SPARK Magazine – Issue 1 (Fall 2012)

Should Michigan become a ‘right-to-work’ state? UAW … – MLive.com

United Auto Workers union bosses often publicly insinuate that Right to Work laws “weaken unions.” But recently they admitted to Mercedes-Benz employees in Alabama that “there are many workers all over the country . . . who have strong, effective unions in so-called ‘right-to-work’ states.” What do UAW bosses really believe?  Image: gabya.net

This spring, top bosses of the United Auto Workers union (UAW/AFL-CIO) are waging an intense and lavishly financed effort to gain monopoly-bargaining power over motor-vehicle assembly employees at the Mercedes-Benz factory in Vance, Ala.

Alabama has had a Right to Work law prohibiting forced union membership, dues and fees on the books for six decades.  This statute is overwhelmingly popular with Alabama employees as well as with a wide array of other citizens.  And the UAW union hierarchy evidently knows that.  That’s why, even though top bosses of this Detroit, Mich.-based union are venomous foes of all of the 24 state Right to Work laws, UAW literature targeting Mercedes-Benz employees in Vance actually speaks rather positively about such laws.

For example, the first edition of The Spark (see the first link above), a UAW propaganda publication intended for distribution in Alabama, actually uses the Right to Work law as a selling point for why employees shouldn’t oppose unionization,even if they personally don’t want a union:

First of all remember that Alabama is a Right to Work state; therefore, it is totally voluntary whether or not you decide to join the union and pay union dues. If you think your local union is doing a good job representing you and in negotiations for improvements then we hope you will join. If you feel it isn’t then it is your right not to join.

The Spark tacitly acknowledges that the purpose of Alabama’s Right to Work law, and other such laws, is to protect the individual employee’s free choice, not to “weaken” unions in any way:

The right to work law means that Mercedes employees have a right to join or not join the union.  It is the employee’s choice.  It does NOT mean that workers in Alabama don’t have a right to form unions.  They do.  In fact, there are many workers all over the country — including in Alabama — who have strong, effective unions in so-called “right-to-work” states.

Right to Work supporters in Alabama and elsewhere might take offense at the “so-called” and the scare quotes, but fundamentally they wouldn’t disagree with any of that.

Unfortunately, UAW bosses sing a very different tune in in states where there is no Right to Work law on the books, or there hasn’t been one for any substantial amount of time, so the vast majority of employees haven’t had a chance to experience the Right to Work in practice.

For example, the program for the 2012 program for the UAW National Committee Action Program conference (quoted in the second link above) decries the “myth” that an important way to create jobs is to “weaken unions through so-called right-to-work laws and other attacks on organized labor.”  These words were largely aimed at then-forced unionism Michigan, where union bosses were hoping at that time to render a state Right to Work law unconstitutional through a UAW-concocted proposition that was on the November ballot.  (In the end, Michigan voters soundly rejected the UAW brass’s Proposal Two, and thus paved the way for passage in December 2012 of a state Right to Work law.)

So what do you really believe, UAW bosses?  If Right to Work laws simply mean, as you recently admitted in Alabama, that “employees have the right to join or not join the union,” how can they be a device to “weaken unions” or constitute an “attack on organized labor,” as you claim elsewhere?  And what principled reason do you have for opposing Right to Work laws?