Statement of Principles
We Believe . . .
Compulsory Unionism is Wrong –
Every worker must have the right – but no worker should ever be compelled – to join or support a labor union.
“Is there a greater right? Is there a more important right? Is there a more challenging right? Is there a more fundamental right than the right to make a living for one’s self and one’s family without being compelled to join a labor organization?” asked the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen.
The National Right to Work Committee supports passage of a national Right to Work law and repeal of all federal and state compulsory-unionism statutes.
Monopoly Bargaining is the Root of Compulsory Unionism –
Monopoly bargaining privileges give union officials compulsory “representation” power over
workers. Thus union officials often operate their unions for their own personal interest, not that of the workers. Forcing working Americans to pay union dues for this coerced union “representation” is almost the inevitable consequence of monopoly bargaining, and only magnifies the injustice of forcing anyone to accept union “representation” in the first place.
Under the American legal system, which has its origin in English common law, free people are free agents, not commodities. Under that law, everyone owns the fruit of his own labor, the rewards of his own talents and enterprise, and should be free to offer or withhold his talents in the open market place. They should be free to choose either collective or individual means of negotiating their wages and working conditions. No one should presume to act for another, speak for another or control another person’s wages, livelihood and future without the consent of the “represented” worker.
Thus, government-mandated monopoly bargaining violates the individual’s right to decide for himself how he will provide for his own employment and compensation as he sees fit. Instead, federal law empowers union officials to seize that power from working Americans and use that power to line their own pockets at those workers’ expense.
Union officials jealously guard this prerogative, for it enables them to throw the net of compulsory unionism over more and more workers under the guise of federal law. The National Right to Work Committee supports legislation to relieve union officials of the obligation to represent nonmembers, empowering union officials to represent only those who seek their representation.
Compulsory Unionism Breeds Corruption –
“Compulsory unionism and corruption go hand in hand,” warned the late Senator John McClellan, who exposed rampant union corruption in his famous Senate investigative hearings held in the late 1950s.
Under present law, union officials hold their members as captives. Because union elites are virtually unaccountable for any abuses of power, the union hierarchy has traditionally been especially susceptible to corruption and the influence of Organized Crime.
The National Right to Work Committee supports federal legislation holding union officials liable when they violate the law and the rights of individual workers.
Compulsory Unionism Spawns Violence –
Compulsory unionism, at its heart a system of coercion, breeds violence. Union militants enforce the orders of union officials through acts of violence and intimidation, terrorizing workers and their families, whose only “crime” is a desire to work free from the control of the union elite.
In 1973, in the Enmons decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress intended union officials to be immune from federal prosecution for any acts of violence or extortion committed under the guise of “legitimate union activities.” This Supreme Court ruling encourages union violence and picket-line hooliganism.
The National Right to Work Committee supports federal legislation to curb union violence by providing federal law enforcement agencies the authority to prosecute perpetrators of union violence.
Compulsory Union Dues Corrupt America’s Political System –
No worker should be forced to subsidize or support political candidates or ideologies which he or she personally opposes.
Big Labor is the single most powerful political machine in America, spending billions of dollars, unconstitutionally confiscated from millions of American workers, to control our entire political process – from the statehouse to the White House.
Government should be answerable to the taxpayer, not union officials seeking to control federal, state and local government employees by conscripting them into the union political machine.
National Right to Work Law is the Only “Practicable” Solution –
“It cannot be stressed enough that the coercion which unions have been permitted to exercise
contrary to all principles of freedom under the law is primarily the coercion of fellow workers,” said Friedrich A. Hayek, the world-renowned Nobel-prize winning economist. Hayek called a National Right to Work law “the only practicable way of restoring . . . freedom.”
While legislation designed to hand over even more power to union officials to force monopoly union “representation” on more American workers must be vigorously opposed in Congress and state legislatures, only the passage of a National Right to Work law and the repeal of all existing compulsory-unionism federal laws will eliminate the scourge of compulsory unionism.
Only when all federal laws authorizing compulsory unionism are overturned will working men and women be free to exercise fully their Right to Work. They will then have the freedom to choose whether to accept or reject union representation and union dues, without facing coercion, violence and workplace harassment by union elites.