Agitate, America!: ‘Right-to-work’ takes aim at unions
Nancy Churchill
By Nancy Churchill
A Progressive Visionary
Union-bashing is all the conservative rage these days. In an article clearly designed to turn up the heat, George Will (Chicago Tribune, Dec. 16, 2012) claims “resentment of union power has been accumulating like steam in a boiler,” while Republicans enact new “right-to-work” laws in states like Wisconsin and Michigan. The demise of unions is at hand!
Not so fast! The photo accompanying Will’s article shows “Union members from around the country [rallying] … at the Michigan State Capitol … to protest a vote on right-to-work legislation.” Hmmmm. Looks like support, not resentment, of union power! Perhaps “the news of the death of unions has been greatly exaggerated,” to paraphrase Mark Twain.
Businesses are essentially top-down, non-democratic serfdoms, composed of lords at the top, worker-serfs at the bottom and managers in between. Profit is the only driving force, so the less the serfs receive, the more profit rises to the top.
Prior to the last century, workers labored in horrible, hazardous sweatshops with low pay and long hours. Only when workers organized themseves into unions, in the democratic tradition, did conditions improve for workers. Various unions represented members in specific workplaces and industries, but they also lobbied broadly and tirelessly for safety and pay equity laws that benefited workers everywhere. By mid-century, workers had won concessions not even dreamed of a century before: paid vacations, a 40-hour work week, retirement benefits and a minimum wage.
But unions were too successful — worker benefits became too costly, so something had to be done! Employers weren’t daft enough to directly bash their bread and butter, their workers, so they targeted unions instead. Unions must be bankrupted so workers will lose their representation; stripping union power strips worker power. As unions are crushed, so are those benefits once taken for granted.
As for the “right-to-work” campaign, these laws are not designed to end “coerced funding of the Democratic Party,” as Will claims, since the National Labor Relations Act already prohibits coerced funding. “[E]mployees who object to full union membership may continue as ‘core’ members,” it stipulates, “and pay only that share of dues used directly for representation. … Known as objectors, they are no longer full members but are still protected by the union contract.”
The Act requires “core” members to pay for the representation and protection they receive, as they should. Yet, Will calls that a “requirement of paying union dues as a condition of employment.” So, “Right To Work” is needed to force unions to represent non-members free. Who pays for something if they can get it free?
Right-to-work is really a stealth effort to put unions out of business. It’s an anti-democratic assault designed to oppress workers. But widespread public support for unions, on full display in Wisconsin and Michigan, can make the difference in this struggle for worker rights. Union bashers could win a few battles, but ultimately lose the war.
The rights unions protect may be your own!
Highlights of Nancy Churchill’s life are growing up in Congo, Africa, until she was 15, racing stock cars as an adult from 1976 until 2001, and writing as a liberal political junkie since the early ’90s. She lives in Oregon, Ill.
From the Jan. 16-22, 2013, issue
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6 Comments
You should pull your head out of the progressive sand. Daydream all you want, jobs are leaving the U.S., not coming here. The reason is that given the right equipment, people in the third world can produce products every bit as good as those produced here, except for one third of the cost.
Unions have priced American workers out of the market. Union teachers have helped us drop to 17th educationally.
Interesting that around 60% of unionized teachers in Wisconsin dropped out of the union after Scott Walker stood up to them.
Also interesting to note that Illinois continues to plummet towards failue thanks to our leaders refusal to tand up to the unions and fix our pension system.
Union are dying in the United States. Their last gasp is trying to unionize Government Workers and food service people….the people most easily replaced.
I’ve been a hard worker for over 40 years, have never held a Union job and have always been treated right. Now the job I am at is being harrassed by Union Workers. Our delivery trucks are followed and we are harrassed at our customers job sites. In turn it is costing us business. The customer chooses to buy from us, non-union, to keep cost down so they can afford to pay their union workers. These parasites that are following us to job sites are just that, parasites. They need to be squished like a bug and put out of business. I do not wish harm to any human being, I only wish each human would hold in there mind “how would I feel if someone was intentionally making my life hell like I am doing right now”. The union workers we are having to deal with are going to hell for the pain & suffering they are causing several people in our jobs. Unfortunately they will have to die in order to reap what is coming to them. God is not on their side.
Right on John.
Ms. Churchill
Below is an article from AP. What is obama doing to help those teachers,firefighters, & public employees? FOOD STAMPS, 99 WEEKS UNEMPLOYMENT? WHAT ABOUT THE KIDS?
Do you think the teachers would work without the union taking their money so they could have a job?
“WASHINGTON (AP) — Union membership plummeted
last year to the lowest level since the 1930s as cash-strapped state and local governments shed workers and unions had difficulty organizing new members in the private sector despite signs of an improving economy.
Overall membership fell by about 400,000 workers to 14.4 million, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. More than half the loss, about 234,000, came from government workers including teachers, firefighters and public administrators.”
Unions helped all workers get better pay, benefits, and working conditions, 80 years go. Now they just protect the lazy. They make things cost more than they should. I get sick of seeing the “rat squad” picketing construction jobs where the owner chose lower cost, more efficient non-union workers.
The man who said to get our heads out of the sand is a Baboon. Jobs have left the country for years now, the unions didn’t start that. An Equal employment government & the new CEO corparate greed is most of the reason. The constitution says were created equal, which is true, but at age 2 that ends. Our parents, relatives, teachers, government, & employers start teaching what they think is right. Plus our own personality comes out. From that time forward no one really thinks they’re equal to their nieghbors. Some of us get to know their nieghbors & find out their ok, most today don’t. I always was taught to work with a very good work ethic, I worked myself to be were my equal was, which we all decide. This “bulls__t” about opportunity, I worked starting in 1965 at 10. I worked with Americans that were of Mexican, African, & other ancestory. We use to have to start at the bottom. Today were so equal most what to start at the middle. Now we let Illegal Aliens start there that come from countries that never had our values, morasls, or work ethics. Our work goes there for many years now, becaus ethey can fire someone who doesn’t or can’t do the job, & pay them dirt so they make more money.
Before you dismiss unions, look at history before they started. 7 day work weeks, 12-16 hour days, legal child slavery, no overtime, business owner’s making safety rules, no days off, most were given Sunday, because the owner usually was religious, no breaks, short lunch at your work station, maybe vacation (most none), no minimiun wage, & the right to fire anyone for any reason. If you stayed 50 years you may get a gold watch, most didn’t.
I would pull your head out of the sand but it isn’t even there, it’s in a darker place that I don’t even want to go to. We owe unions 40 hour 5 day work weeks, decent break & lunch times, child labor laws, vacation time, sick days, pensions & retirement packages, safer working conditions, overtime, miniumin wages, & a better quality of life. What’s even sad is that most people that were never in a union, reciebved similar things from union negotiations, especailly mangement. “Oh” remember negotiations, companies start by offering next to nothing. I was a required member of my union & didn’t agree with everything they wanted, but I had a vote on my officials ever election. Like most people with their heads in some hole, you only look at what you want to see & make comments with any knowledge or common sense. That’s what they want to do, so keep your head there. So we an all be were your at.
By the way look at right to work when you look at welfare. Look at Illegal Aliens, our own people are capable to cut grass, trim bushes, shovel & plow snow, wash dishes, bus tables, & do anything that they do. Why would you, when you make more by sitting on your “A__”? We need the right to work our way from the bottom & work to were our equal is, that’s where you start.
One more thing to think about, why do politicians act like their in a union. They get much more then us, any union offical, & get much from corprations.