believer;768036 wrote:It makes sense because union shops are an "all or nothing" proposition.
Once those union cards are handed out and the majority of employees vote to accept the union, then the employees who did not want the union are forced to pay the union bosses to negotiate for them. They lose all choice and control over their personal bargaining power. If there's a strike, the employees who would rather work are forced to stay off the jobs.
Under current laws and rules, employees who are opposed to unions are forced to allow the union thugs - I mean - bosses to confiscate their labor. They are also powerless to prevent union bosses from redistributing their labor to political hacks with whom they disagree. If an employee doesn't want that union "representation" they should be able to decline without penalty, coercion, or harassment.
Unionism is all about penalty, coercion, and harassment.
I don't mean to be rude Believer but what you're saying is not true. I'm not saying unions are the greatest thing in the world, but, it seems to me you have a disposition against unions to the point where you don't have the facts.
Under the National Labor Relations Act, once an employer agrees, willingly, to hire union members and form a union shop (as opposed to an open shop), employees must be given 30 days from the date of hire to either willingly join the union or willingly pay union dues (but only if they benefit from the collective bargaining agreement).
Non-union members who object to the payment of union dues may be compelled to pay only that portion of union dues that is attributable to the cost of representing employees in collective bargaining (and only if they are subject to the agreement). Hence, union dues for collective bargaining paid by non-union members do not go to support democrats.
Unions that use non-union member dues for anything beyond negotiating that non-union member's labor contract are in violation of the national labor relation's act. Hence, if a non-union member's due goes to Barack Obama, he can have the NLRB go after his employer.
Unions can only demand payment for dues for periods wherein the non-union member was benefiting from the contract the union negotiated for them.
The non-union member has 30 days to decide willingly without penalty, coercion or harassment whether to allow the union to negotiate for them.
But the biggest point, which you clearly do not understand, under the NLRA, an employee not covered by the collective bargaining agreement DOES NOT HAVE TO PAY UNION DUES. If you're a machinist and the Employer agrees willingly with the union representing machinists to pay his machinist's X dollars, then you have to pay the union for negotiating this deal for you. If the Employer decides that he will pay non-union machinists Y dollars and his union-machinists X dollars through negotiations with the union, then the NON-UNION machinists DON"T HAVE TO PAY UNION DUES.
The world you're describing should exist already does exist. Except most employers, who willingly decide to negotiate with a union, would rather just negotiate with the union as opposed to the union AND individual employees so it doesn't happen often where union and non-union similarly situated employees are subject to different employment contracts.
This makes sense because it can lower labor costs for employers, more so large firms than small firms, if they can negotiate one on one with one labor representative than thousands of different employees many of whom will have similar talents and skills not warranting large, nuanced differences in compensation. This of course only holds true if the union is not disproportionately more powerful than its employer or got its employer elected and negotiates inefficient contracts (which may very well be the case in the instance of Public Education and many other instances...please note, again, that competitive markets can be dissolved by an all-too powerful union just like an all-too powerful corporation).
What Conservatives are incoherently calling for is for the State to make it law that employees who don't pay for a service (the negotiation of their labor contract) ought to be able to get away with it....which is totally against conservative values. When you allow non-union members who are bound by the terms of the union contract to not pay for their representatives, this creates a free-rider problem. They reap the benefits of services provided for them but do not pay compensation for them. All conservatives complain about are free-riders. Free riders are the ill of society. Free-Riders are living on SSI and Welfare voting for democrats stealing money from hard-working middle american conservatives. Socialists want and support free riders, not conservatives. Yet you do not see how your position is incoherent. It truly is amazing. Again, it is truly amazing and you need to accept it. There is no other way to put it. Open Shops support and encourage free loading.
And not only is your mixed support of different types of free loaders confusing, what you consider "force" is as well. In the smoking ban threads, you among other conservatives argued that bartenders and waitresses were not forced to work in workplaces filled with smoke and that they always had the choice to leave their job and go elsewhere.
The employer has willingly chosen to negotiate with the union for her employee's labor contracts. Furthermore, if it is your position that workers are not forced to partake in a labor agreement when they can freely choose to work somewhere else (as you argued in other contexts defending the business owners rights), you certainly cannot argue that non-union members are "forced" to work in a union or agency shop when they freely choose to remain employed there and receive the benefit of the labor agreement and could always get a job somewhere else. Your position on what you consider "force" is incoherent. Being given 30 days to decide if you want to be represented by the union or go up to your boss and say "Hey boss I'd like to negotiate my own contract and not be subject to the collective bargaining agreement" and he doesn't want to because he'd rather just negotiate with the union is not forced.
However, the rage in the Republican Party is right to work...even though it supports free-loaders and it's defenders know so much about the NLRA as amended by the Taft-Hartly Act that isn't so. And in reality, what is most amazing, is that they are contrary to one of the most essential conservative values, the fundamental right to freely contract and that freely entered-into private agreements and the individuals who make them are superior to the State. right to work laws Ban certain consensual economic arrangements and grant the State the power to make it illegal to do so christening that State interests are superior to Individual Interests.
The true conservative position would be to endorse union/agency shops allowing employers to freely decide if they want to have a union shop and allowing employees to freely decided if they'd like to bargain together...
In this arrangement, employers can freely agree to bargain with unions and also bargain with non-union members under the NLRA. Ironically this is what Believer says he supports but falsely claims isn't the law. But alas, the masses of the Republican party have been lead like sheep to argue for free loaders.
When it comes down to it, Part of me believes that Ohio has to become an Open Shop/"right to work" state to compete with the lesser educated populace of the South and around the world. All the evidence shows that capitalists will tend to flow to states where they can, what's the word you use, confiscate the value of more labor from individuals bargaining by themselves as opposed to collectively...and this has happened as capital has flocked to the South and undeveloped nations allowing capitalists to increase their economic return while lowering the wages of the persons producing their products (while also getting them to vote republican and reduce the tax rate on their capital gains to below what they themselves pay in taxes). The country has decided that a two class society is philosophically and morally permissible and if Ohio wants to be a part of it we're going to have to become a RTW state as having a job working for peanuts is better than having no job.
But hey, in the minds of conservatives, the people confiscating your money are the people working on your behalf trying to make it so keep more of the value of your labor in your pocket and not the people who's sole guiding principle is to make sure you get less of the value of your labor so their shareholders can maximize the profit they make off of it...even if that means firing you and hiring someone in a place where no bothersome labor laws will hinder them.
