Right to Work Blog

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.’”

The effort to defend and restore worker’s rights is often won incrementally in state legislatures and courthouses across America. The National Right to Work Committee and its sister organization, the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation, fight to protect workers from the injustice of forced unionism wherever and whenever workers need protection. Workers in Phoenix, Arizona won’t be coerced to pay union dues, thanks in part to the effort of the National Right to Work Foundation.

Determined to undermine AZ’s Right to Work statue, local 2384 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and the AFL-CIO argued that the city should deduct a percentage of dues, perhaps up to 80%, from the paychecks of non-union members “since the union was working for all the employees in the “bargaining unit,” regardless of membership. The city of Phoenix, to its credit, refused to insert this outrageous demand into its contract with the union.

The matter ended up in court where a judge ruled in the city’s favor. Refusing to take “no” for an answer, the local Bosses appealed the decision, and the State Court of Appeals concluded just last week that the proposals were “impermissible under Arizona’s constitution and right to work statues.”

Judge Lawrence Winthrop, writing for the unanimous three-judge panel, said the concept, known as so-called “fair share,” better called forced fees, would violate the constitution. He said the “clear intent” of voters in approving the Right to Work amendment “was to ensure the freedom of workers to choose whether to join and participate in a union.”

“Allowing the proposed ‘fair share’ fee would be contrary to the intent voiced by Arizona citizens because it would essentially render meaningless the distinction between union membership and non-membership,” Winthrop explained. “Nonmembers would be forced to contribute to, and thus support, the union.”

Union officials crying over the loss could fix the problem in a “New York Minute” – by only representing those workers who voluntarily ask for help. When presented with this option, it is the union elite who slam the table and threaten political death to politicians who might help. They know the secret to their monopoly power is very simple: force workers under their monopoly control and then complain about the burden and ask for relief (forced payment of union dues or fees as a condition of employment).

Not this time and not in Arizona.

Chalk one up for the good guys.