In 1978, when I was 17, I worked as an usher at concerts and sporting events, earning $2.25 an hour, minimum wage. I had to give back about 15 cents of this meager hourly wage to the union I was forced to join. I could never understand what the union did to lend a hand me when the company had a legal obligation to pay me $2.25. I was furious about the confiscation rule by union bosses I had never met.
I wanted to leave the union but was told I had to pay dues to keep my job. Shouldn’t there be a law against this kind of coercion?
It actually exists. It’s called the First Amendment. The right to association is not expressly mentioned in the Bill of Rights. Yet the courts established this “fundamental right” – ironically – in 1958 in the landmark Supreme Court case NAACP v. Alabama. Most importantly, the courts have held that “the First Amendment protects the right to associate and the right not to associate.”
I thought about this as I watched the viral video of Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat, on the House floor sharply criticizing Republicans for opposing the Protecting the Right to Organize Act, which would force tens of millions to join a union.
“God forbid that we pass anything that will help the damned workers in the United States of America,” he fumed. “We’re talking about giving people the right to organize, you (Republicans) are complaining.”
The left regarded him as the champion of the little boy. But wait, Congressman. No one is saying that trade unions shouldn’t exist or that they shouldn’t be able to organize. I would be first in line to defend their First Amendment right to do so.
But let’s be clear: this bill does not allow people to form trade unions. This forces them to join a union. In other words, it violates the First Amendment right of millions of workers not to belong to a union.
In 27 states, voters passed right-to-work laws that prohibit forced union participation. These provisions are popular with voters and workers. Mark Mix, chairman of the National Right to Work Committee, which defends the rights of nonunion workers, said that “almost every attempt by Big Labor to repeal RTW laws and create ‘closed shops’ has been soundly defeated on the ballot or in state legislatures.” That’s why union bosses are running to Congress.
There are good reasons why blue-collar workers may not want to join a union. Corruption in the Grand Labor Party is so rampant, with union bosses drawing high six-figure salaries, throwing events and spending union dues on trips to Hawaii and the Caribbean, that workers have said they want out. Unions also contribute tens of millions of dollars in employee dues to Democratic politicians. In many unions, as many as half of rank-and-file workers are not even Democratic supporters. These are Republicans voting for Trump.
High-performing workers also do not want to be covered by “collective” bargaining agreements because they want to receive raises above the wages of low-performing and work-shirking workers. EU rules often make it impossible for productive workers to receive raises, just as teachers’ unions make it almost impossible to fire underperforming teachers.
For some reason, millions have voluntarily decided that they do not want to be part of a union. How does Ryan lend a hand them by taking away their freedom of choice, which is another core principle that I believe Democrats believe in?
Don’t forget the convenient reason why workers in right-to-work states don’t want Washington telling them they have to throw themselves into the arms of their union bosses. Right-to-work states are workplaces. Right-to-work countries create about twice as many novel jobs as compulsory union countries. Right-to-work countries created three times as many manufacturing jobs as compulsory union countries. America hasn’t lost auto jobs. Jobs left states like Michigan, Ohio, and New York for free states like Texas, Tennessee, Florida, and Alabama.
That raises a final question for Ryan and his Democratic House colleagues, almost all of whom voted for the Protecting the Right to Organize Act. Instead of forcing states like Florida, South Carolina, and Utah to adopt policies that have economically crippled New York, Illinois, and New Jersey, why not encourage workers’ freedom policies that are standard in high-economic states.
Workers should think about this: If all 50 states become union states, where will the jobs go next? Probably China and Mexico.
