Right to Work Blog

Last week Minnesota radio talk show host and occasional guest host for the Rush Limbaugh Show, Jason Lewis discussed forced unionism and worker freedoms with National Right To Work President Mark Mix. The Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation has the episode available on its site, link here.

Chicago’s Fran Eaton calls the effects of forced unionism as she sees it:

Just when that house begins to teeter is when the bullies really get mean and desperate. We’re seeing that now at the federal level. Unions want to strip away workers’ right to privacy when they vote on unionizing. The federal “Card Check” legislation will strip away secret balloting for workers.  

“OK, everyone who wants me to be in charge, raise your hands,” imagine the bully shouting on the playground with his trusted goons standing on either side.

Instead, union thugs hike demands and press taxpayers for more under the guise of better education for the kids and compassionate welfare for the state’s helpless. The Illinois Education Association and the Service Employees International Union then have the guts to use those confiscated tax dollars to run radio ads and demand more tax increases.

It gets worse.

In Illinois, only union workers can build bridges, schools or roads. While only 43 percent of Illinois construction workers are in unions, impeached Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s Executive Order 13 made it impossible for non-union crews to bid on state-funded construction projects.

Recently, President Barack Obama signed a similar order for federally-funded plans.

It’s simply a choice between freedom and coercion, National Right to Work’s Mark Mix said Monday during a private meeting in Chicago. “We’re not against unions, we’re just for people being given the choice whether or not they want to belong,” Mix said. “Freedom always works best.”

Mix is an average-sized guy, and one who would surprise you for being gutsy enough to stir up the idea that union bullies should be challenged in Illinois. Mix is the type of guy you always admired for his backbone but who also made you feel a little ashamed you weren’t quite as brave.

Mix, though, has been part of several statewide victories over the past few years and thinks Illinois needs to challenge statewide union tyranny. Twenty-two states are now “Right to Work” states, including nearby Ohio and neighboring Iowa. Indiana is right on the verge of joining their ranks.

“When the cost of government is less, the cost of living is less, and companies find those states more desirable to build new businesses and bring in more jobs,” Mix said.

National Right to Work Foundation attorneys filed suit in United States District Court for an employee forced to pay unjustifiable fees by Teamsters officials at a Luzerne County government office.  See the National Right To Work Legal Defense Foundation’s release.

“Giving union officials free reign to deduct money from workers’ paychecks is an open invitation to abuse,” said Stefan Gleason, vice president of the National Right to Work Foundation. “Enacting a Pennsylvania Right to Work law to make union dues fully voluntary is the only way to ensure employees are protected from avaricious union bosses.”

Iowa State Rep. Ralph Watts is reporting that opposition to gutting the state Right to Work law is so intense that even the so-called compromise proposal that would “just” force all public employees to pay union fees or dues, leaving private sector employees alone — for now — is getting

. . . more opposition than any other bill in the five years I have been in the House, and rightly so.

We must let the Democrat leadership in the state know “they ain’t seen nothing yet.”

Don’t let up.

Iowa readers should continue to contact their state representatives — immediately.

Big Labor’s efforts to carve up the rights of Iowa workers have hit a major road block — the massive outpouring of opposition by the citizens of Iowa — in the state House. The Des Moines Register notes that:

Democratic leaders in the Iowa House unexpectedly postponed Thursday’s “fair share” [sic] debate after meeting in private for four hours and concluding they no longer had enough votes to pass the bill.

Word in the halls was Democrat leaders and the union bosses were putting incredible pressure on several Democrat representatives to vote to make government employees second class citizens and essentially compelling them to join a union. They need to hear from you.

Tell them NO to forced unionism in Iowa.

Right to Work supporters are making a difference in Iowa. The effort by union officials to destroy Iowa’s Right to Work Law is taking on water.

Forcing workers to join or pay union dues or fees as a condition of getting or keeping a job is just plain wrong.

Your phone calls, emails and faxes are working in Iowa! The Messenger News of Fort Dodge, Iowa reports that:

Legislators serving Webster County have mixed feelings about the bill. But most of them agree that the concept may be doomed.

There are not enough votes, even among union-friendly Democratic lawmakers, to pass it, according to Sen. Daryl Beall, D-Fort Dodge.

He described the debate . . . as ‘‘a lot of hoopla about something that’s not going to happen.’’

How the landscape has changed, thanks to you. We need to keep up the pressure.

Iowa high school teacher and coach, Todd Forret, has published an excellent op-ed opposing efforts to gut the state’s Right to Work Law that’s worth a look.

David Yepsen is Iowa’s most prominent political reporter. He has been following the attempt by the Democrat majority in the state house to repeal the state’s Right to Work law. He recently issued a warning to Democrats — tamper with the law at your own peril:

Throughout modern Iowa political history, the right-to-work issue has been a shoal that has wrecked many a Democratic ship.

History may be repeating itself this year. Efforts by organized labor to change this law could cost Democrats seats in the next election, just as it has in past campaigns.

Some background: Iowa law says you don’t have to join a labor union to get or keep a job. That has been a fixture of the Iowa Code since the 1940s. Polls show overwhelming support for such worker freedom.

Unions hate it. Since they are a big piece of the Democrats’ organizational machinery, their position often puts the party’s candidates in a bind:

Support repeal of right to work to keep the unions happy, and you anger about 80 percent of the electorate, plus prompt business interests to donate big money to your opponent. But oppose repeal of right to work, and you upset powerful unions whose dollars and shoe leather you need for your campaign.

The inability to juggle these two conflicting forces is one reason Democrats have elected so few governors and legislators. The last time Democrats controlled the governorship, the House and the Senate was in 1965. They lost the House in 1966 and the governorship and Senate in 1968. One reason was they messed around trying to repeal right to work, and Republicans had an issue to use against them.

So how do Democrats balance these conflicting forces? This year, the unions started pushing something called “fair share.” Instead of repealing right to work, they said they’d just ask that non-union workers be required to pay a fee to the union for services the union provides them, like representation in a grievance proceeding.

It sounds more reasonable. Gubernatorial candidate Chet Culver endorsed the idea at the state labor convention in Waterloo. So did many other Democratic candidates.

But now, lawyers and others trying to craft the legislation to enact it are discovering that they can’t do it without gutting part of the right-to-work law. (That law also says it’s illegal to collect “dues, charges, fees, contributions, fines or assessments to any labor union, labor association or labor organization” as a condition of employment.)

Labor is saying, “You promised fair share.” Democratic legislators are saying, “You didn’t tell us we’d have to gut the right-to-work law to do it.” Labor replies: “So what’s wrong with that?”

Tempers are rising. Unions are losing money and members and think they need this change to survive. Last week, a group of about 70 labor leaders met with key Democrats at a downtown Des Moines hotel to insist on the change.

Democratic leaders say they won’t buckle. They say while many Democratic candidates from marginal and rural districts endorsed fair share, they also said they would not repeal the right-to-work law. For them to vote for a fair-share bill that “notwithstands” portions of the right-to-work law to do it would be political suicide back home.

So, there is talk some of these “traitors” will get primaries from labor unions over this.

How dumb can labor be? For unions to take down some of these newcomers in primaries – and replace them with Democratic candidates on record for repealing right to work – would assure Republicans recapture control of the Iowa House in 2008.

There are some halfway measures. Democrats are researching the possibility of a fair-share requirement for teachers and other public employees.

But even the discussion is taking a toll. Some in the economic-development game are saying the mere talk of a repeal is hurting their efforts to recruit new businesses to Iowa. GOP leader Chris Rants has started hammering it. Key business-lobby groups are mobilizing and raising money.

It’s time for the leaders in the House of Labor to fold on this one. They must realize right to work is settled law – and settled politics – in Iowa.

There are a lot of other things this new Democratic majority could do for the workers of Iowa in the coming years – if that majority isn’t smashed on the rocks of right to work.

Statehouse Democrats in Iowa seem ready to move against the state’s Right to Work Law. According to an article by Chris Dorsey of IowaPolitics.com, “Assistant Senate Minority Leader Jeff Angelo, R-Creston, said Friday [January 26, 2007] at a meeting with community leaders in Osceola that such a bill could be introduced in the Senate Business and Labor Committee later next week.”

The proposal will likely include language, which would require non-union workers to pay union dues or fees as a condition of employment. No matter what the politicians call it –it is destroying Iowa’s Right to Work Law.

“‘We say we are a Right to Work state and that has brought jobs here,’ Angelo said. He added tinkering with a law that has been on the Iowa books since the 1940s is not a good policy.

“Assistant House Majority Leader Mike Reasoner, D-Creston, said he has heard talk of a proposed bill, but didn’t know any particulars of the language. With Democrats in control of the Legislature and governor’s office for the first time since 1964 there is a sense of enthusiasm among Democrats to take an active leadership role, Reasoner said.

“‘There are folks, labor unions, who think with Democrats in control that it is time to do something,’ Reasoner said. ‘There is no bill out there, but a bill could come down soon. Right now, I would be hard pressed to repeal the right to work law.’”

Contact your representatives immediately and tell them — Don’t Touch Iowa’s Right to Work Law!

(Since penning this article, Big Labor’s bill, S.S.B. 1120, to gut Iowa’s Right to Work Law was introduced in the Iowa General Assembly.)

With the legislature convening next week, Iowans are preparing for a frontal assault on its worker protections afforded by the state’s Right to Work Law.

Governor-elect Chet Culver has vowed to sign into law any forced-unionism legislation that reaches his desk and Big Labor is pressing the Democrat House and Senate to give him an opportunity. As readers know, workers in states without Right to Work protections can be fired if they don’t pay union dues or fees.

Just the threat of changing the law is already having an impact on jobs in the state. House Minority Leader Christopher Rants said that efforts to repeal or modify Iowa’s Right to Work Law could drive away at least one prospective employer looking to expand in Sioux City.

According to the Sioux City Journal, “Rants said he has been asked not to divulge details about the company that local officials are courting. In a meeting with the Quad-City Times editorial board Tuesday, the Republican House leader described the company as a ‘hot prospect’ that ‘definitely would go away if Iowa no longer is a right-to-work state.’

“‘I have been told that it’s a company that is very interested in whether or not Iowa is a right-to-work state,’ Rants said in an interview later in the day with the Journal. ‘They’re not looking to expand in places that aren’t.’”