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The Public Policy
Compulsory ‘Free’ Speech
Anti-Right to Work unions turn the meaning of words upside down.
What is free speech? Is it the right to speak out and give money to causes, politicians and push ideas? Is it the ability to keep silent and not support that with which a person disagrees? Or is it the power of a group to force its individual members to fund political causes and candidates they do not support?
On April 9, attorneys for the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 150 (IUOE) argued that Indiana’s Right to Work Law infringes on their free speech rights because — get this — it deprives them of the dues mandated from workers by “agency shop” provisions.
Earlier this year Indiana became the 23rd state in the nation to give workers right to work protections. Right to work laws allow employees at unionized worksites to keep their job without having to pay dues to a union. If individual employees like what the union is doing, they are still free to pay dues, but these contributions are purely voluntary.
This is a problem for IUOE because if workers are no longer required to pay, the union could lose the funds necessary to curry favor with politicians, through campaign contributions, and advocate for pro-union policies. IUOE argues in its 45-page brief:
In this case, the state of Indiana restricted a channel of speech-supporting finance … The Union legitimately utilizes dues money collected through the agency shop provisions in its collective bargaining agreements, in part, to finance political speech. The Indiana Right to Work law prohibits agency shop agreements, and that prohibition restricts a channel through which speech-supporting finance might flow.
Many union members disagree with their union leadership’s political giving and activism, but if they work in one of the 27 states without right to work protections, they are forced to support an agenda with which they disagree, or lose their jobs. In most election cycles, around 40 percent of union members vote Republican, but only around 3 percent of union political giving goes to the GOP.
In response to union efforts to fund their political activities with forced dues, Rep. Darrel Issa (R-Calif.) chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (Committee), recently launched ProtectingOurWorkers.com, a website with the stated goal to “listen directly to American union workers about forced political contributions and to continue [the Committee’s] efforts to hold both government and union leaders accountable to the rank-and file whose hard earned dues are funding partisan political activity they don’t support.”
Protectingourworkers.com provides examples of three rank-and-file union members who recently testified before the Committee about how labor bosses used their dues for political activity they did not support.
Terry Bowman, a current United Auto Workers (UAW) member, testified about how he “personally observed the intimidating political activities of [his] union.” In response, he created the nonprofit organization Union Conservatives, he said, “because [the UAW] was using my regular union dues to push a political agenda that I opposed.”
Sally Coomer, a private citizen, said that she was forced into the Service Employee International Union (SEIU) because of a Washington State bill that designates all home care providers who receive state aid as “public employees” and requires them to join a union. Coomer did not work for anyone, but she received Medicaid funds for assistance in taking care of her severely disabled 22-year-old daughter.
That was enough for the state to declare her an “employee” of her daughter and therefore eligible to be unionized. How is SEIU helping this mother who sacrifices every day to take care of her disabled child? By taking $95 out of her assistance checks every month. She told the Committee “they are taking my union dues out, they are funding things that are directly detrimental to the services that [her daughter] receives.”
Against their will, Sally Coomer and others in her situation are helping to fund organized labor’s huge political machine. Twelve of the top 20 political donors going back to 1989 are unions, according to the Center for Responsive Politics — with nearly all of that going to Democrats.
Free speech is not forced speech, which is what compulsory dues go toward. Workers should have the right to join unions and support their political causes if they wish, but no worker should be forced to be a member or pay an organization simply to keep his or her job. And no one should be required to fund political ideas they do not support.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (26) | Leave a comment
More Articles by F. Vincent Vernuccio
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Jack in Wi.| 4.19.12 @ 8:07AM
I have to agree: Join Rand Paul's right to work campaign. The unions should only be voluntary not compulsory.
Kingofthenet| 4.20.12 @ 12:43AM
but you want the union help and benefits to be compulsory,freeloader?
Deserttrek| 4.20.12 @ 1:48PM
You assume the union is doing anything usefull or helpful to the person forced to join. Most unions don't do a thing for the members and are just a financial pot for the bosses and their croneys.
Take the political contributions away, stop the lies from the bosses at the international level.
Calling people names is also useless or do you consider yourself a union thug?
Maxwell| 4.19.12 @ 9:20AM
Wish Jersey was a Right to Work state.
GriffMN| 4.19.12 @ 10:08AM
What happened to the Beck decision (Beck v Communication Workers)? Based on the findings of that decision workers were justified in requesting a return of that portion of dues used for political purposes. As I recall, Bush the Elder signed an Executive Order requiring employers to post workers' rights under the Beck decision, but Clinton immediately recinded that with his own Executive Order upon taking office.
old white guy| 4.19.12 @ 6:00PM
griffmn. you have stated a serious problem with politics in the u.s. any president can overturn good law with the stroke of a pen. presidents were not meant to have such power. exectutive orders have been used to excess during the last few years and all should be reviewed by congress and the scotus for constitutional authority and dumped if found unconstitutional.
Mr ED| 4.19.12 @ 10:20AM
Don't forget the "Employee Free Choice Act" which would take away the right to secret ballot in union votes. More lies embedded in laws for the power-hungry Leftists. Orwellian doublethink and doublespeak are on full display in the congress and in the MSM and will be lauded by both as enlightened, noble and corageous. Self-serving lies from self-serving, professional liars and propagandists.
Von Mises Jr| 4.19.12 @ 10:40AM
If you understand that 15 state pension plans are going bankrupt within 10 years, and 25 more within 20 years; the unions are taking $1000 per year from new employees who will never see the benefits of so-called representation.
The politicians and the early entrants in the Ponzi scheme benefit while the last in are FORCED to finance the scam even after the scam is apparent. I guess that is freedom and choice?
Rousseau would approve with his Social Contract: "If one does not bend to the General Will, they must be FORCED to be free."
FiddlerBob| 4.19.12 @ 12:10PM
Our system of two dominant political parties has turned into a vast money laundering and influence peddling operation. It's time for some serious change. Please consider these suggestions as a start:
Repeal the 16th and 17th Amendments or nullify them if they were not properly ratified.
Revoke the charter of the Federal Reserve Bank and make Congress take responsibility for establishing a sound money supply. Failure of the Congress to produce an annually balanced budget that clearly rests within the scope of their Constitutional boundaries should be considered a de facto resignation of the entire body and subject all of them to recall.
Return the Federal Government to it's only lawful duties and responsibilities as enumerated in the Constitution.
Restrict candidates for political office from receiving campaign donations from anyone but individual constituents residing within their electorate. If you can't vote for them, you can't give them money.
And, to address the 500 pound gorilla in the living room, we need to directly face the problem of having a usurper in the White House; one who was born, by his own admission, to a British/Kenyan father under British jurisdiction. Mr. Obama is not a "natural born citizen". All that he has done needs to be nullified and he and his cohorts in treason need to be arrested and brought before a constitutional court of law (not one of the sham courts that have been covering for him at our expense).
Kevin| 4.19.12 @ 3:12PM
You were making sense right up to your last paragraph. Get over it. He's president and will remain so unless we stop worrying about where he was born and concentrate on where he will spend his retirement after November.
FiddlerBob| 4.20.12 @ 2:41AM
Thank you for supporting my comments as far as you do. I expect that a lot of people would like to get over Mr. Obama's lack of eligibility. I certainly would, too. However, unless we address this issue squarely and honestly, we can't expect to achieve any of the rest.
A natural born citizen is one born in the country to citizen parents. This definition has
1) been clearly established as binding legal precedent in Minor v Happersett (1875)
2) never been deviated from or challenged by any supreme court case referencing the term "natural born citizen", and
3) been a universally accepted principle of natural law and the law of nations for thousands of years.
Mr. Obama's father was a British/Kenyan subject. So, regardless of his place of birth, Mr. Obama is not a natural born citizen, period. He is not constitutionally qualified to be POTUS. He can not legally execute any duties of that office. No acts, bills, orders, or treaties that he signs are legally binding. None of his appointments have any authority. Not here. Not anywhere. They are all subject to immediate nullification.
Bringing the Oval Office back into compliance with our Constitution now would be the best first step we could take towards restoring our Republic. That done, we can work much more effectively towards restoring the rest in November.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.19.12 @ 12:47PM
Here we go again. What is this leftie theory of collective rights as opposed to individual rights? One of the arguments against the Second Amendment's right to bear arms was that the Second Amendment right is a collective right, intended for the militias and the states. Now it's the theory that exercising an individual right not to give one's money to a union to fund ideas that the individual doesn't agree with is a violation the union's right to free speech.
Since when does any collective have a right to things like free speech or possession of arms? If we're going to say that unions can force workers to pay dues so that the unions can fund the politicos they like, then we can say that corporations can finance politicians out of their income too. Right?
But when it comes the collective rights of corporations, all bets are off.
Must be more of that highly intelligent, nuanced, analysis and thought that lefties claim they are famous for.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.19.12 @ 12:49PM
And by the way, a little thought about the nature of rights would tell any discerning person of ordinary intelligence that there isn't any such thing as a collective right. Even when we discuss the possibility that a state has the right to defend itself from violent overthrow, a claim that is highly debatable, we're talking about the state as an individual entity.
LiveFreeOrDie| 4.19.12 @ 12:53PM
Forced free speech? Huh? This is nothing but theft, plain and simple.
POST American| 4.19.12 @ 1:42PM
----'90's Show' sideshows to the side----
WHY is NO ONE taking on the CFR
RED China wage serf handover issue
by simply, and insistently demanding
Chinese workers be paid and treated
with more or less first world standards?
-------------------WHY????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This would solve the world's
capstone instigated economic
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----------------HUAC/ Nuremberg 2012-------------
Petronius| 4.19.12 @ 1:43PM
The biggest problem with union leadership is that anybody who is Conservative isn't allowed to get anywhere near it. Nobody gets into an office without having the prerequisite sand box mentality which is the major preoccupation of the bottom feeding boobs who expend more energy avoiding their work than getting it done. And the union bosses deliver just enough at contract time to keep them where they are. Remember when the Republicans tried to increase the minimum wage with the proviso that that increase would not be taxed so workers get to keep that money? Who shot it down? The AFL CIO and Ted Kennedy. Go figure.
Ron| 4.19.12 @ 2:33PM
The problem with the Beck provision is the silent intimidation that takes place in the workplace.
I worked for the State of Alaska for 10 years. Each time I filed for my dues money that went to the no-good, DemonRat PAC back, I was visited by the local Union president, and got a lot of crap on the job from the Demonrats that were pissed at me.
The thuggery in the workplace does not stop...They harass you and even if you try to make a difference (I became a shop Steward for awhile to let everyone know) I was "removed" due to my anti-union sentiments." it even affected my performance evaluations, so I left State employment when the opportunity came up.
I have said it many times on these pages...No private organization should have control of governmental workers like the Unions do. There should be no union requirements for State, Federal, Municipal, County or Local workers.
Kingofthenet| 4.20.12 @ 12:41AM
Plenty of Non-Union jobs scab
Skippy| 4.21.12 @ 8:04PM
End Govt Unions and imprison all who protest.
Bob S| 4.19.12 @ 4:58PM
They love to say that free speech shouldn't be applied to corporations because they aren't actual people, but when you pit the free speech right of workers to pay or not to pay a union versus a union, they will always pick the union.
Marc Jeric| 4.19.12 @ 8:03PM
Also - given time all unions will fall into the hands of either the Mafia (less dangerous) of the communists (that's a permanet affliction). Then the union will proceed to destroy the industries in which they "work" - steel, cars,electronics, textile, apparel, kitchen equipment, sports tools, utensils, etc. The endangered industries can save themselves by outsourcing - but what about government employees unions? They are by definition criminal conspiracies against the people, and should therefore be routinely prosecuted under the RICO Act laws.
gene hauber| 4.19.12 @ 8:18PM
RIGHT TO WORK AND DUTY TO WORK IS BASIC LIBERTY.
CLOSED SHOPS ARE COMMUNISTIC IN NATURE AND ABSOLUTELY UN-AMERICAN AND THEREFORE UN-CONSTITUTIONAL.
NUFF SAID HOLDER.
Kingofthenet| 4.20.12 @ 12:39AM
Fine if you don't pay but you scabs shouldn't look for ANY union help, negotiate your own contract freeloaders.
Skippy| 4.21.12 @ 8:05PM
A scab is an annoying reminder of a mistake made a while ago.
Kinda like kingofthenuttin'.
Not Special Ops Bill| 4.20.12 @ 12:27PM
Abolish McCain-Feingold!
TeaPartyPatriot4ever| 4.22.12 @ 4:51AM
Ah Yes, Comrades- Workers of the world unite.. Talk about an OxyMoron.. These socialist-marxist useful id*ots are so hypocritical, it reeks from the utter blatant obviousness to everyone, but themselves.
When someone receives guaranteed govt tax payer money, subsidies, contracts, etc., for decades, let alone for a day, they are now owned bought and paid for servants of their master- liberal greed, corruption, and graft of govt politics, so they become the socialist-marxist useful id*ots of governmental union tyranny and oppression..
Thus, their support in defending their access and place at the liberal govt tax payer trough, via unions, specifically govt unions, and who denies others the right to work outside their unions, contradicts all logic, reason, sanity, and common sense, and thus become soldiers, aka useful id*ots, against Freedom and Liberty in a Free Society, which is so apparent to everyone, that the only people who cant see it, is them.