Kalb
Right to Work supporters, who outnumber opponents by a five-to-one margin in recent poll, believe that everyone should be allowed — but not forced — to pay union dues.
As one person described unionism under Right to Work, “It’s a voluntary system, and if you don’t think the system’s earning its keep, then you don’t have to pay.”
You’d never guess it, but that quote comes from Gary Casteel, a longtime United Auto Workers (UAW) union boss who, at the time, was waging a high-profile fight to unionize a Volkswagen plant in Right to Work Tennessee.
We’re accustomed to seeing union officials rail against Right to Work because forced union dues are what pay their enormous salaries. That’s why they’re the loudest voices calling for Right to Work’s repeal in Michigan.
But Gary Casteel understood that workers are happier when unionization is a voluntary choice. In 2014, Casteel told The Washington Post, “This is something I’ve never understood, that people think right to work hurts unions . . . To me, it helps them. You don’t have to belong if you don’t want to.”
In a coercive, non-Right to Work environment, union bosses make a menacing threat: “Give me money, or you’ll be fired.” A voluntary system is much more appealing for workers.
Casteel recognized the blatant hypocrisy of union officials claiming to “represent” workers while simultaneously demanding money under threat of termination. Most voters agree that a private organization like a labor union should not be able to force people to give it money.
That’s the biggest reason why Michigan and 26 other states have passed Right to Work laws. But one other important reason why Right to Work is so popular is that Right to Work states are magnets for jobs and investment.
Data from the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis show that, compared to forced unionism states, Right to Work states experienced more than double the growth in the number of people employed in the last decade. And since Michigan’s Right to Work Law took effect in 2013, the average forced unionism state saw a 1.1% shrinkage in manufacturing sector jobs while Michigan had a 6.4% increase.
Workers and job providers are drawn to states where union bosses don’t have the power to take money directly out of people’s paychecks without their consent.
If Michigan legislators repeal Right to Work, it will enrich a few politically-connected union bosses at the expense of workers and taxpayers across the state. It will usher back in an era of coercive union organizing that even union bosses like Gary Casteel can see is contrary to workers’ interests. Casteel wasn’t the only union boss to see the light.
Even Samuel Gompers, the founder of the American Federation of Labor, warned against coercive unionism. In a 1924 speech to union delegates, Gompers declared, “I want to urge devotion to the fundamentals of human liberty — the principles of voluntarism. No lasting gain has ever come from compulsion.”
Politicians who want to repeal Right to Work and force Michigan workers to pay union dues against their will should heed Gompers’ advice and stand up for liberty and voluntarism.
Workers, and Michigan’s economy, will thank them.
About the author: John Kalb is the vice president of the National Right to Work Committee.
