this post was submitted on 11 Dec 2024
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A quick Google search:
And I still don't know what right-to-work laws are.
Edit: I’m mixing up a at will employment with right to work. Sorry for the confusion. See updated comment below:
Right to work: Joining a union and paying union dues can no longer be a requirement of employment. This slowly degrades the power of the union and ultimately reduces wages and benefits of the workers
~~Right to work~~ At will employment is: A right to be fired at any point for any reason or no reason at all
The goal is to get around any union protections that require things like a legitimate reason to be fired from a job.
It also has the added bonus of drastically reducing the benefits of unions and making them much easier to prevent.
I love how we name laws that really mean the exact opposite of what their name implies. Very american.
Land of the free
They could have used any of the million other nouns. It’s worse than cheap satire.
Very human. Democratic Republic of Korea.....Congo....lol.
Being fired for any or no reason is at will employment.
Right to work has nothing to do with that. It's about allowing people to not pay union dues. Those people are still protected by the union contract.
You’re right. I updated the comment
The way I try to remember it is that it comes from the employers perspective:
You're conflating "at will employment" with "right to work" laws.
You’re right. I updated the comment
I'm not sure I buy into that - but that said I live in a country where unions are popular, but unions are not allowed to force people to join (but unions do have a right of access to workplaces to ask people to join / hold meetings).
Firstly, it doesn't take that big a percentage of an employer's workforce to strike before a strike is effective... companies don't have a lot of surplus staff capacity just sitting around doing nothing. And they can't fire striking union workers for striking.
Secondly, if all employees have to belong to one particular union, that also means the employees have no choice of which union, and hence no leverage over the union. Bad unions who just agree to whatever the employer asks and don't look after their members then become entrenched and the employees can't do much. If there are several unions representing employees, they can still unite and work together if they agree on an issue - but there is much more incentive for unions to act in the interests of their members, instead of just their leadership.
A lack of guaranteed employee protections, on the other hand, is inexcusable - it's just wealthy politicians looking out for the interests of their donors in big business.
It seems like maybe you are missing the point... The idea is to directly affect the amount of funding that a union receives, and thus, how well they are able to operate. The idea is: if you allow people who are ostensibly part of the collective bargaining bloc to simply opt out of paying fees despite receiving all of the benefits that the union provides for them, and then push anti-union propaganda, this will starve the union of funding and it will eventually break.
And it seems to have worked for several decades at least.
In the US, we're lucky if a job is unionized at all. The thought of there being more than one option of unions to choose from is literally unheard of in this country. I mean literally. I have never heard of that ever happening in the history of the US. Maybe I'm wrong.
Look into the SCOTUS decision of Janus v. AFSCME (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME) for some more info on Right to Work, and in this case, public sector unions. The important thing to note is that it is framed as "giving the employee the freedom to choose to be in the union or not," when in reality, they will receive all of the benefits of being in the union (they must, as they are part of the same collective bargaining bloc and covered under the same contract) for free. The entire point is to weaken unions.
I mix these two up as well - thanks for the clarification.
No union I've ever been part of required me being in it in order to work at a place. It was always optional. So strange.
Are you in a right to work state? That might be why, at least in Oregon when I got a job as a cashier it automatically made me a part of the union.
Then you are in a "right to work" state (or a government employee since Janus). And FYI, you still benefit from that union as you are still ostensibly part of the same collective bargaining bloc, and under the same contract, as your union coworkers.
So basically you're getting the benefits of being in a union without having to pay dues. Sounds great, right?
Great way to get people to leave unions en masse, and starve them of funding. This kills the union.
right to work means you can have a job in a union shop without joining the union.
My grandpa was a snow plow driver for the state of MN (retired sometimes in the 1990s), but as a republican was always opposed to the union. He still paid union dues, but they were reduced and kept in a separate fund by the union and only used for contract negotiations (important for him - he was a big republican and the union political funds of course donates to democrats). Since he wasn't a member of the union he couldn't vote on union leadership, but the leadership called him one of their best people there because he always attended the union meetings where contacts were discussed. As you can start to see not being a union member when there is a union is really complex weird. I'm sure there is more about this that I don't know about (one obvious thing - what if they voted to go on strike)
I'm a union organizer, and by coincidence I live in MN, so this is my bread and butter.
You pretty much nailed it, with the only exception that right-to-work laws allow everyone in the workplace, even members, to avoid paying dues entirely. As the map shows, MN is not one of those states though. We have different terms in organizing circles. We call states with right-to-work "free rider" states, and those without are called "fair share" states.
Every union decides how they want to handle nonmembers outside of their legal obligations. My union is CWA, we don't allow nonmembers to have any say at all on union matters. This means no input on the bargaining survey, no bargaining update emails, no electing the executive board, no voting on the contract, no participation in committees, no admittance to most meetings, etc.
In both cases, regardless of free rider laws, nonmembers are not entitled to the strike fund. The dues equivalency your grandpa paid excluded the few cents for the strike fund and a few other union governance things like that. However, they can still participate in the strike.
That’s great insight from someone on the ground with type of stuff. Do you think the GOP is gonna attempt to do it Federally again?
Honestly, it's hard to say. I think it's quite possible, however there's a surprising twist with the upcoming admin: the nominee to chair the NLRB isn't shit and has an outstandingly ok labor record as a Republican.
Edit: fwiw I know exactly how much that actually means. It just means we might get some weak pushback against the destruction of the NLRB, but the labor movement has worked with less.
Public Sector unions are a bit different. Or were at least.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus_v._AFSCME
They prevent you from having to join a union to work at a company. And you don't have to pay dues either.
You can effectively benefit from the unions bargaining without supporting the union - which if enough people do that kills the union (the goal of the law).
"Right to Work" simply means "Anti-Union".
Hopefully, I’m not wrong, but basically unions typically require Members Pay dues out of income. Right to work essentially forbid that practice making do payments optional. Which drives down the union revenue
Unions typically have an agreement where employees don’t have to join the union but they still have to pay a fee equivalent to union dues, and the employer can’t pay non-members more than union members, or other similar restrictions.
The idea is to remove the ability for the employer to offer an advantage to non-members.
TLDR it’s an essential part of making a functional union.
Right to Work means you can have a union job but not join the union. You have the right to”right to work” without being a union member or paying any union dues. Generally it means you get all the benefits without contributing but also unions are usually a lot weaker since so many people opt out, so also the benefits are lesser. Because it is governed by state-level laws, details vary from state to state.
Is it in Colorado? If it is, it's a good thing. If not, it's a bad thing. Right to work is a bad thing.
Colorado does not have Right to Work
Aye, so right to work is a bad thing.
Yes
That's the whole fucking point. The name sounds like its a good thing though, right? So I'm sure that means it's good...
But no, "Right to Work," just means that employees are allowed to choose not to pay union dues (or even partial dues), despite receiving all of the benefits of being in that collective bargaining bloc. This is meant to starve the union and eventually kill it.
If a workplace unionizes, all employees at that level become part of the same collective bargaining bloc (by necessity), and the union will protect them and bargain on their behalf. If you want to work in that position, you have to be a member of the union at some level (unless you are a government employee since the Janus SCOTUS decision).
"Right to work" is provided under the guise of giving the employee more freedom, but in reality, it is just an underhanded way of killing unions.
Probably just made it more confusing but hopefully not.