in a one size fits all pitch; a prepared script I could rattle off to any person I could potentially convince to join the union. There’s no such wrap for the building trades, and over the years improved in the right way of doing it, which is just talking to people, making friends, learning their stories, and most importantly collecting those stories to recall to the next person I talk to about joining the union. Even better, I made it a habit to ask members who have already been organized about their experiences too. It really is a case by case approach with only the tiniest anecdotal similarities between one potential union member and another that can be the thing that makes the difference in any given case. It is the most effective and rewarding way I have been able to help organize members, in order to help themselves out of situations where they were being exploited.
How then can this be adapted to a worker already employed at the same unionized facility who for whatever reason is not a union member, and there is not much direct economic incentive to join? And how do I have practical experience adapting it anyway?
You see, my particular craft union experience always involved a lot of time on the road away from home. Weary of this, I took a “sabbatical,” taking on employment closer to home. The rules I made for myself making this decision was that I would not perform any work that would be done as a member of my craft union, and wherever I chose to be employed, it had to be unionized, or ripe for unionization. Also, instead of taking what is called a “withdrawal,” where I would not be obliged to pay monthly dues to my craft union as an active member is required, for my own reasons, I opted to continue paying into the craft union I served my apprenticeship in as if I were still an active member. You might call it “guilt,” or a reflection of how sure I was about doing this. Anyway, I took a position at a manufacturing plant, which is very different than doing construction. I don’t regret trying something different, and I even learned some skills I otherwise would not have acquired, but in the end I chose to go back to construction. It’s who and what I am, what I’m good at and what I love doing.
While I was there, however, there were plenty of employees who for many reasons chose not to be part of the union. Remember, this is a right-to-work state, which is why they had that option to begin with, and why, despite this choice, they were still represented by the union in various dealings with management, and earned the same negotiated wages and benefits. It was not a large facility, and the contract affected under 50 employees.
Given my background and values, I had a natural inclination to encourage union membership. Again, the founders of the “right-to-work” concept (may they burn in hell) understood human nature, and that certain people may be inclined to not pay for a product of service they may have for free, even if it is the right thing to do. That’s what it all came down to though, it is indeed the right thing to do, buy why? I would need to convincingly explain why, and a history lesson would not cut it. It was only after I had their attention that I could explain why not joining the union is exactly what they want, so eventually there is no union, which is the only reason we have these fair wages and benefits in the first place. Is saving a lousy $10 a week in union dues worth losing the union that allows us to easily afford that pittance? When we negotiate a new contract, don’t you think that the first thing management looks at is how many employees pay into the union, and take that as a measure of how serious we are? These are arguments that do not always ring effectively true in unperceptive ears though. How do I make those ears receptive?
I was so disinclined to the idea of a “wrap” that it took me a bit to consider one, but the funny thing is that ended up being the best answer! I thus concocted a parable of sorts, and it went something like this:
Imagine, there is a community that lives on a hill.
In the middle of that community is a cistern, where they keep their drinking water.
The water comes from the river at the base of the hill.
The water must be carried up the hill, and poured into the cistern.
“Everyone may drink the water.” This is the community’s law.
Some carry more than they drink up the hill.
Some carry only what they drink up the hill.
Some carry less than what they drink up the hill.
And some do not carry water up the hill at all, but drink their fill just the same.
Which member of this community are you?
This is not original thinking, it is merely a spin on the “free rider” problem. Nonetheless, this ended up being the key that unlocked a different way of thinking about joining the union, about the value of doing so, and how their coworkers see them when they fail to do so. Some were indeed motivated by greed, as “right-to-work” laws are designed to excuse, but only after hearing it this way were they open to further understanding the real cost of such selfishness. Others, having no knowledge of unions beyond stereotypes were made open to understanding their real benefit and purpose. One person had even been overlooked, and according to them had never even been approached about joining, in their estimation, due to their reputation as a mild rwnj, and assumed they were just being excluded.
I would always mercifully diffuse the effect my parable of the hill community almost always had of catching the listener off guard by ending with the friendly assurance that it was a rhetorical question. I used that brief period of relief to then tailor my argument in a personal way relevant to who I was talking to. For some, torturing the metaphor of the story a little was in order, asking how long before, and what happens when the cistern runs dry? For others, I cut straight to the facts. The number of employees who pay into the union and for how long before contract time adds to our bargaining power so we can all get a better deal. By selfishly not paying a pittance in union dues, this plays favorably into the long game of “right-to-work,” that gives false incentive for workers to destroy their own best means of getting a fair shake.
My brother in law was the head shop steward at this facility. I take no personal credit for the following, I only did what I could to help. In the end it was each individual’s choice. I asked my brother in law what the union participation rate at our plant was when I started, and he said just over 50%. In the two years I was there, and by the time I left to go back to doing construction, I asked him again. It had risen to nearly 95%! This is reliably red area, a town of less than 5,000 in a county of less than 15,000. Again, I neither claim or deserve any personal credit, but I am glad nonetheless.
Also, I came in and left during the same contract period, so I never personally voted on a contract there, but when it came time for a new contract after I left, because of that increased participation, they did not do too bad for themselves. A long-despised provision in the health insurance plan was done away with, and this was with an initial assertion by management that health insurance matters were “not negotiable.” A hated, unfair time-off rule was satisfactorily revised. The company agreed to match 401k contributions 15% more than it had before, and hourly wages would be increased 21% over the three year period of the contract, and all in return for keeping up the good work! Nothing was given up, all thanks to a little solidarity. I was so proud of them!
Okay, that’s great and everything, but how do we finally WIN against “right-to-work,” how do we kill it?
Well, that was the stray thought that I mentioned at the beginning of this diary. Props to whoever is still reading, btw. Again, I am no legal expert, but somehow this “right-to-work” concept needs to be likened to the faulty concept of “sovereign citizenship.” It is a rabbit hole I have only briefly peeked into, so as always, feel free to correct, clarify or add anything. Put simply, a so-called “sovereign citizen” is not subject to federal income tax on the grounds that such a tax is a violation their rights as as a “sovereign citizen,” and those who choose to pay income tax only do so voluntarily. The first time I ever heard about this, I could not help but comparing it to the “right-to-work” argument, where a worker, free to apply to go to work anywhere, and chooses a unionized workplace, is not obliged to pay union dues because it supposedly violates their “right to work.” And lets not pretend the “right-to-work” bullshit would have ever been concocted had unions favored republican politics, which is foolish on its face.
To date, the US Supreme Court has not heard any sovereign citizen cases, but the lower courts have heard many, and have uniformly ruled against the theory. Surely these rendered decisions contain some sort of adaptable precedent that could be used against “right-to-work,” given their similarities in rationale. I wonder though, given the anti-government sentiments the (formerly “extreme”) mainstream right wing has embraced, pursuing a course of action such as this could conceivably backfire in a nightmare scenario making “right-to-work” and “sovereign citizenship” the supreme law of the land. I hope someone has a better idea.