|
|
 |
|
The
views expressed
on this page are soley those of the author and do not
necessarily
represent the views of County News Online
|
 |
Will We Get
Right to Work in Ohio?
By Kate Burch
Recently, Governor Scott Walker signed a new law making Wisconsin the
25th Right to Work state. This means that workers cannot be
forced to join a union or pay union dues as a condition of keeping
their jobs. Our Governor has not been enthusiastic about Right to
Work legislation, despite strong evidence that Right to Work law has
improved the economies of several neighboring states.
Union membership in the U.S. reached its peak in the years after
passage of the “Wagner Act” (National Labor Relations Act) in 1935.
This “progressive” legislation was deliberately crafted to put
employers at a disadvantage vis-a-vis employees, and its creature, the
National Labor Relations Board was empowered to interpret the law and
define and police “unfair labor practices.” Under these
conditions, millions of workers were organized. The AFL/CIO,
empowered and emboldened, engaged in numerous disruptive strikes after
the end of World War II, attempting to strengthen and make permanent
the gains they had made during the war. Their excesses led to
executive action, by even the liberal Harry Truman, to seek injunctions
to break crippling strikes in the coal and railroad industries.
Public reaction to these too-powerful unions led to a huge Republican
wave in 1946, and passage of Taft-Hartley (the Labor-Management
Relations Act) in 1947. Taft-Hartley made it so workers could not
be required to maintain membership in a union, though they could still
be required to pay the portion of their union dues used for collective
bargaining. It also allowed states to abolish the requirement
that workers join a union or pay any dues. This “right to work”
provision has been vilified by unions who complain that it allows
nonunion workers a “free ride.”
Today, about one third of public employees and less than 7% of private
sector employees belong to unions. Clearly, the unions have not
convinced the majority that they offer good value for the price. Public
unions survive mainly because the employees are smart enough to realize
that, being funded with a seemingly unending stream of taxpayer
dollars, their pay is high enough to make union dues relatively
trivial. That, along with the fact that public union dues fund
political causes that not all members like, is part of another set of
problems that deserve a second column. Passage of Right to Work
legislation in Ohio would force unions in the private sector to do a
reset, making themselves attractive to their consumers, or die a
natural death.
|
|
|
|
