A Big Union Payback?

A red stamp that says bad deal and the words " big labor representation without benefit ".

Two bills designed to eliminate Right to Work, are expected to be reintroduced in this year’s Congress.  With union membership at an all-time low private sector union bosses are desperately seeking ways to increase their membership.  Their political activity, funded in part by millions of forced dues, has always been a major fall-back and this year’s Congress is proving to be no exception.

“More than half of the states have Right to Work laws in place, meaning those workers do not have to pay forced dues either.  So it follows that union bosses will attack the very mechanisms that allow Right to Work laws – the National Labor Relations Act.

Vice President of the National Right to Work Committee, Greg Mourad, has something to say about this labor boss payback for years and billions of dues dollars in support of Democrat candidates.

Bonner R. Cohen has the story in the heartland.org. 

In 2018, two bills were introduced in Congress that would roll back right-to-work laws: the Workplace Democracy Act and the Workers’ Freedom to Negotiate Act.

The Workplace Democracy Act would ban right-to-work laws by repealing section 14(b) of the NRLA. The Workers’ Freedom to Negotiate Act would require nonunion employees to pay agency fees for bargaining and representation by the union in states with right-to-work laws.

Both bills are expected to be reintroduced in the new session of Congress, and they could be considered by the U.S. House of Representatives, led by Speaker Nancy Pelosi, says Greg Mourad, vice president for legislation at the National Right to Work Committee, which supports state and federal right-to-work legislation.

“A House vote to wipe out state right-to-work laws would be a serious mistake on Nancy Pelosi’s part,†said Mourad. “They might be able to pass it through the House, but if they did, the backlash from outraged voters would very likely end the career of virtually every Democrat in a right-to-work state.â€

Return of Card Check

The Workplace Democracy Act also includes a “card check†provision which would allow any union to organize a workplace by securing the signatures of a majority of workers on individual cards instead of going through a secret-ballot election conducted by the National Labor Relations Board.

 â€œCompared with a secret-ballot election, card check raises the obvious concern that workers could be coerced or intimidated into signing a card,†the report notes.

Both bills would also require mandatory, binding arbitration once a union is certified by the NLRB as the employees’ representative.

“That scenario,†the report says, “essentially puts the government in the business of dictating the terms of a collective bargaining agreement, whether the employees affected by the outcome like it or not.â€

“Today’s union movement in America is completely out of touch with the direction of the economy,†said Ed Hudgins, research director at The Heartland Institute, which publishes Budget & Tax News.

Trade unions are obsolete in an economy where skills and job requirements are constantly changing, says Hudgins.

“Unions have little place in our technologically dynamic economy,†Hudgins said.

“In this country, workers must ensure their future careers and posterity by acting as the managers and investors in their own skills and entrepreneurs of their own lives, not looking to unions that will only stop progress and productivity in their tracks.â€

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