As a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, Big Labor has long embraced “the necessity for coercion”

On February 1, 2012, By NRTW Committee Staff

Jeff Jacoby, a columnist for The Boston Globe, blasts Big Labor’s “shameless pretext” for fighting without abandon against Right To Work Freedom:

SOON — PERHAPS AS EARLY AS TODAY — Gov. Mitch Daniels will sign legislation making Indiana the nation’s 23rd right-to-work state. Labor unions angrily oppose the change, but their opposition has no legitimate or principled basis.

State right-to-work laws, authorized by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, are not anti-union. They are pro-choice: They protect workers from being forced to join or pay fees to a labor union as a condition of keeping a job. In non-right-to-work states, employees who work in a “union shop” are compelled to fork over part of each paycheck to a labor organization — even if they want nothing to do with unions, let alone to be represented by one. Laws like the one Indiana is poised to enact simply make union support voluntary. Hoosiers can’t be required to kick back part of their wages to the Republican Party or the Methodist Church or the Animal Liberation Front; the new measure will ensure that they don’t have to give a cut of everything they earn to labor unions, either.

Most Americans regard compulsory unionism as unconscionable. In a new Rasmussen survey, 74 percent of likely voters say non-union workers should not have to pay dues against their will. Once upon a time, labor movement giants like Samuel Gompers, a founder of the American Federation of Labor, agreed. “I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty — the principles of voluntarism,” declared Gompers in his last speech to the AFL in 1924. “No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.” Those words can be seen chiseled on Gompers’s memorial in Washington, DC.

So as a matter of by-any-means-necessary expediency, it is easy to understand why Big Labor long ago embraced what liberal scholar Robert Reich (who served as Bill Clinton’s secretary of labor) dubbed “the necessity for coercion.” In order “to maintain themselves,” Reich said in 1985, “unions have got to have some ability to strap their members to the mast.” Or, as Don Corleone might have put it, to make them an offer they can’t refuse.

But is there any ethical reason — any honorable basis — for the union shop? (more…)

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Posted in: Government Grants to Unions, Indiana, Intimidation Tactics, Monopoly Bargaining, Right to Work, Right To Work States, Section 14-B Taft-Hartley, State Right To Work, State RTW, Union Membership
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Charter School Teachers Look to Exit Union

On June 11, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

Here is a case of reality hitting you in the face — teachers from Massachusetts Brighton’s Conservatory Lab Charter School look to exit their union. Three years ago, teachers at the school became the poster child for the American Federation of Teacher’s as they undertook a charter school unionization campaign. That’s because the school was the first charter school in the state to unionize.

But after three years, the teachers are expressing frustration with their union who attacks the academic accomplishments of charter schools and are weighing whether to stay affiliated or join a professional teacher’s group that is not a union organization, the Boston Globe reports.

We all know that union bosses are impediments to educational excellence and it appears that reality is hitting the teachers in the face.

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Posted in: Forced Dues
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None Dare Call it Partisanship

On May 3, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

When Republicans in Wisconsin reformed the state’s collective bargaining laws, Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick rushed to schedule a speech in Wisconsin so he could denounce lawmakers. But when the State House in his own state voted to change the way government employees could bargain for taxpayer benefits he praised the House for its “very important vote.” The Wall Street Journal notices the hypocrisy:

Scott Walker impressions are popular these days, and the latest and greatest aping of the Wisconsin Governor is coming from the liberal heartland. On Wednesday, the Massachusetts state House voted 111-42 to limit public employees’ ability to collectively bargain for health care. Mrs. Trumka, please hide all sharp objects from Richard, the AFL-CIO chief.

The bill sponsored by Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo would change the way teachers, police and other municipal employees bargain for health care, giving mayors and local officials the ability to set co-pays and deductibles after a 30-day negotiation period with the unions. If the unions agree to the mayor’s terms, 10% of the savings goes back to the unions. If they object, 20% of the savings goes into a special fund for workers’ health-care costs. The reforms, which are expected to save $100 million in the next year, also require retirees to enroll in Medicare.

Coming in the bluest of blue states, the news landed like ice water on unions, which are shouting betrayal. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected, the same Democrats who we contributed to in their campaigns,” Massachusetts AFL-CIO President Robert Haynes said. “It’s a done deal for our relationship with the people inside that chamber.” (more…)

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Posted in: Forced Dues, Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Labor Organizations
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Even Massacheusetts Dips its toes into Government-Union Reform Waters

On April 27, 2011, By NRTW Committee Staff

It is more  like a pinkie toe in the water. But, when Massacheusetts’ legislators aconsideringa modicum of change to government union control over tax payers — you know the tide is turning.    Legislators intend to restrict an issue from bargaining.

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Posted in: Forced-Dues for Politics, Government Grants to Unions, Public Employees
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More Progress on PLA’s

On July 6, 2010, By NRTW Committee Staff

First, the New York Times wrote an article detailing how even some liberal Democrats are tired of the union bosses continued squeezing of the taxpayers; and now the Boston Globe has weighed in against the enactment of an anti-competitive Project Labor Agreement (PLA) on a three-quarters of a billion dollar improvement project for the University of Massachusetts:

Project labor agreements clearly limit the number of firms that can compete for work, at both the contracting and subcontracting level, and that deprives the project of potential low bidders. But defenders of such labor agreements tout the economic benefits of a smooth-running, on-time project, insisting that the pacts help maintain “labor peace’’ — a term with vaguely threatening intimations.

Maintaining labor standards is laudable. Restricting bids simply to promote unions, without a strong rationale for doing so, is not. Unfortunately, the UMass decision, and Patrick’s support for it, seems more the latter than the former.

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Posted in: PLA
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