[IASHRM] Right to Work General Editorial

[Larry Herzog]

To the Editor:

 

There has been much discussion lately about Iowa's Right to Work law and a
proposal to implement "fair share" fees for certain employees.  While most
legislators will agree that maintaining our Right to Work status is vital to
growing Iowa's economy, some have suggested that implementing a "fair share"
fee will do no harm to our 60 year old law.

 

They are wrong.

 

The foundation of our Right to Work law is not that an employee cannot be
forced to join a union.  In fact, both federal law and US Supreme Court
rulings have stated that forced union membership is prohibited.  Rather, the
foundation of Right to Work is that no employee should have to pay dues or
fees to a union to get or keep a job.  Requiring "fair share" fees is a
direct violation of our current Right to Work law and is nothing more than a
back-door repeal.

 

Many argue that because unions represent non-members, these employees should
have to pay for the services they receive.  However, that is not the entire
story.  When unions represent non-members, it is a CHOICE they made by
electing to be the exclusive representative.  Unions do not have to seek
recognition as the exclusive representative of all employees in the
bargaining unit.  Unions and employers are permitted to engage in
non-exclusive collective bargaining for union members only.  

 

What I find interesting is that nobody is talking about the employees who
are forced to be represented by the union.  By this I mean the non-member
employees who are trapped in the monopoly of "exclusive representation"
where they are not allowed to represent themselves.  Federal law allows
unions the privilege of exclusive representation in the workplace.
Employees who choose not to become union members are being held hostage by
this system.  They simply do not have a choice in who represents them.  To
force them to pay dues or fees to the union only adds insult to injury.

 

Trade-offs are inevitable in economic activity.  Unions are free to bargain
collectively for their members only and forego the powers that come with
monopoly bargaining under the NLRA or Iowa law if they wish.  And if a
recognized, exclusive union finds that a particular bargaining unit is
unprofitable because there are too many nonunion employees, the union may
disclaim representation of that unit at any time.  In short, unions are
always free to divest themselves of the "burdens" of representing nonunion
employees.  However, when they voluntarily choose to seek the statutory
benefits as the exclusive bargaining representative, they cannot be heard to
complain about the concomitant duty to fairly represent all such bargaining
unit members.

 

 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://list.iashrm.org/pipermail/iashrm_list.iashrm.org/attachments/20070216/3f20002f/attachment.html