Stop 'Right to Work' Legislation in Indiana

If 'Right to Work' passes:

This legislation would prohibit union security clauses in union contracts, meaning non-union employees would benefit from collective bargaining agreements without paying union dues. Twenty-two states have similar laws. SOURCE (The Raw Story)

What is 'Right to Work'?

“Right to work” laws (allowed by the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947) prevents employers and employees from negotiating a type of agreement (a union security clause) that requires all workers who receive the benefits of a collective bargaining agreement to pay their share of the costs of representing them. These laws require unions to represent every eligible employee, whether or not he or she pays dues. In other words, “right to work” laws allow workers to pay nothing and still get all the benefits of union membership, collective bargaining and contract enforcement.

What is the point of RTW laws?

The National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation makes no bones about it – the goal is “reducing union political influence over society.”

What is the effect of RTW laws?

These laws create a tyranny of the minority, allowing individuals to subvert democratic decisions made by a majority of their peers. They financially weaken, and eventually cripple, unions by requiring them and their members pay for the representation of those who opt out but benefit from the union’s representation.

Do RTW laws impact economic development?

Of course, and so did abolition, the advance of the union movement, and every other advancement in human rights for workers.

But while RTW proponents proclaim that the lack of such laws is a significant barrier to economic development, and even that most businesses use a lack of RTW laws at the outset of relocation decisions to exclude states from consideration, businesses are telling a different story.

Senior management officials of scientifically sampled businesses do not report utilizing such laws as a major factor. In a January, 2005, study commissioned by the Committee of 100 for Economic Development and the Louisiana Governor’s Office designed to measure the importance of certain factors in relocation decisions, the existence of right to work laws ranked 24th out of 26 factors rated (just above personal outreach from state officials and a thriving arts community).

Despite being frequently pointed to by RTW advocates as an example of corporations pursuing a RTW location strategy, the senior vice president of Toyota Motor Manufacturing of America recently stated that Toyota wouldn’t make a decision based on RTW laws. (“Toyota Might Pick Pro-Union Plant Site” Detroit Free Press, April 19, 2006).

NEGATIVE ECONOMIC IMPACTS OF RTW LAWS

Wages for all workers are driven down. Both union and non-union workers in states with these laws make an average of $5,538 less a year than those that live in states without the law.

Benefits are reduced. Employers in “rtw” states are less likely to offer benefits and workers are losing health insurance coverage 70 percent faster than those in other states.

Workplace safety suffers. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics the rate of workplace deaths is 50 percent higher in “rtw” states.

Overall quality of life declines. In addition to the decreased buying power of those in “rtw” states, the infant mortality rate is 16 percent greater while the poverty rate for all people is 19 percent higher and is 26 percent higher for children. Seven of the 10 poorest states are “rtw” states.

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GOP TAKING AIM AT WORKERS

From the Post-Tribune of Northwest Indiana

We find it interesting that Republicans who control the Indiana Legislature plan to push for the passage of a right-to-work law during the upcoming short session of the assembly. 

Generally, legislators shun controversial issues during the year in which they have to run for re-election. House Speaker Brian Bosma and Senate President Pro Tem David Long announced last week that they will push right-to-life legislation in January because it will be good for job creation.

They added that it will be good for worker freedom — suggesting that with right to work, no one would be forced to join a union. That’s wrong in that no one in this country now can be forced to join a union.

What Bosma and Long aren’t saying is that they will push for right to work because they have Republican majorities in both houses, in addition to Republican Gov. Mitch Daniels.

Although this legislation will draw the ire of working men and women, and Democrats in general, Republicans won’t feel threatened because they drew new legislative districts earlier this year, essentially guaranteeing they will continue in the majority after the 2012 General Election.

Although Republicans claim right to work is about jobs, Democrats argue it is an attempt to bust unions, drive down wages and increase profits and power.

Regardless, right to work — particularly during an election year — will tear apart the General Assembly and minimize the accomplishment of things beneficial for Hoosiers.

BAD FOR INDIANA

RIGHT TO WORK TOOLKIT

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