David Koch, a Tea Partier, and a union teacher sit down at a table. The table has 12 cookies on it. David Koch immediately shoves 11 of the cookies into his pockets. Then he leans over to the Tea Partier and says, "Watch out! That union thug is gonna steal your cookie!"
The militant attacks on unions and union workers in this country really puzzle me. I'm not talking about the vitriol spewed by right-wing millionaires - that's to be expected - but rather the sympathy that average people, which would benefit greatly from increased union power, have towards such attacks. I'm not saying unions are perfect - they are, of course, made up of imperfect, corruptible human beings. But they have reaped enormous benefits for American workers in the past century, and their decline in influence is a major reason why middle-class median incomes have remained stagnant for 30 years. So let's take a look at the current war being waged on unions in Michigan and set the record straight.
On December 11 (happy anniversary to my wonderful wife) the Michigan legislature rammed through a "right-to-work" law in its lame-duck session, which was quickly signed by Governor Rick Snyder. It had to be done now because the votes won't exist to pass it in the new legislature that sits in January (a good argument for the abolition of lame-duck sessions). Michigan, a state with a proud history of union membership, became the 24th right-to-work state; almost all the others are in the South and West (Kansas is one). Its misnomer name makes the law sound great - everybody should have the right to work, right? Well, it has nothing to do with guaranteeing employment (that sounds awfully socialist). Instead, right-to-work laws prohibit a union contract that would require all members that are represented by the union to pay for such representation, whether or not they join a union. The law also expressly states that workers cannot be required to join a union.
I understand why to a lot of people this sounds like a good law - it's all about freedom, right? No one should be forced to join a union and pay for it if they don't want to. Well, it's a lot more complicated than that. First, federal law already forbids requiring union membership. Supreme Court cases and federal labor law establish that workers cannot be forced to join a union as part of a collective bargaining arrangement. What can be required is that non-union members pay only the portion of dues that is directly used for union representation and collective bargaining. This is because unions are legally required to represent all workers covered by their contract, regardless of whether they are full union members or not. This includes not only contract negotiations for salary, benefits, and the like, but also individually representing the non-member if they get into a dispute with the employer that is covered by the contract. Yes, they must pay some fees, but they get the associated benefits of representation.
The problem, then, with right-to-work laws is that they create what political scientists call a collective action problem. More simply put, it's a free-rider problem. Know how conservatives are always talking about how people should stop being dependent on government, reaping the benefits of others' hard work? Well, right-to-work laws instill this system of "moochery" in the union workplace. Non-union employees get all the benefits of union membership without paying a dime. This, in turn, discourages union membership (why pay the price if you'll get the benefit anyway - the essence of a collective action problem). Unions, however, don't have the massive resources of the federal government to mitigate the effects of free riders. As unions' resources and membership decline, they have less and less power to negotiate terms for their workers. And the results are telling. An Economic Policy Institute study from 2011 found that in right-to-work states wages are 3.2% lower, the rate of employee-sponsored health insurance plans is 2.6 percentage points lower, and the rate of employee-sponsored pensions is 4.8% lower. Curious findings for a law that Snyder declared was great for Michigan workers - so great that he signed it quietly and privately while thousands of protesters gathered outside the capitol building in Lansing.
Right-to-work laws are, in fact, all about politics and destroying the power of unions, whose members tend to be some of the strongest foot soldiers in Democratic campaigns. Michigan's law specifically excluded police and firefighter unions, who tend to be more Republican. But if right-to-work is so great for everybody, why exclude those groups? Because they are Republican, and because no one wants to be viewed as going after police officers and firefighters. Michigan's law contains verbatim language from a "model bill" drafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council, an organization funded by the billionaire Koch brothers that pushes for conservative legislation nationwide. Most of Michigan's Republican lawmakers - many of whom will not face reelection - happily went along with their narrow-minded interests. It reflects Koch and company's amazing success at convincing millions of not-rich Americans that giving billionaires a tax break is better policy than helping the poor and middle classes earn a living wage. It's time our politicians stand up for 99% of our workers rather than the less-than-1% that can afford to donate millions to campaigns. The utter failure of the insanely-funded conservative SuperPACs to influence the 2012 election suggests that Americans are starting to get it. Hopefully a day of reckoning for politicians that kowtow to the interests of corporate billionaires is at hand.
Update: After writing this I came across this excellent post from Eclectablog that echoes many of the same themes. I also recommend reading the "GOP is the Food Stamp Party" piece linked to in that article.
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