Why Right-to-Work Works

Why Right-to-Work Works

10/28/14

James Sherk

Domestic Politics, United States

"Local right-to-work laws could benefit millions of workers—giving them control over more of their earnings and how it is spent. They would also create more jobs."

When the Teamsters Union came knocking, Michael Romanchock refused to pony up the dues the union demanded. After all, he had worked nine months at his jobsite—a Pepsi bottling plant in Ebensburg, Pennsylvania—and didn’t even know it was unionized. Why pay for services you cannot notice?

This May, union officials threatened to have him fired if he didn’t pay the dues, which average $600 a year. Romanchock wouldn’t budge, and on July 1, the Teamsters had him canned.

Were Pennsylvania a right-to-work state, Romanchock would never have gone through this ordeal. But only twenty-four states have those employee-protection statutes. Fortunately, a new wave of “right-to-work” statutes may be on the way—not from the feds, not from the states, but at the local level.

In most states, workers at unionized workplaces must pay union dues to hold their jobs. Unions use some of those dues to bargain on behalf of their members. But they also use dues to finance causes many of their members oppose.

For example, unions have spent millions to help re-elect Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.), a professed opponent of same-sex marriage. Union members who support same-sex marriage might not want to support him. The Service Employees International Union and the United Auto Workers gave tens of thousands to Planned Parenthood, America’s largest abortion provider. Union members who consider abortion the taking of innocent life might object to funding it.

Theoretically, workers can opt out of the political portion of these dues; in practice, unions make it very difficult. The Teamsters did not even tell Romanchock how much they spent on political activities, much less that he could decline to fund it. They simply had him fired for not paying full dues.

Read full articlehttp://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/why-right-work-works-11557