Too many years ago to admit, I used to punch a timecard. As a
letter carrier in Palo Alto, I braved dogs, weather and supervisors
to swiftly complete my appointed rounds.
Too many years ago to admit, I used to punch a timecard. As a letter carrier in Palo Alto, I braved dogs, weather and supervisors to swiftly complete my appointed rounds.
I was a member of a union. Many people have a Jimmy Hoffa-esque view of them as corrupt rackets. This is due, in part, to a few real Jimmy Hoffas who gave organized labor a bad name. But it is equally due to industry attempts to demonize people who choose to bargain collectively.
So let’s clarify the matter a little. Unions are democracies. People choose to form them, or join them, and elect their leaders. Being a union member is voluntary; federal law guarantees that. Is there shop-floor pressure to join? Sometimes, but in my work place I knew plenty of people who were not members.
One reason for this pressure is that the law also requires unions to represent everyone in a unionized workplace, member or not, with equal vigor, whether at the bargaining table or in job-related grievance proceedings. In places where non-union members are charged a fee for the cost of that representation – which is less than what members pay in dues – the pressure to join the union is much less.
The difference between representation fees and union dues is what unions spend on other things, including political activities. If you’re not a member of the union, you’re not paying for those activities. And if you disapprove of a union’s politics, you can quit – your job is not at stake. That creates an incentive for unions to follow the will of the majority of their members.
The promoters of Proposition 75, which would require public employee unions to get permission from individual members to spend dues for political purposes, know this. They know workers are already protected against the forced spending of money from paychecks on causes with which they disagree. The “paycheck protection act,” as the promoters of Proposition 75 like to call it, ranks as one of the great misnomers in the history of politics.
What this really is, is the continuation of a quarter-century effort to emasculate unions.
It started in 1981, when President Ronald Reagan fired the striking air traffic controllers – who, ironically, endorsed him for election in 1980. That strike was illegal, but the impact of the firing was to encourage other employers to “permanently replace” striking workers in other jobs.
Since you can’t be fired for striking, it’s a legal distinction without a difference, with the impact being the effective removal of the strike arrow from the union quiver.
The public employee unions targeted by Proposition 75 are protected from being involuntarily replaced during a strike, because they can’t do so legally. They have arbitration systems to resolve disputes that force their employers to bargain in good faith, rather than pretend to be doing so in the hope of forcing a strike and busting the union.
As a result, public employee unions are now the fastest growing segment of organized labor. They have become politically effective in strengthening the rights for all workers, even though unions generally are outspent many times over by business interests.
But imagine the howling you’d hear from corporate America if companies were required by law to get the permission of individual shareholders before spending money on defending their interests in government.
Not every stockholder agrees with every lobbying action by the company. But if you don’t like the company or what it stands for, you can always sell the stock, or even try to engineer a stockholder revolt and get new corporate leadership – just as you can try to elect new union leadership or quit the union.
There would be equal outrage from 501(c)4 nonprofits if you required them to get permission from every donor to use their money for political purposes.
Recently the Los Angeles Times editorial page argued that this analogy was flawed because Prop. 75 only applies to public employee unions.
But it’s not public sector employers who are pushing Proposition 75 – it’s big business and Gov. Schwarzenegger, who understand that public employees are the most effective labor organizations in this country and want to hobble them.
Corporate America and the chamber of commerce would not stand for Proposition 75-style meddling in their internal affairs. Why should workers?
