A controversial legislative trend in the U.S. today is the so-called “yes means yes” law, which requires expressions of affirmative consent during every amorous encounter.
The idea falls flat in real life when you smile and reach out for your date’s hand on a Saturday night, not thinking to make her sign a contract first. On the other hand, affirmative consent is a very sensible notion for a worker entering a long-term relationship with an organization that aspires to represent him in all things related to his job. Most workers think they at least deserve a say in that decision — most unions do not agree.
On this Labor Day, it is worth remembering just how archaic American labor law is, and why it needs to be rewritten for the 21st Century. The National Labor Relations Act dates back to the Depression era. The principles behind it took shape at a time when many U.S. workplaces were truly dangerous and inhumane, and workers tended to stay in one job their entire lives. It has not been adjusted for the modern era of fluid labor markets and state and federal workplace protections.
With respect to unionization, the law still gives many workers no choice at all. If 51 percent of Acme Widget’s workers voted to unionize in 1955, their decision applies, by default, to all workers the company ever hires from that point until the end of the world. This makes no sense today, in an era when freedom and personal choice are highly valued by employees.
Moreover, the current legal framework has created free-riding unions that workers must support whether they want to or not. In states that lack right-to-work laws, simple inertia allows ineffective unions to survive and fatten themselves on forced dues and fee payments.
Right-to-work merely lets workers decide whether they want to say yes to a union or not.
The reason unions hate right-to-work laws so much is that they give each worker a choice to opt out. Under those conditions, union bosses must actually work hard to serve their members and justify their continued existence. Moreover, as one union leader in Missouri noted earlier this year, unions’ representational activities erode the cash they have to funnel to Democratic politicians. “It potentially means we can’t support any political candidate in the way we’d like to,” he said.
This month, Missouri state legislators will have the opportunity to make the Show-Me State the twenty-sixth right-to-work state in America. Republicans hope to find the votes to override this summer’s veto by Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon.
We hope that they try, and that they succeed. No union should be allowed to presume the consent of all the workers it hopes to represent, and to plunder their paychecks without first getting permission.
