Why right to work is wrong

AP photo

Groups like the National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) will tell anyone who will listen how awful they think unions are for businesses and why right to work legislation is so great. It should be noted that the NFIB is a biased source.

 That doesn’t mean their information is inherently wrong – it just means it should be questioned. On unions they are only giving you half of the story. Contrary to what business groups would have you believe, the formation of unions isn’t some Communist process. The members of a given organization must vote to unionize – and that vote is majority rule vote just like the rest of our democracy. If the union is failing its members the members can vote at anytime to decertify the union. Making a special exemption in democracy to allow some union members to receive all of the benefits of union representation without having to pay for it is not democratic.

Ironically, Republicans can’t stand when citizens “don’t pay any taxes” while still receiving the benefits of roads, police, and military. Yet when it comes to getting higher pay, insurance, and a safe workplace being a freeloader is just fine with them.

And while being “forced” to pay to work is clearly unconstitutional, these same groups don’t seem to care about being forced to pay to live where you want. If you live in a subdivision where you are forced to pay an “association due” in exchange for “services” you cannot refuse to pay simply because you “don’t see any value in” the association.

Perhaps your homeowners association is misusing the money as in California where association dues were given to a political action committee against the wishes of the residents. Or in Oregon where some $2 millions in dues went missing.

Abuses like this are part of the rationale for ending the “forced” pay to unions so why should HOAs be exempt?

But this is always the problem with groups like the NFIB. They pretend that unions can do no right and businesses can do no wrong. The truth is eliminating unions doesn’t eliminate abuses, corruption, or top officials living high on the hog. It just shifts the beneficiaries.

If conservative rhetoric is correct and union members earn more than their private sector counterparts, then cases like school bus services, private prisons, and contracted TSA agents – that all cost more than the corresponding public sector entity – show that union leadership is taking less of the public’s money than the top brass in the private sector.

And this is the hypocrisy of the Republican Party. They are for fleecing U.S. citizens if that money goes to private corporations who donate 15 times as much money to political campaigns as labor unions.

Republicans continue to game the system not because they believe in choice, value propositions, or economic benefits. No, it is a scam to win elections and further weaken the power of the working class, thus concentrating the wealth of the nation at the top, under the fallacy of job creators.

The reality is unions are the best tool available to the working class to close the income gap while guaranteeing basic human needs of health and safety. Unions may not be perfect – but the Republican “solution” of lowering working class wages and increasing taxpayer costs to pad the pockets of top contributors is worse.