In the Obama era, three new industrial manufacturing states have adopted right-to-work laws. These forbid the forced payment of union dues by unwilling workers who prefer not to be union members.
The public supports such laws because they make sense. Workers should be allowed to join whichever organizations they like. They should not be forced to join or financially support any others, not even the ones politicians like.
Unfortunately, this basic and easily understood principle is not law everywhere. In non-right-to-work states, workers can be forced to pay tribute to labor unions if they want to keep their jobs.
In some states, this is the case even for workers whose employer is a state or local government. Governments are held to higher standards than private employers in respecting various rights. But when it comes to their own employee’s rights, governments exercise near-immunity to trample them.
It’s about time this stopped, and the opportunity has arrived.
On Monday, the Supreme Court finally heard oral arguments in Friedrichs v. California Teachers Association, a challenge to the 1977 precedent that (as of 2014) permitted union freeloading on the backs of more than 700,000 unwilling government workers. The court’s four-decade-old decision in Abood v. Detroit Board of Education established that state and local governments can force all workers, including those who don’t want union representation, to pay public sector unions. The money is withheld from their paychecks without their consent.
This mass of non-union government workers, trapped into paying “agency” or “fair-share fees,” are like a driver in a car attacked by a squeegee man but obliged to pay the guy for the “service” they neither wanted nor requested. Actually, their position is worse, not just because the cost is far higher. They are also being forced to fund organizations that are inherently political and whose views they do not share. Public sector unions demanding higher wages are political organizations advocating for high spending from the public purse.
No one thinks Hillary Clinton should have to donate to Ted Cruz’s campaign. Likewise, these workers should not be forced to “donate” to the SEIU.
Additionally, many members of public-sector unions pay their dues more out of inertia than enthusiasm, and it is immoral for government to abet this enrichment of union bosses. One recent example: The Wisconsin affiliate of the National Education Association has lost 53 percent of its members since that option was first opened up to them in 2011. The NEA, it should be noted, is still not hurting — it took in nearly $1.6 billion in dues and fees from its members and subjects in 2014, according to the Education Intelligence Agency.
In Friedrichs, the Supreme Court has the opportunity to establish that government’s confiscatory powers cannot be used to pump up the political muscles of a labor movement that has increasingly lost its appeal to individual workers. The sooner government employees are freed from paying third-party political organizations, the better.
