High Court’s Janus Decision Unchained
Government Employees
When a small but determined coalition of freedom-loving
employees and likeminded business owners formed the National Right to Work
Committee in 1955, the ills of union monopoly bargaining and forced union dues
were rampant in private workplaces, but nowhere to be found in the government
sector.
Just a few years later, a New York City executive order and
a Wisconsin state law authorizing so-called “exclusive” union representation in
government workplaces marked the beginning of a decades-long journey towards
pervasive, legally-authorized Big Labor coercion of public servants.
Early this summer, the U.S. Supreme Court’s Janus
case, argued and won by National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation staff
attorney Bill Messenger, finally turned back the tide of forced union dues and
fees in state and local public employment.
But the Janus ruling has no direct effect at all on
the private-sector compulsory unionism that the Committee was originally formed to combat.
‘The Most Powerful Legislative, Political, and Economic
Lobby The World Has Ever Known’
Mark Mix, the president of the Right to Work Legal
Foundation as well as the National Right to Work Committee, explained:
“Thanks to Janus, compulsory employee financial
support for government-sector unionism is no longer legal anywhere in America.
“Of course, ensuring that government union bosses and Big
Labor-backed public officials abide by this decision and stop threatening civil
servants who don’t want to join or bankroll their organizations with
termination will require a lot of hard work and determination.
“But in the nearly two dozen states that still lack Right to
Work protections in the private sector, Big Labor retains the power, at this
time, to force employees with impunity to bankroll union-boss speech with which
the employees disagree.
“It was due to forced union dues and ‘check-off’ schemes
targeting private-sector workers only that, six decades ago, Big Labor was
already, as then-Right to Work President William Harrison put it in 1959, ‘the
most powerful legislative, political and economic lobby the world has ever
known . . . .’”
“Today, in the wake of Janus, Big Labor retains
monopoly-bargaining privileges over roughly 40% of state and local government
employees nationwide — privileges it did not have back in 1959 — PLUS
forced-dues power over millions of private-sector employees.
“Clearly, Americans who believe no worker should be forced
to be represented by a union or bankroll a union as a condition of employment
have work left to do before we can declare victory.”
“Fortunately,” Mr. Mix continued, “legislation that is
already pending in Congress would guarantee that private-sector employees in
all 50 states have the same core protections against compulsory financial
support for labor organizations that government employees now enjoy thanks to Janus.”
For more than eight decades, federal labor policy covering
private-sector workplaces has explicitly authorized the termination of
employees for refusal to join or pay dues to a union, even if they don’t want
it and never asked for it.
Unless private-sector unionized employees are protected by a
state Right to Work law, they may be forced on pain of firing to pay tribute to
the union wielding monopoly-bargaining privileges in their workplace.
But if the National Right to Work Act, respectively
introduced in the U.S. House and Senate as H.R.785 and S.545, becomes law, this
unwarranted and government-promoted restriction on the private employee’s
freedom of association will become a thing of the past.
The Worker Is Best Judge of Whether Monopoly Bargaining Is
Personally ‘Beneficial’
And this legislation would put a stop to forced union dues
and fees without adding a word to federal law.
Instead, H.R.785 and S.545 would simply repeal the current
provisions in federal labor law that authorize and encourage the termination of
employees for refusal to pay money to an unwanted union.
Mr. Mix noted that compulsory union dues are especially
outrageous when the worker from whom they are extracted has good reason to
believe he or she would be better off, economically speaking, union-free.
“Forced union dues for harmful ‘representation’ are a common
occurrence,” he explained.
Mr. Mix cited the admission of Dr. Sheldon Leader, a law
professor who is generally strongly supportive of Organized Labor, that under
monopoly bargaining workers who don’t want a union are “often actually made
worse off than they were before.”
The eminent late Pennsylvania law professor Clyde Summers
strongly concurred in his 1995 review of Dr. Leader’s book, rejecting
union-boss attempts to use monopoly bargaining as an excuse for forced union
dues.
Under “exclusive” union repre-sentation, noted Dr. Summers:
“Full-timers may bargain to limit the jobs of part-timers,
seniority provisions may disadvantage younger workers, and wage increases of
the low skilled may be at the expense of the highly skilled.”
Mr. Mix commented:
“The worker is the best judge of whether he or she
personally benefits from union monopoly bargaining. Unlike current federal
labor law, H.R.785 and S.545 recognize this simple and important fact.”
This summer, as part of its federal Survey 2018 program, the
Committee has been mobilizing members and supporters in a number of targeted
congressional districts and states to convince hitherto fence-sitting
politicians to cosponsor national Right to Work legislation.
Forced-Dues Repeal Continues to Gain Support in Congress
Committee members and supporters are also asking
congressional candidates who are not currently federal officeholders to pledge
to support federal forced-dues repeal if elected.
“The Committee’s federal candidate survey program, which
recurs every election year, has a long, well-established track record of
convincing both incumbent politicians and challengers to take public stands in
support of Right to Work,” said Mr. Mix.
Thanks largely to this year’s federal survey, the number of
H.R.785/S.545 sponsors had risen to 129 in the House and 30 in the Senate by
the time this Newsletter edition went to press in early August.
Among the House members who recently became Right to Work
cosponsors after hearing from their freedom-loving constituents are Senate
candidates Martha McSally (R-Ariz.) and Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.).
“Forced unionism is unjust to employees and unpopular with
the general public. The ideal would be for all federal candidates to vow to
oppose it,” said Mr. Mix.
“At the very least, Right to Work members want one candidate
in each closely contested race this November to be a credible opponent of Big
Labor’s monopoly privileges.
“And we are now making solid progress towards achieving that
goal.”