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We at the National Right to Work Committee are fighting at many levels to protect America's working men and women's right to decide for themselves whether or not a union deserves their financial support.
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Letter to Narragansett Times
FOR RELEASE: March 1, 2001
Letters to the Editor
Narragansett Times
187 Main Street
Wakefield, RI 02879-3504
Via Fax: 401-783-5610
Dear Letters Editor,
So eager is Scott Molloy to find fault with Right to Work supporters (Viewpoint, February 7), he even excoriates us for following the common practice of capitalizing "Big Labor"!
Good grief. Private-sector unions take in $5 billion annually just in dues and "fees" workers are forced to pay as a job condition.
AFL-CIO bosses are heads of an empire with 66 international and thousands of state and local union subsidiaries.
By AFL-CIO officials' own account, the share of their revenue that is poured into federal electioneering and lobbying is at least 75 times greater than the share of corporate ("Big Business") revenue that goes into such activities.
If that doesn't justify the label "Big Labor," Mr. Malloy, pray tell what would?
Mr. Malloy goes on to scold anyone who would question union officials' "right" to collect forced dues from nonmembers who don't want "exclusive" union representation, never asked for it, and have a well-founded belief that they do not benefit from it.
After all, he says, everyone has to pay taxes.
However, Mr. Molloy surely knows that in a constitutional republic like the U.S., only a sovereign national, state or local government has the legitimate authority to tax citizens.
Our Founding Fathers saw the taxation power as a necessary evil to be wielded prudently only by public officials.
Politicians cannot licitly delegate taxation power to union officials in exchange for campaign cash and "in-kind" support such as union phone banks and get-out-the-vote drives.
But when union officials, aided by Congress and state legislatures, force employees to pay union dues or "fees," or be fired, they are effectively collecting taxes for a private organization.
It is pure cynicism for a private organization to invoke "majority rule" as a rationale for forcing nonmembers to join or fork over financial support.
Mr. Malloy concludes his letter by inviting the Right to Work Committee to send a spokesman to Rhode Island for a debate with him on the Right to Work issue.
I am glad to accept.
But since Mr. Molloy seems confident a debate with me will benefit the forced-unionism cause for which he is a cheerleader, I request that he or union officials with whom he is chummy pay for my plane ticket.
Sincerely,
Stan Greer
Director of News and Information
National Right to Work Committee®
cc: Scott Molloy, Ph.D.